In the Pressure Cooker

I'm not really that phenomenal a chef, so when I run into something that makes tasty food without much requirement for skill and experience, I definitely take note.  One such masterpiece of modern engineering, is apparently, our pressure cooker.

The thing about pressure cookers is that they keep, well, everything, locked up inside.  All the heat, all the steam, all the food, is trapped inside, and things not only heat up, but get squeezed quite exceptionally by the pressure.  Apparently, water boils somewhere past 400F inside that pot.  The results, after a few minutes, are quite delicious, and I highly recommend you try one.

But food isn't the only thing in the pressure cooker, it would seem.  I'm not sure when the analogy struck me, but I feel very similar to my carrots last night.  There is an often-overwhelming pressure to present myself as the square-bodied, rough-chinned girl that I am.  How I would love to go on those fascinating hormones, and let my body work its way into a slightly better, slightly curvier, (and hopefully less stubbly) shape.

But all that pressure has a lid on it.  A tight, intentionally pressure-proof lid built out of the last 30-some years of my life.  The painful knowledge of the consequences of opening that lid are blisteringly clear.  In a very similar, though much less humorous way, coming out (especially given my family and friends), would mirror very well the explosion of steam and carrots which might have painted my kitchen a soggy, steamy orange, had I removed the lid.

I'm not sure the carrots would have been so happy to be "free" when they had been splattered, heart and soul, across the appliances.  How similar I feel, knowing just how similarly splattered myself, and my darling wife would be in the analogous life of "freedom."

So again, back to the same old, lidded life I come.  Unwilling to blow the lid, barely able to survive the internal pressure and temperature, but knowing that somehow, I must.


Much Love,

-Hailey-

Birthdays...

Well, it's happened again.  After a year of no perceptible change in my age, suddenly, this morning, I've advanced an entire year.  It's OK though, since I'm still averaging to one year per year, even if it all happens today. =)

I'm not sure what I think about birthdays.  My family and friends are all very nice to me, and they do a lot to make me feel appreciated.  I wonder how many of them would still do that if they knew me better... it's just a silly thought, really.  Birthday accolades are not what makes a person valuable, after all, but rather the value that sometimes elicits well-wishes.

I think the part of birthdays that bothers me most is knowing that I will just continue to grow a little more "old-man-ish" each year.  More stubble, more hair, more of the wrong angles and missing curves.  Although now that I think about it, I will eventually start losing hair instead... hmm...

Certainly I'm nothing like old now, but a forty-year old man version of me sounds a bit more sad than the young-thirty version I've got right now.  There's not really anything to be done, of course, beyond resigning myself to it once again this year.

I'm really not morose or anything, and in fact, am having a very good day.  I'm a strong believer in having good days, even if there's stuff going on inside.  Can't let it beat us, right?  So here's to another great year, with or without the extra X!


Much Love,

Hailey

Non-Transitioning

There are a lot of reasons for a choice like transitioning from one body to another. Each story is filled with it's own mix of stresses, wishes, and road-blocks... and at the end of all the soul-searching, many people make the leap. For me though, there continues to be a difference.

It doesn't matter how many times I ask myself the questions, or how many ways I try to write the outcomes... once all is said and done, and as hard as it is to come to the same conclusion again and again, I still think the right decision for me is to continue living my life as it has always been. It hurts, often unbearably, but the pain still adds up to less than the cost of transitioning.

For clarity, I ought to say that by non-transitioning, I mean that I am not living in any way as the female that I believe (I think) I am. My XY body is as convincing as the next, and through the three decades of my life, I've become quite skilled at playing the role. I don't have any girl clothes or makeup, and as far as anyone has ever known, I'm a well-adjusted man.

Well Adjusted. How many times have I heard people speak of me that way. It is sadly ironic, tragic even, how bad we are at summing people up from their appearances. Probably the better way of labeling me would be, “...considering the life-long emotional turmoil and fear that she has had to live with, Hailey is not too badly adjusted...” Its like being surprised that a smashed car still drives... sort of...

