Two Months Post Transition

I apologize for cutting my blog short so abruptly. A recruiter called, and I needed to take the call.

My how time flies! It's hard to believe that tomorrow will mark the two-month anniversary of transitioning at work. My coworkers are still avoiding pronoun usage for the most part. My friend yesterday used a different tactic to correct her mistake immediately. She quickly claimed that she referred to the wrong referrent, "She. My mistake. Of course [male employee in previous reference, let's just say 'Bob'], didn't [X]. Sophie did. She..." I have to say that was an impressive recovery.

The dog watching is over. Debbie came back from Hawaii, and brought me a beautiful pink wrap with blue flowers on it, and a pink clip to hold it on. Because it's cool, it's the ideal thing to wear puttering around a hot apartment. I was wearing it as a shawl, when I heard someone say from the side, "It's 90 degrees outside, and she's wearing a blanket."

I turned to a smartly dressed older man and replied, "It's 90 degrees outside. In here the air conditioner works overtime."

After he chatted with the BA's he came to see, I asked my friend who he was. She gave me his name and told me he was one of our major customers. (She actually told me his role). I'm sure I was glowing a little bit from that.

Last night was the last in a series of Blues Swing dancing. We spent the first part of the class reiterating the routine we learned last week and learned a new routine off the swivels. It consisted of a Texas Tommy Turn, followed by an inside turn into a promenade, and a couple of different ways that the lead can pulse the promenade.

After lessons, I practiced making eye contact by waiting to catch a free lead's eye for just a couple of seconds and then sliding my eye off them in a gesture of mock humility, with a slight smile to my lips. My regulars picked up and danced with me, and one of my regular dance friends who hasn't ever asked me to the floor came over to dance with me as well, apologizing for taking so long in order to get a quick drink because of the heat. When Sgt Nick was dancing with me later, he commented, "Are you learning Salsa" and later, "Nice swingout."

"Really? Is that what that was?"

"That's what I was trying to get you to do the first time," he said referring to the first night I danced 5 months ago. "You've come a long way."

The routine of makeup in the morning is something I can't imagine myself not doing when going to work. I enjoy feeling pretty, yet professional in the office and just can't imagine de-transitioning to wearing slacks and no makeup--no eyeliner, shadow, foundation to cover the beard, or lipstick. To work? Ugh!

It's nice to hear the "How are you, Ma'am?" at the front gate and the "Have a good day, Miss Hawes," that follows after checking my ID.

The heat, while broken, is still somewhat intense, and someone asked me if I put my hair in a comb. That would be the ideal thing for the dance floor when the sweat starts to stream off my back, and cutting my hair back would be rather drastic. I'll get a cheap comb at WalMart next time I go to see the hairdresser to touch up my roots, and see if I can get her to show me how to put it up with a comb and be able to do it myself.

I can see why a lot of people seem to disappear once they transition. It really has nothing to do with cutting connections to online friends. It has more to do with being more social, having more responsibilities and activities to do, because most of the fear is gone. One activity quite often leads to more activities until you have very little time left to keep in touch with the online community. Perhaps, that's why you've seen fewer and fewer of my blog entries. Instead of being relegated to spending so much time at home as Sophie, I have more venues open to me in my community.

But I don't see myself disappearing completely. I do so enjoy recapping my events and feelings and sharing them with others. It's therapeutic at the least, and helpful at the most. I do need solitude from the outside from time to time, and on those days, when nothing's going on except getting some more "me-time" (funny how the definition has changed), you'll find me taking notes.

Work calls and I need to respond.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie

Dancing, Cornhole, Pride Festival and Swimming

It has been an incredidbly engaging weekend. It began with Swing Dancing lessons on Thursday and ended with swimming with people from my church who live 10 minutes away.

Thursday evening, I enjoyed the last lesson in Jim and Sam's Eastern Swing series. It was an opportunity for me to fine tune what Jim has been teaching me on the floor after class. We played with the Sweetheart and Hammerlock, and took a group picture, knowing the sweat was making a mess of my hair. I chatted with Lindsay a while, and Rose invited me to a party she was throwing at her parents' place on Friday.

When I arrived at Rose's place I Friday, I had stopped by home to dress a little more comfortable, since it was jeans day and she had mentioned that she might have dancing. That meant that as a minimum, I did at least need to change int a skirt. I had also stopped by and picked up a house-warming 4-pack of strawberry daquiri wine cooler. As I walked to her front door with the grocery bag in hand, I noticed a sign in the front garden that read, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, Joshua..." I rang the doorbell, and when Rose answered, I said, "Hi, Rose. I brought wine coolers." To which she replied, "We don't have alcohol in this house."

"Ok. I'll just take these back to the car."

She introduced me to other guests that had arrived, a couple from her church and someone she knew from school. The name of the church curiously didn't have the denomination on it. "We leave off the Baptist," because it usually causes problems she said. She took us on a tour of her carpeted basement, which was fabulously remodeled into a living space, complete with pool table, foosball table and a bathroom with a shower. It was impressive. That evening I got to try out the Kentucky game corn hole on a custom board (we lost by one point), and danced with Jim a couple of times as he danced with several of us.

I soon had to tell them at 11 PM that I had to leave because I had a long drive to help out at Pride in Lexington from 11 in the morning to 7 in the evening. I tried to leave it blank which pride, but naturally, someone asked, "Which Pride?"

"LGBT Pride," I answered, and decided to just get it all out there, since the cat was out of the bag. "I am helping with the TransKentucky booth."

Rose offered to walk me to my car and gave me a hug at the door.

The next two days also saw me out until 11 PM. First, was Lexington Pride Fair, where I met so many interesting people and answered numerous questions and had great conversations.

Thank You for Being a Friend

The weight of the action I filed yesterday is just weighing me down. I miss my apartment, and I have to banish thoughts of dangling ropes and punching the accelerator from my mind. I was thinking of just posting a blog entry with one word in the title, echoed in the content--"blah."

I'm alone and as the song goes, "I ain't got nobody..." and all the rest of the words that follow. It feels like I've lost all meaning to my existence.

But do I really have nobody? Just because I don't have a "romantic interest" doesn't mean that I am completely alone (I can feel the therapy in this blog already). After dance lessons, I was invited to a house party by Rose (I had to ask her name) which conflicted with a support meeting tonight that I doubted anybody would attend anyway. She wrote her name and address in my book, letting me know that she was inviting other people there, not just Swing dancers.

I also chatted with Lindsay for a little while before she was dragged off to the dance floor, who asked how I was doing. It seems "Everone knows [my] name," as the theme from Cheers goes, yet I am struggling to catch up, and quite a few people are comfortable with me.

I also got a call from Lisa, who I met a few weeks ago when I was going through my rebellious phase, who called to see how I was doing since she hadn't heard from me in a while. She's got pneumonia, and is on some serious antibiotics. I keep struggling to remember her partner's name-Roselyn-who seems to also be a very good friend.

As I was writing this, I noticed an invitation in my email for a swim and cookout party on July 4th at a church member's house.

While the legal cutting of a long relation seems like the end of the world and that I'll always be alone, it's not a rational conclusion--unless I dwell on it.

I am surrounded by good people--people I have met in various situations, just by taking the opportunities to get out and accepting invitations to try new things with them and, consequently, meet new people.

The tempation to escape and crawl away into a corner in my home, would then be the worst possible thing I could do. I need to keep doing what I've been doing.

I'm not sure what the meaning in my life is, but I am beginning to feel it's just being a friend to anyone I encounter who needs one, which brings the theme to Golden Girls to my head, "Thank you for being a friend."

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie

"Just Sophie"

I had an incredibly frustrating day yesterday. I left work an hour early to attempt to make the drive from Fort Knox to Louisville in order to file our divorce petition. I had planned it so that I should get there at 4 PM, 30 minutes before the office closed on their 8:30 to 4:30 PM schedule.

Utilizing directions from Google, I went straight up Dixie Highway to Interstate 264. As I approached my exit for Interstate 64 (where I needed to go East for less than a half mile), the road signs announced a specific detour to take because of construction. That detour took me in the opposite direction across the state line into Indiana via the freeway, a good 20 minutes out of my way.

Once I finally got to the court building (where I had to drop off my pepper spray with the guard), I headed upstairs to the second floor to find the Family Court, which was in suite two-hundred something according to the website.

As I finished an entire circuit of the floor, I asked a gentleman coming out of the administrative office where the Family Court was. He directed me across a ped-way linking the building I was in to another building. Once I crossed and stepped up to the office listing, I saw my destination downstairs in what looked like a driver's license office.

I was not feeling too good about this process as it was. In fact, it depressed me, and it still does. After about two minutes of waiting, the clerk asked if he could help me.

"Is there where I file a Petition for a Divorce?" I asked.

"We stop taking petitions after 4," he replied. As I looked at my watch, I noticed it was 4:07. "Besides, you probably don't have all the right forms. Do you have this one?" he said holding up a 5 x 7 form. "It's watermarked and needs to be typed."

I politely took the form from him, asked where a typewriter was, and after having to ask where the on switch was, proceeded to fill out the form. When I was done, I left grumbling loud enough to hear, "I hate this city," spelling out the day's reasons.

I couldn't believe I took an hour off work, drove an hour in the heat, to have absolutely nothing done. I decided to stop by for a drink before I headed back to take care of the dogs.

While I was sitting there, the bartendress who had apparently just gotten off struck up a conversation with me. Soon, I heard my name: "Sophie?"

I turned to see an older gentleman with pink eyes starting at me. "Have you heard from Carrie?," he said. I told him a little, and once I heard his name was Sedge, I told him more. It seems that he hadn't heard from Carrie since January. Carrie had asked me a couple months ago to let him know he was okay, and so I passed the information on.

Sugar, the bartendress sitting next to me, told me how she had honestly told Carrie that she felt that she looked more like a woman than a man when asked (not surprising, since this happened in a lesbian club). Carrie had apparently not taken that so well. To me, she looks and behaves more male-like, more in tune with her gender identity.

When I explained to Sugar that I and Carrie had to learn that different people pick up different gender clues, she told me, "You're just Sophie." Not sure what she meant by that, she started asking questions about my transition and orientation, about my early childhood, etc.

Needless to say, when I finished my drink I headed back to my coworker's house to take care of the pups, and that didn't go so well, as the ID tag popped open, sending one pup running and the other dog going down the long step. Eventually, I managed to get things back under control and settled for the night.

I called in to work to explain that my personal legal errand wasn't finished yet, and got the court when it opened. The petition's been filed, and I can sense the resulting depression trying to kick in. If it wasn't for the fact that I had transitioned already, I don't know that I could handle it. On the other hand, the transitioning is also partially responsible for the divorce.

I can see that I'm out of time. Maybe dance lessons will raise my spirits tonight.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie

The Lifted Veil

Mallory rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "You don't know what
you're talking about."

-- Chloe Neill, Some Girls Bite

I've started pondering, trying to get a grasp on exactly what the difference that makes me feel so free now, and at all the time I just felt so joyful when I got to socialize as female.

I've used the metaphor of a dam in earlier blogs, and while a good model, doesn't support the ease with which we feel relieved and comforted when allowed to change our perspective.

The metaphor that I've been thinking of is that rationalizing away our feelings, forcing ourselves to experience the world in a certain way because we were to afraid and ashamed of the possible results, is more like a veil that we gently lowered over our face.

Like most veils, we could see the world differently, but it often didn't make sense. Many times, the fabric of the veil blinded us to things that we could have and would have noticed if the light reflected off the object hadn't been occluded. We see the world, while at the same time we miss the world.

My male facade was like that veil, gently lowered oh so long ago. It enabled me to ignore things that weren't supposed to attract my attention, like the blinders sometimes attached to a cart horse to keep it from being distracted.

But it did not hide everything. It did not make me interested in the "other" things that I could see. I was often bored, seeing little of anything that I liked, until I lifted the veil just slightly.

A light-weight piece of cloth suspended over the face became easy to get used to, and eventually it was annoying. I knew there were things I could catch a glimpse of, only to have them washed out in white.

The veil kept me from experiencing life in the feminine, in the creative, in the interconnected wonder of life right in front of me. The flimsy piece of material might as well have been a high-security lock on my spiritual growth, until...

I began to lift my veil a crack from time to time, so I could experience the world around me without it being filtered by my facade. But the veil would insist on falling back in place.

Soon, I decided to only wear the veil where I was expected to wear the veil, yet it was still pinned to my hair, ready to drop back in place.

I feel as if the veil has been lifted and packed away. I feel myself more clearly through my unfiltered experiences with others.

Now, I can be truly honest. Now I can be fully at one with myself and my spritual connection to the divine. Now, I can truly have integrity.

Like being able to walk without pain after having been almost numbed by the pain, I feel the joy in normal living.

Dance lessons last night were just the ticket. I had a slight cramp in my calf and another moving knot in my thigh, but since I could walk without limping finally, I returned to Blues Swing Dance lessons. We had a few really good moves that we learned, and I had a little trouble learning to transition from a turn directly into switches. But it was absolute fun, and I'm feeling better. The dance class was downstairs and full, so by the time we were done, many of us were drenched in sweat. I didn't stay long after, because of that, just finishing my drink and leaving.

I am looking forward to dance lessons tomorrow.

Today, after work, I plan to file the divorce petition. It's not something that I am looking forward to, but we do need to free each other before either of us winds up doing something regretful.

I'll start passively job-hunting soon. Maybe I can get a job closer to my children or at least pays well enough for me to pay plane fares.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie

My New Life

It was raining when I woke the next evening, the fourth day of my new
life, tucked beneath the ancient quilt that covered my bed.

-- Chloe Neill, Some Girls Bite

It's been a week since I began puppy sitting for my coworker. I was all cuddled up under the quilt, when--for the first time--they barked to get my attention. As I got up, and peeked at the clock behind the various things I had covering it, I noticed it was 5:30 in the morning. My alarm on my phone was set to go off in half an hour.

When I arrived at the child gate holding the pups in the kitchen, I noticed both gray snauzers were standing there with their noses almost rubbing the gate. The fact that they barked when they were ready to go out is a signal that they are settling more into my presence, since that is their normal behavior, yet hadn't been done since Aunt Sophie took over.

So in my night shirt, I fixed the leash to Shasta, took Duchess in my arms and proceeded out of the apartment. Of course, Shasta bolted out the door, only to be stopped by the leash. Duchess and I had to navigate the maze under the stairs that Shasta had created with the leash.

Since I had time, I let them take their time after I put Duchess down. Eventually, she returned to me, eager and trying to jump into my arms, which is her signal that she's ready to go inside.

Once inside, after unleashing Shasta and refilling the empty water bowl, I noticed I had 15 more minutes before my alarm went off, so after washing my feet off, I crawled on top of the covers, lay 3/4 on my stomach with my left leg stretched over my right and dozed until my alarm went off.

Not having to take the pups out gave me a little extra time to shower, shave, dress and do my hair and makeup. Just a normal day getting ready for work.

Being a little low in the gas tank, I stopped to fill up at the station on the corner, and noticed I couldn't find my glasses. After driving back to the apartment and not finding them there, I noticed they had fallen by the driver's seat next to the door.

It's been almost two months since I went full time. The co-worker for whom I am watching her pups has never been clued into my old life. I thought at one time that I was going to have to tell her, but that bullet has been dodged for now. I show up for work in a skirt most days, feeling perfectly comfortable in them, and less comfortable in slacks. There have been absolutely no issues at work about my transition, and the only people who seem to regularly get the pronoun wrong before immediately fixing it are the few people who were "in-the-know."

One of those people has just left for another job in Minnesota. I took Anil to pick up his car after work at the private airport terminal, and we shared a farewell dinner at O'Charley's afterward. Even though my makeup had certainly been mostly absorbed by then and I had tied my hair back in an impromptu pony tail with my bang loosely covering my right eye, people still unerringly referred to me as Ma'am--and in a town that I considered very conservative and redneck. I had forgotten to be afraid.

I had support duty last week, which required using the telephone to contact customers and help debug their issues. I reached one person, saying "This is Sophie with the XXX helpdesk calling for XXX." To my dismay, I was sir'ed practically to death. When I called the mobile number for the actual person I was trying to contact and instead said, "This is Sophia XXX with the helpdesk," I was mollified with ma'ams.

My leg is feeling better. It's got a couple of knots left--one on the right side of the thigh and one in the calf, but I am able now to walk without a limp. I miss dancing lessons, so I'll be headed back tonight after I make sure the pups have their potty walk, water and food.

This is the hardest part of all: I have the divorce paperwork notarized. We both agree it's in our best interest to have this done as soon as possible. Since I have to file it in Louisville and I'm staying in Elizabethtown right now, the best thing to do is to just leave work an hour and a half early tomorrow to file before the office closes at 4:30. The fact that I am able to type what I just did without crying is maybe a sign that I'm finally ready to do it.

Meanwhile, on my mind is the bed I am going to have to buy for when my children come to visit. I won't have much time to purchase it and have it delivered before they arrive for a week. I do so miss them.

Hugs and God Bless,

Sophie

Seizing Your Transition

I just read three excellent back-to-back blogs and the theme of each, respectively, was:

1. Seize every minute available to you (Carpe Diem).
2. No time left "to work on transitioning."
3. Transitioning may not be what you expect.

I can't say I worked on transitioning. The only work I actually did was to try to understand it and the risks I was going to take. I probably did more work trying to keep from transitioning because of those risks.

Instead of working on tranitioning, I increasingly took advantage of opportunities to experiment, to try things out, and to ease the road in front of me when I did not feel like going back. I reveled in each change, and was frustrated under certain circumstances, and I took the next opportunity to correct the frustrating scenarios. My transition has been a series of "why-not?" experiences. I pushed myself out the door more and more frequently to live as a woman for longer periods of time.

Transitioning between jobs, I viewed as a negative opportunity. The prospect of losing my work credentials based on personality and performance was enough to make me veto that route. But I made the conscious decision to be, as I felt it, "free."

Even when I was by myself at home between jobs, I seized the moment to be "Sophie;" even though the moments were only on the duration of a few hours. We are all free to spend moments as ourselves, even if it's in our own minds.

Transitioning is more an act of setting yourself free than a job.

Since I went full time outside of work for six months before transitioning on the job, working on my presentation skills, I did have encounters with people who felt that women were only good for one thing, and I had to fight for my dignity in those cases.

Unlike Jamie, I do get asked quite frequently what I do for a living. And I did find it a little inconvenient talking to the person from Vietnam doing my nails, who asked things like, "Is your husband bigger than you," and "You're married to a man, right? Does he know you're here?" which made conversation rather difficult for me, since my wife is definitely female.

One of the things that helps is that I am in a profession that accepts intelligent, degreed women--software development. I know that as a woman, men subconsciously grade you on how feminine you present, and I enjoy taking the requisite time to doll up. Yes, I do have to play with the double entendres that are sometimes spoken around me, but I ply my wares in those instances by playing hard to get or turning their double entendre into an embarrassing moment.

Even when you go full time, the fear of not passing still crops its head up from time to time. I know I pass by the way people treat me and my image in the mirror after a shower. It's a female image, with only one thing out of place that I don't look at anyway.

I am expected to be not only pretty but more social as well. It doesn't hurt that some people consider me a genius to boot.

As far as sexual attraction is concerned, I can honestly believe someone when she says that lesbian relationships are not what she has been lead to believe and prefers relationships with men. Right now, however, from where I'm sitting, I am finding the reverse to be true. Like other heterosexual trans women, she does not quite understand how someone can identify as female and be attracted to women. She doesn't believe that another woman would willingly have a lesbian relationship with someone who was born with male parts. But when that someone turns out to be a bisexual woman, and a little on the dominant side, the potential for a relationship exists, because they (and maybe you) are more interested in the person behind the body.

What I would have difficulty believing, though, is someone who claims to be a male-bodied woman, refuses hormones, prefers women and prefers them submissive. Maybe these people do exist, but the traits seem by far too male to be anything other than female impersonators. Lord knows, I've seen my share of dominating male types.

Hugs and God Bless,

Sophie