The Boy Said Something...

Okay, on to other news.

This morning, after Natasha had gone to work, E came into my room while I was getting dressed. He and R like to play with all of my hair clips, and he was doing just that, when he asked a question about which of the hair ties, bands, clips and pins were Tasha's. After I answered, I asked him, "Are you sure that you're okay with Daddy being Sunny?" He said, quite intelligently (he's 6), "Definitely. She's not as angry as she used to be."

I asked, knowing the right answer, "Did she yell more when she was a boy?"

E said, "Oh yeah. She yelled a lot and now she doesn't yell much at all. That means she's happier."

I said, "That means we're all happier since she doesn't yell as much, right?"

He said, "Definitely."

He promptly stuck a clip in his short hair and spun around a few times.

The lesson here is that if you have people in your life who doubt whether or not what you are "doing" by transitioning (or accepting it if you are the spouse) is good for the kids, ask the kids. They'll tell you the truth if you let them.

A New Old Me

Since Natasha is now "out" to everyone, it's time for me to do the same.

My name is not Casey, although you are welcome to continue to call me this name. It's actually the name of the main character in my book series about faeries. :-)

It's also our collie's name. :-D

My name is Marni. I am the proud spouse of a crazy woman named Natasha. I live in the Phoenix area with her, our two genius children, our two dogs, four cats and two fish.

Just so you know.

Which Way Do You Want to Go: Up or Down?

Tasha bit the bullet and spoke with her principal two weeks ago. He was totally cool and open, as was the rest of the faculty and staff at her school, and last Monday, on the first day of school, she showed up as herself. Despite a few gawker and rude students, she had the happiest week of teaching in her life!

I am very happy for her. She's in a great mood, considering that she's back at school. She says she loves what she does and I believe her, but she also had tons of really crappy days, which I'm sure she'll still have, but they won't be as bad because she'll be herself and if she wants to cry and yell at her students, she can do that. :-)

So, now Tasha is living full time and a few friends have asked me how I'm feeling about that. I'm actually pretty fine about it. In fact, on the day her principal gave her the okay, I went into her part of the closet and took out most of her male clothing (except for a few shirts that I insist she keep and wear as over-shirts. They're tasteful and somewhat gender-neutral). In fact, I'm relieved that the waffling between genders, and the consequential depression and moodiness, has ended. Besides the SRS, which affects her way more than it affects me, as far as I'm concerned, she's all her now.

Next Friday, we're going down to Tucson to get her name officially changed. Later, when we have more money put aside, we're going to change the kids' names, too. Tasha is going to pick up my maiden name as a second middle name like I have, and so the kids will have it, too. It is symbolic for us to have both of our last names this way because we are not simply a part of her family. I chose to keep my maiden name since I was the wife and believed that I should pick up her family name. So, we're making it all "even," you know? She said she should have done that when we first got married. I'm just glad we're doing it now.

I have this sense of calm about everything. As I said, she's always female now, so in my mind, her maleness is gone. My spouse is not gone. The person who was my husband is not gone. Only her maleness. Actually, as I write that, I have to add that there are "male" aspects that have not gone away. She's a big woman in that she is tall and stocky. She'll loose a ton of weight and she'll still have that, and that's great! This is why Natasha is a perfect name for her! :-) Anyway, one of the things she has been doing for a long time is toss the kids onto our bed at night. They experience flight for just a moment. She still does it. Even though she thought she lost too much muscle mass in her arms, she realized (after I cajoled her into doing it again) that she can still do it. She's still the "fixer" around here, too. She picks up dead birds and throws them away (don't ask). She still occupies the Daddy role in our family, which makes both of us happy, so I haven't really lost any part of my spouse that I worried about losing.