But nobody sees the battered car with its shattered windows... They see “well-adjusted” me; the XY Boy, on the outside. I wish it weren't that way... I cry and pray and wish... but what can I ask, that people can see my soul instead of my body? It can't be.

Still, the question remains, why is it that I'm not transitioning?

Love is the answer. I am not alone. If I were, it would not matter what I looked like, after all. But I am with people. I am married, and have three children, and a really wonderful set of family and friends. Furthermore, and more importantly, I am a very convinced Christian. (Please bear with me here... I know a lot of Christians have some pretty negative things to say about transitioning... I am not one of them.)

My wife has known for several years, and she's been phenomenally graceful. It is very hard on her too, harder than I can bear, some times. She loves me as a man..., the man she's always known and always sees. I know there are some partnerships out there where permission with acceptance is possible, but that comes down to how each of us is wired. That story is not our story. My wife loves me to death, but she is terrified of what it would be like to live with me in an XX-styled body. I will not subject her, purposefully, to shame and fear. The peace I might otherwise gain from finally being outwardly congruent with my own self-image would be completely lost by the turmoil I would create. The net gain would be emotional rejection... and I am one who has borne enough of that in my life already...

She is not the only reason though. It is possible that some day, she will be happy enough with it all that for her own sake, not much would be lost. But even if that were the case, my children are in another category. I am not sure what kind of life a kid would be forced to live if their dad couldn't be called dad anymore. I can certainly imagine how I might have reacted to a similar change in my own parents. Shame is a terribly destructive force in human hearts. I love my kids like nothing else in the world. The thought of the probable shame they would bear each day of their lives; at any mention of coming home, meeting parents, asking after family... even getting a family Christmas photo... The alienation would be unbearable for me, and the life-long uncertainty and loss of that parental relationship would be a sad loss for them. Certainly it is possible that they would grow up with a more understanding world-view than the world at large, but that does not necessarily translate into the same relationship they can have with good-old “Dad.” A caveat, of course, is if I were to live as a sullen, depressed sort of Dad... which would be worse probably, than a happy second...mother???, but I'm not really like that.

It pains me deeply to think that my kids will never really know me, but at the same time, I remember that no child really ever knows their parents completely. No matter what they're like, they'll always be “mom and dad,” in some way or another. They don't need to love me and care about me as deeply and dearly as I do of them. Even if I had been an XX girl and borne them myself, that would still be true.

Lastly, my faith applies here. I love Jesus, and He has been more dear to me than any other person I have known. I believe His words about how we should live, and know absolutely that the best parts of my life are a result of me giving up bits of myself to live more like He does. It has always been better for me to love others than to love myself, and so it is in this case. If ever I decide that my own plight is more important than the lives of those ones who love me most, I will have lost an awful lot more of myself getting to that point than I could ever gain by transitioning. I would rather be a loving XY girl than a selfish XX girl, because, after all, it is what is inward that drives us, not what is outward. I like who I am, even in this body, so I cannot sacrifice who I am on the inside to become just another body on the outside.

Finally, I will also die, one day, and on that day, I will shed all these burdens and see the One I love. It will take a while... a long long while... but at the end of it, I think I'll finally be His girl, if we even care about our gender when we are with Him. No one else who is there will care either, which is an awful lot different than the people who are here. So non-transitioning is not forever... real life is forever, and we will not be broken when we are truly alive.

So there's my story... without all the history leading up to it. Certainly if I had been born 15 years later, with all the treatments they have now for pre-teens, and if I had been part of a very different (tolerant) family, I would have transitioned.  But we can all tell "what if" stories, and they've never gotten any of us anywhere.  Besides, I would not, even now, go back if I could.  To lose the life I've had with my wife, and to never have met these three children... it would not be worth it.  The dysphoria is aweful... and it will always be that way... but it will always be worth it, and my soul can be still, knowing that He made me with a purpose, and bears the pain along with me, knowing, in His great wisdom, what will have been gained by the long sacrifice.  

(please comment if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear from you!)


(Later Edit)
PS: A little more on this topic: http://haileygirlme.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-pressure-cooker.html
PPS: And a little more, changing the plan a bit http://haileygirlme.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-i-told-my-mom.html