new beginnings

Hello blog,

In a life of ups and downs the past few weeks have been another roller coaster.  I have made alot of changes and hope that I will get a break for awhile. The biggest change being leaving my current work and starting over,which is hard to leave all the friends that I have made at the prior place.  But time to move on..

I've also been working on self-acceptance and spent some time trying to feel good about myself.  I had some free time to let myself be me and it felt really good.  Below are some images since I think it has been awhile since I updated any photos.  I love to look back and see how my image gets better over time.  Unfortunately I did not take a closeup to show the big smile I had letting myself feel free but I think the images show my happiness.

Today is the first day of March so I hope that the spring thaw comes soon as it has been cold far too long. I will try and keep up to date here, but needless to say self-reflection takes alot of ones time.  Wishing everyone out there the best.

Hugs,
Jaclyn

Type whatever...

Hello blog,

As I spend my days in flux reading and re-reading so much information out there that I never knew existed, I have been transfixed on understanding more about the Dr. Harry Benjamin type scale no transsexualism.  No doubt it seems like an important piece of literature, I am going to try and spend some time reading his book there   At first overview it seems a bit technical for me to grasp completely, but I have of course gravitated towards his scale diagnosis and trying to figure out where I fit in.

God that is more difficult than it should be.  I think for the most part I am safe to say I am at least 3+ since honestly I feel more and more that I was born with incongruent brain and body parts.  But then is that really what I am hoping for and really I am a 1 or 2? So damn confusing and if I had to guess I would put myself somewhere in the middle groups which seems like a crapshoot group not really committed one way or another. Argh, more inconclusive results as I try and decipher why I am the way I am.

I know that I need to find some balance here, but I really just want someone to tell me to go one way or another and it to be right. I love my family and I love being Jaclyn, why can't that be right.  My physical body says that I am a man and my heart wishes I was a woman. When I think about it, I know little about what being a man is and even less about what being a woman involves. So what do I really know?

Or what is it that I don't know now, perhaps never and will have this confusion to deal with always.  I guess I am type whatever, does that really matter anyways.   As my latest poem states, perhaps I am lost and unable to go.

Hugs,
Jaclyn

Unable to Go
Looking for reason in an nonsense world,
Hoping when the outcome is known,
Dry tears down my cheek I let flow,
I wish that wrong wasn't all that I know.

Never flinching but feeling the pain,
Looking in mirrors but not seeing me,
Feeling different than the reflection it does show,
I wish that wrong wasn't all that I know.

Anger, rage and despair I bottle up inside,

Hope, dreams, and love I desperately hide,

Fear, angst, and confuion impede me from inside,

To take one small step I am completely froze.

I guess I don't know what I want to be,

Why can't I be satisfied with all that I see,

Will I ever quiet these demons that follow me,

Why can't I escape and let them all go?

One more day passes without any resolve,

One more example why I am a lost cause,

One more time I'm unable to move forward so,

I am so lost and unable to go.

rough morning

Hello blog,

One of the main reasons that I started blogging is that I needed someplace to vent and reflect on the craziness of life, and today I feel like I need this blog to help ease my whirlwind thoughts.

So I apologize to outsiders this will probably not be very coherent but rather a monologue for help me relax.  Of course, probably this can be said for many of my other posts lol :)

I'm really struggling with having left my true self out a bit with being able to "put myself away" at least for awhile as necessary for outward appearances.  I don't know if this is common but even a year ago I was so much better on having Jaclyn time and then going without.  I find that it is getting so hard just to not wait to have Jaclyn time 24/7 anymore and it feels so desperate.

I can't stop looking at the way women dress, react and interact without wishing so bad that I cold be there talking and sharing and being accepted as one of them.  I know that can not be the case and it depresses me more.  Just this morning I was listening to the cold heels of my shoes echo off the parking garage on my way into work and couldn't stop imagining that I was walking in on heels or boots instead of my drab shoes.

Does this feeling ever subside again?

I know that I have gender dysmorphia and can't look into a mirror without feeling uneasy and disgusted.  I spent 5 minutes last night trying to pinch my nose to make it look thinner and stretch my chin to try and imagine how wonderful having facial surgery would be.  Then I look at that sorry excuse on the top of my head for hair and I get violently upset and angry.  Why can't I just be satisfied with the lot life dealt me like everyone else?

Today I go back to my therapist and we will sit there for an hour discussing how my parents didn't nuture me and how I should be more self-confident and how I should like myself.  It all makes logical sense but yet it doesn't.  I don't know how to relate the endless hours at night I lay awake in bed wishing that I had smooth skin and feminine curves and know that this can only be a dream.  My beautiful daughter and wife are the only good things in my life and I cannot lose them but yet as my therapist says perhaps I am trying to sabotage them.  Call it a mental illness or whatever but I still don't understand why I wake up loving my family yet feeling the internal need to tuck my maleness away under my clothes and run out to the mall over lunch in secret.   I'll end up again with a bag of clothes, internal guilt and unbearable feeling to put them on and walk outside and be free.

Somedays I seem to manage these pressures better but today is not that day.  Right now I really don't know what I am but instead know what I am not.

I am not happy, and I am not able to figure out how to make this better.
I am not able to look in a mirror and be thankful for all the fortunate things life has given me.
I am not able to maintain two seperate entities within in this tiny brain of mine.
I am not able to talk, to walk, to fly and be free like so many of the brave sisters I see around that I am in awe of.
I am not a man, I am not a woman.  I don't know what I am.

I can only hope that today and tomorrows get better and I can find some peace and answers.  Isn't that what we all are looking for?