Graduation day was bittersweet. On the one hand, I was graduating. On the other, I had zero real plans for the future. I mean if course I had some schooling in the works and I still had my retail job, but I had no clue as to what I wanted to do with my life or even how to go about accomplishing it. Due to the fact that I was struggling with my gender identity and the depression and anxiety that ensued as a result of having to keep up the charade of being a guy, I had no real aspirations of figuring out my life plans. What was the point if I couldn't be who I really was? Why should I have cared about my future if all I could foresee in it was more misery and secrecy?
The following fall, I started at one of those awful for-profit schools. You know the ones with the TV commercials where a guy makes you feel like a loser for not making a phone call? Yeah, one of those. I took a program that had to do with coding and computer programming. I only did so to keep my parents off my back and quickly realized that it was not for me. So I quit and went to work for the company I was already at full-time. A few months later, a wonderful person stepped into my life.
Amanda was/is the most cherished relationship I ever had and the most influential in terms of me coming to the realization that I HAD to come out as transgender. We had a lot in common and truly enjoyed each others company. But the most beautiful part of our relationship was how open she was with me about her sexuality and the struggles she faced because of it. I had met other people who were gay or bisexual, but none of them were so open about how and why they felt the way they did. I admire her for that. However the transparency of our relationship was very much one-sided. I loved her so much but was so afraid of losing her to my secret that I kept it from her as well. That led me to become paranoid in the relationship and hide things from her and lie to her on a number of things. Basically I became self-destructive and she eventually had enough and we went our separate ways for awhile.
During the same time I was also experiencing turbulence in my family life. The secret of who my biological father was and my knowledge that both myself and my sister had been lied to our whole lives was coming to a head. I was feeling like I wasn't truly a member of the family, and I had drifted away from them. They noticed and discussed it with each other when I wasn't around. One day my sister took it upon herself to voice the frustrations of the family with me and it turned into an argument where I laid out the uncomfortable truth to her.
Later my dad spoke to both of us individually about the situation. I don't know what he said to her but he sat me down and asked me if I knew what "biological" meant. Things between us only got worse for the next few months. Eventually he and I got in an argument that got physical and I moved out the next day....back to my moms house.
My life was unraveling at what seemed like light-speed and I felt as if I had no control over anything. I blamed Amanda for the problems in our defunct relationship, I blamed my family for setting me up for this kind of meltdown and I pleaded with God to lift the curse he had placed on me at conception.
Somewhere in this time period I met my biological father for the first time I could remember. I was nervous and had so many questions for him. But when the moment came, my mother and I discovered he was living in a nursing home. We went to meet him anyway. He was 69 years old, and was sitting in a wheelchair. He had Parkinson's so bad he couldn't hold a glass half full of water without spilling it. But what was worse, he talked about things we'd done that never actually happened. That's when I knew I wasn't meeting my father. I was meeting the shell that my once was my father, and all the questions I had for him would never be answered.
Eventually I realized that the problems in my family life were what they were and I would have to square with the truth of that matter eventually. I also came to my senses as far as the relationship with Amanda was concerned. Our problems were a result of me being unable to be authentic and truthful about who I was as a person. And I knew I would have to take the steps to become the woman I was supposed to be. And my first obstacle was figuring out how.
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