The other day, my mom took me aside and asked me how I was taking all of this. I knew that she was speaking for herself as well as for my dad. A lot of their concern is for our kids, and I understand that. They are really great kids and they understand what has happened to their daddy. I've written in the past that it has been shown that how children take this kind of change largely depends upon how the spouse who does not change takes the news. So, you can extrapolate how my kids are taking this from how I am, right? So, in my response to her... actually to both of them and in front of Tasha, I told them that every decision I am making, from doing my best at a job I hate to pushing our cookie business, to continuing to write my books... to staying with Natasha, every single decision I make every moment of the day begins with the thought of how it will affect my children. What is best for them? Every direction I try to steer my life is based directly on which direction is best for them. Am I setting a good example? Am I teaching them the right lesson?

Staying with Natasha, as I have told my wonderful, loving, giving parents, is right for the kids. For me to leave simply because something happened to her... something beyond her control... would teach my children that it is better to run away than to stay and work hard. I would teach them that all it takes is ONE SINGLE CHANGE to make everything good end up meaningless and valueless. It would teach them that love is, in fact, conditional. If she had become a quadriplegic and were unable to have sex anymore, should I have left? What would that say to my kids?

I am not trying to accuse anyone of anything, my amazing and honest readers. I am not trying to come off as better than anyone. I am just writing my blog. Those of you who know me know that I don't think about my readers as I write. Otherwise, I wouldn't be genuine in what I was trying to say. I know that things don't work out between couples for any number of reasons. Clearly, at this point I looked over what I had read and thought that it might start some accusations my way of being snooty. So, let me put that to rest. I'm telling you what's been going through my mind. I'm telling you that every single decision I've made throughout this journey with Tasha is about the kids. Every decision I've made since the moment I got pregnant with our boy was about him. That's just how it is. My happiness is their happiness, and since I would be miserable without my Esposa, so would they.

To everyone out there reading this, I can only wish you the happiest of lives with what you have. I hope that your spouses find their happiness, too, no matter what that means. No journey is easy. Mine sure hasn't, and it's not even over yet. But I hope that you see the happiness you already have and hold onto it, nurture it and help it grow. Keep it near you during the difficult times and let it help you. Let it guide your decisions.

That's it for now.

To Everything There is a Season

First of all, to everyone who has commented lately and offered their personal experiences and opinions, thank you. I am happy to know that there have been successful relationships at the end of this tunnel. I am relieved that neither Tasha nor I am alone in our struggles.

Unfortunately, knowing that we're not alone doesn't make any of this easier.

Tasha got the good word this past week that she has a surgery date, and it's less than a year away. I was very happy for the both of us. This involuntary journey now has an end.

I thought that having a date would make things easier for both of us. Tasha was elated the day she found out and put an app on her phone to remind her of how many days are left. Yet, she's now had two of "those" days in a row. "Those" days of unplaced sadness. "Those" days of edginess. "Those" days where the kids can't do much right. It's entirely frustrating for me because I also can't do anything to cheer her up. She says I make her feel better, but what does it matter when "better" isn't much from my perspective?

There are a LOT of things going on now. She's going back to school in a couple of weeks and so must be Mr. for 180 days. We have cut back severely on our spending because we just don't have anything to spend. We are frustrated at the slow start of our cookie business. We are both finally facing our emotional relationship with food head-on. For her, health is a major issue at this point because of the deadline of her surgery. Both of us have struggled with weight for our whole lives and lately, lethargy has been winning.

I started taking St. John's Wart a short while ago. I finally admitted to myself that I am somewhat depressed. Yes, of course the situation with Tasha is a part of it, but it's really everything piled up. The immense hatred of my job doesn't help matters. I refuse to take prescription medication, though, because I am fully aware of the sources of my stress and that some of those sources will lesson or go away and others will settle themselves. I think I mentioned a while ago that the worst part of Tasha's transition is not that she's changing but that the drawn-out process is incredibly frustrating. I just want it over with so that we can figure out how our story continues.

So, I have my worries and stresses, and then I have Tasha's. She's not sleeping well. She's staying apart from the kids. She's participating in the household but not as much as she said she would and, knowing that she isn't, she feels badly about it.

She feels badly about a lot of things and that makes her feel even worse.

And I can't do anything about it except work around her until she feels better.

She's supposed to feel happier now that she has a date.

'Tis the season to be grumpy. It's going to be a long school year.

Why is it?...

...that when I'm tired, everything seems bigger or worse than it really is?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

It sometimes hurts to see the future. For a few things in my life, I can do this. I don't know how, but I can and it's not always fun and flowers that I see. Those of you who read Tasha's blog already know that she has discovered the attraction of men and, while I mostly think its funny, it's not all that funny. The reason it doesn't amuse me more is that everything that has happened with Tasha's transition has happened almost EXACTLY as I have seen it. Every single step of it was not what I wanted to see, yet there was. When we were sitting there in the theater watching Thor and she gasped when the god first appeared, I shook my head and smirked. It was definitely amusing, but it confirmed what I knew would be happening.

How long had she assured me that she was 100% lesbian and men were... ew!...? The thought of a guy putting his... yuck! No more of that now. Still, she reassures me that it's all just looking, just like I might look occasionally. She's not going to have some affair or come to me one day and tell me that she is really lusting to try it. I believe that. What I have seen as a result of her new-found interest in men is that she will also discover that her attraction for women will wane and that she will only stay with me because she loves me more than anything. Does that sound like I am devaluing her love for me? I'm not. Everyone knows that love is not enough. Yes, we are also best friends. But best friends who love each other don't necessarily make a successful marriage either. What about my insistence that sex doesn't mean so much to me? I doesn't. But I do like to have it sometimes. So does she. But when both people are thinking about guys when it's happening? Come on! Do we stay together in a happy married friendship?

I'm not seeing doom around the corner. I'm really hoping that when this happens, we will have moved far enough into the relationship and the transition (complete, I'm really hoping) that our marriage will end with us being as close as two friends can be without being married. I'm hoping even more than this that it will never happen. I'm hoping that I will find that being intimate with my spouse is still a good thing, if different. I'm hoping that her fascination with men is simply a fascination and that she remains the adult she is instead of a hormone-driven teenager her drugs tempt her to be.

Our friend B is concerned, too. She finds it both as amusing and as concerning as I do. She doesn't want me to end up a single mom with the dreams of forever with my spouse broken into pieces. She doesn't want me to bear the weight of having to say good-bye to the person I was supposed to never have to say that to.

I'm wondering if there could be a happy middle if there were two mainly heterosexual women in a marriage. The love has not changed. The bond between us has not weakened. NOTHING about our marriage has changed except for her gender and now her sexual orientation. So, for all of my insisting that sex isn't the big thing in our marriage, might that still end it for us, or is the MEMORY of how we felt about each other sexually enough? Can we harness our feelings and make sex work when that time comes?

I don't have to worry about it right now. Sex ain't happening right now. I strive to remember the humor in all of this. For example, I have something else I can tease Tasha about. That's always a good thing.

It's Been a While...

I'm sorry, everyone, about not having written anything in a while. My part time job turned into a full-time one, requiring me to go into the office a few times a week, so when I do get to be home during the week, time just keeps on slippin'... you know the rest.

If you've already seen this post, you'd know that I had written something entirely different than what you are about to read. The problem is that much of it was very harsh, and after having a strange epiphany today on the way home from work, I realized that what I had written would probably return to bite me in the butt later on.

The original version had to do with the events that transpired at the LA book fair with my family. What I find interesting at this moment is that realizing something about my new work environment has altered (a little) how I view my spouse's family.

To be honest, my relationship with my FIL and SMIL have always been strained. If they were to read this, they would not disagree. But with the new wrinkle of my spouse becoming female, there is even more strain. Obviously, they don't blame me for Natasha's transformation, but when they cause stress on her, they cause stress on me. It's just the way it is.

