1440

 

 

1440....... 

What is it? 

Is it, a police code? a military time of day? a clever l337 hacker number? a drug culture reference?, something the ancient aliens left behind?, or something else entirely?

A friend of mine who passed away and whom I think of often, used to say.. '<my dead name>...  There are only so many minutes in a day... 1440 of them and we should use them wisely!"  I loved that.  My friend and father in law to my then wife, was smart, kind, warm, and accepting, and honestly a good F#cking friend. 

One time.. .and I wasn't out yet,  they said to me "I saw this person getting out of their car.... they are clearly transgender and strugglig' and he paused as if to see what my reaction would be to that and then he continued, 'and I know their life must not be easy and how difficult some of their challenges must be. Can you image what they must be going through?" and I agreed with him, he was pretty intuitive and had good intuition, I wonder to this day if he some how knew. Knew I wasn't right. I miss him so much. 

 OK so stepping back........I have always believed in Mind Body, Spirit being in alignment to be healthy. My body IS NOT in alignment with my mind. And Spirit, I like to think of that as an aspect of my mind too and again, not in alignment with the manifestation of my body.

My Mind is feminine, nurturing, loving, embracing, empathic and questioning. My Spirit  is soft, loving, kind, indomitable, yet my body doesn't align with my mind and spirit. When I look in the mirror I see great betrayal. I don't like what I see.  Its not in alignment. I hate my face...my body.

My entire life I have not understood why I am how I am. why the pieces don't fit, why I wander, why all the things that have happened...happened to me, why I was COMPELLED to do certain things without even knowing why, almost like being on auto pilot. This goes back to my earliest days of childhood, puberty, my dreams, my becoming an adult.

When I joined the Army it was like committing suicide, when I Started loosing my hair, I wanted to commit suicide, my inner identity, was being corrupted like a cancer from the ravages of testosterone and back then...there was nothing I could do about it. I went to the library, I tried snake medicine remedies. I tried to stop it.  I had no concept of HRT, there was no rogaine... no awareness of transgender. I was told to suck it up. I hated myself. 

Prior to my friend sharing his thoughts on transgender I had the epiphany, that 'AHA' moment where everything clicks, time, space, mind, everything zooms into focus and you can't unsee it.

Fast forwarding.. I chewed on my self awareness for years..... it consumed me, the call could not be ignored. 1440 played a part. I was WASTING my life not being genuine, not aligning, not fixing, not choosing to be and live authentic and like a cancer it was eating me alive. It was brutalizing my relationships with anyone close to me.   I had gotten to a place in my life where I fire-walled others from me. I didn't allow people to get close because to be real... I believed there was something wrong with me, I was toxic, radio active, cursed, a bad person. So I stayed hidden, a father, husband, a dude.... and protected and kept my transgender self awareness secret...I kept it safe and in so doing so...it consumed me, I knew the cure and wasn't taking the steps to do the cure and so resentment grew of my marriage, my body, and the crappy choices I was making.

Yet...I couldn't unsee the woman looking at the man in the mirror. I am female, and all I had to do is transition. Easy right? WRONG!

My friend passed away, my dog died, I lost my parents, my marriage was on life support... 1440 ticked away....years passed and I waited and tried to make my marriage work, keep my family provided for, happy, while keeping my need to transition buried but so desiring it and being destructive to my partner and resenting her secretly. Finally my ex and I could no longer....not face the truth we HAD to let each other go. She needed to be healthy and I needed to transition. We did this out of love for each other, its why we are close friends now. We honor each other, our family, what we build together and we honor our lost parents this way too.

So......I am transitioning now... 1440 ticks away at me daily. Yesterday it was Saturday and I had a long list of transition things I want and need to do, which I keep putting off, or making excuses. And I'll be real, as a Virgo one thing I have learned is to NOT force everything. When I put my mind to something its 110%, 'warp 10 Sulu!' ,  and the result is I break and can't sustain it. I literally injure myself physically or mentally. I have been transitioning for a long time now. The first 2 times I stopped because I broke, because I pushed to hard. going through divorce, didn't help :). 

Yet I know..sometimes success comes from many failures. and I failed a lot. The primary lesson being I was pushing to hard, to quick, rushing beause in my mind 1440 was ticking away. 

As I was grieving, on the ground and sharing my story with my community. A supportive trans woman said to me... "You are an acorn... an Oak tree..takes years to grow!" I love that. Another said "You can't just get to the top of Mount Everest you start at the bottom, you plan, you prepare and then when the time is right, you put one foot in front of the other and you go slow, one step at a time" I like that one too. And finally there is the "Get up, there is nobody coming to save you, except yourself."  That one I think has been the most useful to me, its fitting and SO TRUE. only I can save me. 

So..... 1440...its ticking and I'm not getting any younger.

I am transitioning, and my inner voice, disgusted with me says 'so just do it mother f$$ker!.'

so I am... in my private life I'm living full time as the real me and yesterday 

• I went to the gym en-femme
• I went clothes shopping! yay! I got a lot of wonderful beautiful colors, patterns and fits. 
• I then went to a respected tattoo parlor and FINALLY got my consult for my Queen of Hearts Tattoo, which I'm getting in 2 weeks.  
• I also reached out to a Unitarian  Universalist church and they were kind and embracing and empathic and welcoming and encouraged me to come attend. So I went. I'm glad I did. I found a lot of joy and honestly acceptance and really cool people. My social bucket was empty they helped fill it a little.  

So......1440... I'm engaged, 

And I'm also trying not to push to hard.. but find the Goldilocks zone of transition that is right for me. After service today, I will do self care, dial it back, go do yard work, rest, grocery shop, get ready for the work week.

....

.... 

Tick tock..Tick tock (Gwen S. anyone?) ... all the while..knowing life is short time is precious, seize the day. and go boldly into the night, the minutes are passing, those 1440 are moments you can never get back, spend them well.