Time Crash

"The time crash was not my fault!" JB screamed. "If you'd just surrendered...You're the one who chose to speed away, to slam into the time frame, to ruin her life"--he pointed at Angela--"to nearly destroy thirteen years of time--no, to nearly destroy all of time!"

- Margaret Peterson Haddix, Found

What a Mother's Day gift I gave to my wife. Last night, I asked her if she still wanted a divorce because I felt that the emotional support had gone the way of physical support. I thought she didn't care for me anymore and each step major step I took to be my real self made her feel more bitter. She, on the other hand, felt that I didn't care anymore what happened and was ready to just cut them out of my life. She felt that I had no compassion.

After a debate that heated up, then cooled down, I thought maybe now was the time to just go ahead and file the paperwork. As I paid the fee and got started, the emotional pain swelled up so much in my chest that I had to just close the computer down and take a nap. Once I let somebody into my heart, I can't let them go. It's like cutting off my arm with a dull knife.

Waking up to her phone call, we began to work through what the trigger was that set her off and the farther we got in the paperwork, the more painful it got for both of us, until I finally stopped and said I would not file when there are bad feelings. The problem that we were suffering from is that both of us were operating from a mindset in which the other person didn't care, and we were both wrong. We seem to keep falling into this mindset anytime there is a significant amount of stress, especially when it's financial, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

A divorce is inevitable. But it's not going to happen today. The very fact that we cannot ever share physical intimacy leaves me craving for touch in a way that I can't remain faithful. We said more things to hurt each other, including saying that we wasted 10 years of our life, when I really don't believe that I did. If it wasn't for our time together, the beautiful moments of bonding and production of 2 bright, beautiful and loving children would never have happened, not to mention the time that I spent with my daughters. The last 13 years of my life was not wasted, but even though I explained that to her, the hurtful words will probably stick in her memory more.

While we were talking in a cooled down period, we realized that the Air Force counselor I had seen when I was 9 years old and on the verge of coming out may have contributed to the long periods of my life that I just could not remember previously. My memories skipped from point to point, years apart from one another. So much of my life was gone. I remember having developed a mindset that I must remain a boy no matter what. I don't even remember going to counseling, but my mother confirmed it, and said they thought "it was over." I remember, though, that the USAF was aligned with Johns Hopkins, which I found out in the last year or so practiced behavioral therapy designed to suppress feminine tendencies. How can you suppress feminine tendencies without also suppressing the memories? If one of those memories hadn't been persistently in my dreams and a little too realistic, I would never have even uncovered that I had been to "counseling."

I remember being told without being prompted, "You don't want to be a girl. Girls have to go through periods." I swore for the longest time it was my mother who told me that, but she has no recollection that ever occurred. Now, I think it was part of my "counseling," and a trigger implanted somehow to recall it. But I also kept responding in my mind, so. I could just never voice it.

If I had been given appropriate counseling at 9 or 10, I would have not caused so much pain by resisting my inner self for so many years and the collateral damage it took on my family when I couldn't resist being myself anymore. I would not have wasted 32 years of my life on an identity quest because I didn't know who I was anymore.

But these are the cards I have been dealt to play with, and I can't erase the past.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie