My Story (from the other side of the lipstick!) **WARNING** A LITTLE BIT LONG!!!
Hi! This is me by the lake we used to live on! Well, that's not exactly how it happened.. *begin timewarp* You see, when I was 16, my family moved from a medium-size city in Washington State to a hick town (literally)in Central Utah. As you can imagine, this was like social death to a teenage girl on the brink of dating! Well, one day, I don't remember exactly when or how, I met this boy, and I thought he was the cutest, most handsome boy I had ever laid eyes on. He looked like Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club, or a younger Robert Smith (gee... did I just date myself or what??) He wore a cool tweed trenchcoat and had a motorcycle. And, it turned out, he actually liked me too! I thought, wow, this is way too good to be true. And somehow, we got together, and even went out to his prom together dressed to the nines in mid-80's Utah punk fashion *giggle*. I was in heaven! We were good friends too, and could hang out for hours just being friends. Well, I guess the hormones kicked in for him big time after a while, and as 16 year old boys are wont to do, got interested in other girls or something. I don't remember exactly what happened. He ended up shipping out for the Navy, and I wound up taking a nanny job back East. Fast forward a few years, and we were both living in the heady metropolis of Salt Lake City. (are you laughing? well, that's ok. WE were impressed with the "big city") He had a girlfriend, I had a boyfriend, and we were just friends. I used to ride my bike over to his house to hang out with him (because I still had a crush on him, of course) He was my roomate at one point when he needed a place to live. And then, he just disappeared one day, and I never thought I would see him again. I kept the prom picture of the two of us on my bedroom wall, and went about the business of life. I got married and traveled to Asia and started building my career as a graphic artist and webmaster. I also became a pagan priestess and was actively involved with my community in the realm of service. And through it all, was the picture. It was my all-time favorite picture, and even my husband had to look at it on the bedroom wall. It's a pretty funny picture to most people because it's like looking through the lens to 1986 and what two supposedly tough punks looked like, pretty tame by today's standards. All of my close friends knew about that picture because they had seen it so many times. And so life went for the next several years. I never sat and mooned over "the picture" or anything, but every now and then I would look at it and fondly remember my cute high school boyfriend, and the innocence captured there. Sooo... */end timewarp* Fast forward again to October of 1997. My marriage had been experiencing difficulties for a while, not because we didn't love each other, but because we were definitely growing in different directions. Also, my husband had been struggling with chronic depression for several years, and would not seek any kind of help whatsoever, which did nothing to help our relationship. On the full moon of October (I am about to go a bit metaphysical here, if you don't like these sorts of discussions, please skip to the end now) I did a spirit-journey, where my spirit guide finally came to me for good and gave me a vision to work on. He also gave me some instructions about my birthday the next month. My vision led to me making a medicine bag, and also I received several new tools to work with. As for my birthday the next month, he was very clear about what to do. The 14th of November in 1997 arrived squarely on the full moon. It was my 29th birthday, and as those of you who are familiar with astrology know, my Saturn-Return was about to hit me in a BIG way. So, on this occasion where my 29th birthday fell on the full moon, I was to have a naming-ritual, which is a sort of an initiation where you begin a new phase of your life. So, I gathered some close friends, and acknowledged the fact that I was stepping onto a new path in my life. I formally took my new name, given to me by my spirit guide, received my tools, and was gifted by my friends with things they thought might help me on my new path. Now, remember, I had absolutely NO idea what was about to happen. I could feel the big changes in the weather, so to speak, but couldn't tell you whether it was rain or a tornado on the way. (It felt more tornado-like) My marriage to my husband had seemed to be getting a bit better and we actually spent the Christmas holiday on a nice road trip to Moab and the Canyonlands. That was the calm before the storm, though. Just after the full moon in January, we had the fight to end all fights, and came to the conclusion that he should move out. (we had approached this point several times before, but one or the other would always back off) On this very night, as I was in the office on my computer, I got a simple one line email from GUESS WHO? If you guessed my long-ago boyfriend from "the picture" you would be absolutely correct. After 7+ years, after all this, he had found my web pages (which would have been the ONLY way he would have found me) and emailed me. I thought wow, that's really cool, and went back to the business of life once again (after I emailed him back, naturally) and the sad task of dealing with my soon to be ex-husband, and all my community projects, etc., etc. Well, we were emailing back and forth, and getting to know each other once again, and re-kindling an old friendship. After about a month or so, he asked me if I wanted to come visit. Well, I thought, a week in Florida away from the cold and snow, sounded like fun! So, he bought me a ticket and I got ready for my vacation. On the evening before I was to leave, I was packing up, and grabbed "the picture" from the wall. I was thinking it would be good for a laugh or two, but while taking it out of the frame, I discovered a piece of paper in between the frame and the picture. On this paper was a poem I didn't even remember writing, carefully arranged around his name, which was written in large letters in the middle of the page. This poem described how we had known each other in "other times" and how we would learn together again. Cosmic, eh? I thought so. That had been hanging on my wall for about 12 years and I had never seen that before then. Soo, what to do? I took it with me, frame and all. The day that I left there was a huge snowstorm that actually shut down the airport right after my plane left, and brought Salt Lake to a standstill for about 3 days, but I was already in sunny Florida. The night that I got there, I hadn't seen him since he was about 21, but I recognized him immediately. He was standing way over to the side of the gate, and he says, just a wreck to see whether I had made the flight or not. I knew the minute I saw him that things were not ever going to be the same. I just didn't know how MUCH they would change. He took me to dinner and drank 3 huge margaritas just so he could talk to me. He took me home, and I showed him what I had discovered. We laughed and talked all night. The next morning I woke up and went out to see the lake he lived on, taking my camera to get a picture of it. When I got outside, right there on the dock was my spirit guide, a heron. I had never seen one in real life before. (Did I mention there was a solar eclipse just off the Keys on the week that I was down here? uh-huh.. suure. Somebody's playing mighty cosmic...) Well, things just kept happening like that. AND?? To make this way long and boring story just a wee bit shorter, I was flying back home, and suddenly, it wasn't HOME any more. Home was where HE was. Yikes! And so, I took a month and a half to wrap up my life of 10 years, and moved 3000 miles to be here with my love and soulmate. BUT HE HADN'T TOLD ME ABOUT "HER"!!! There he was, getting ready for me to come and live with him, and what's a poor crossdresser to do? Well, what all of them do at least once, he "purged" Jennifer. Got rid of her. All of the clothes, shoes, wig, makeup, etc. went right out the door. Swore off being a girl. You know, all that stuff that just doesn't work. And it didn't. I got here, and the first week was a little strange, but I put it down to jitters on *both* of our parts. Then Jennifer started to fight back, and we went through the next two weeks of sheer hell. Here was my love, who I had given up so much to be with, and yet would gladly have done it again, and he wasn't the guy I fell in love with AT ALL! He was cranky, crabby, whiny, selfish, and I was wondering what I had gotten myself into!! I was almost ready to turn right back around and drive another 3000 miles from sheer disappointment and misery! I kept wondering where it all went wrong, what I had possibly done to make him be like this. Well, of course you can guess why this was all happening. He figured it out finally, and asked to speak to me one night after a long day. I thought it was the end, that he was going to tell me to go back to Utah, that it wasn't working. He was so serious, solemn, and intense! He prepared me by telling me how I might think he was the worst person I had ever met, that he had something huge and awful to tell me about himself, that he was afraid I would run screaming out the door, but he just had to tell me. My mind was racing - what on earth could be so awful? Was he some kind of criminal? A sex-offender? A murderer? I couldn't imagine what was so horrible about himself that he could say I would probably leave him forever. "What, my love? What is it?" I begged him to just say whatever it was, get it over with, spill those terrible secrets. And he told me what all the fuss was about. You could have knocked me over with a feather out of sheer disbelief, "You mean that's all it is?" I burst out crying out of sheer relief. This, the terrible secret - "I wear women's clothing and have to express my feminine side in this way, that's just the way it is." We stayed up late talking that night, of course I had all the usual questions - "Are you gay?" (He isn't) "Do you want to be a woman for real?" (No, he doesn't) and on and on. I was curious, and asked a lot of questions about what he did when he dressed, and he took me around to a lot of great SO and couple's websites, all of which had even MORE answers to my questions. (He had done his research beforehand!!) The next day we left for a trip to the Keys, and I think both of us were fairly well walking on air at that point. I had my love back, and he had a big huge weight lifted from his whole being. We both did. And when we got home, we went shopping for Jennifer, poor girl, who hadn't a THING to wear! *giggles* And as you can see from this site, I am very supportive of my dear Jennifer, who I don't usually see very often, but I welcome her when I do. We have our ups and downs in our relationship, like any other one. We did attend SPICE 98' in Atlanta, which I highly recommend for both members of a couple, it was just great to be able to meet other people and look them in the eye, and know that they face or faced the same issues as you do, and hey, they are just perfectly normal folks who have an *added* dimension to ther lives. Thanks for sticking with me through this loooong bio, and if you are an SO or a CD with any questions, please email me and I will be happy to give you an insight (what little I have so far) about this issue. All my love,
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