I originally wrote here, but in a much angrier tone, that I have never quite felt a sincerity from them. I know that they love our children in the way they know how, and I know that they are not inherently bad people. They are just different people. They are not particularly people whom I would be friends with if I met them on the street, but they do good things and have good hearts. They support environmental and social causes that are for the good of the world and its people, yet their political views to me are strange and illogical and they do not treat their children as I would. But that's who they are.

My original post was a question of whether or not I could see past the "negative" aspects of Tasha's parents and because of my circumstances at work, I answered my own question.

This job I have was my part-time teaching job-turned-full time. I have added responsibilities, like being the librarian and trainer for our new online information system and curriculum development. These are things I really think are neat. One downside is that they are making me work half of the time in the office, which I don't understand. The other downside is that the CEO of the company has absolutely no business being the CEO. She is an Executive Assistant to the owner who was given an opportunity to run a company, but that company happens to be an academic company, which needs to be run more like a school than like a business. She's running it into the ground and blaming all of the departments for the situation. I could run the company better than she, if only for the simple reason that I have been an academic: I know how schools operate; I know how students operate; I know how departments interact with each other. Sure, there are other aspects to being "in charge" of a company, but really, she's not doing it right for what she has. This is the BIG downside. She is so paranoid about losing her job that she has decided to micromanage every department like Big Brother. She is having us develop courses for programs that should not be developed at this point. She is making faculty and staff do things to boost student retention that simply will not work well in the long run.

In short, because I need to have this job right now, I have to keep my head down and my mouth shut (well, except with my immediate boss. He and I are on the exact same wavelength so we have someone to commiserate with when we can). Seriously, this is VERY difficult for me. I dread going into work every day because I know that the CEO is going to send some kind of scathing email to my supervisor or his supervisor about something stupid and pointless that she wants us to do. When you can see the truth clearly but have to live in a world of dumb, it's hard.

I am in no way saying that my in-laws are dumb. It's quite the opposite. FIL, in particular, is a brilliant guy. He just lives his life in a vastly different way than I do (wealth aside). What I did learn today is that, whatever I do know about my in-laws, they are what they are and I may never hope that they will change. In my job, I know what I know and I must accept that I can only survive my time there by doing my job within the mess.

So, do I accept who my in-laws are? Yes. I don't have to approve, though. I'm positive that they don't approve of me, except perhaps that our children are brilliant and wonderful and kind and respectful and they had to have learned these things from their parents (maybe not the brilliant part). I (we) must be doing something right.

Now, what does this have to do with the purpose of my blog? That's the simple part. I think that sometimes Tasha forgets that her family are the last to know. This is all very new to them and they've only seen her a couple of times. Granted, some of them have said things that go beyond a state of shock, but on the whole, I don't necessarily think that they are reacting in a terribly negative way. Take brother-in-law M. He recently asked Tasha if she could wait a few years before doing anything else. If Tasha would think back, she would remember that I was far from ready to accept her fully as a woman and that I was thinking in terms of years or even decades before I could possibly consider "giving up" my husband. The thing I keep pointing out to Tasha about my SMIL is that she doesn't really have any tact. Often, in the case of Tash's transition, SMIL says things that come out very harsh, like that "You're such a good actor" thing. Again, looking back on our own history, I even questioned her that perhaps she had found out about TS through research and because it solved so many of her deepest issues, namely self-hatred, she convinced herself that it was true when it might possibly have not been so. She had even admitted that she had seen therapists before and told them what they wanted to hear. She was hurt when I had challenged her in this way and it's happening all over again with her family.

I'm not suggesting forgiveness here... and this is how I think it all ties together. I think that it is important for both of us to remember that her family is who they are, especially her father and step mother. We don't have to like it. We don't have to forgive the lack of tact on SMIL's part or FIL's deliberate refusal to refer to Tasha either by her female name or by her gender pronoun. It's not nice, period. BUT, we can save ourselves a lot of personal angst if we are diligent in remembering these things about them, expecting the behavior every time, and letting it all go when we are done visiting. The final outcome will be apparent in the near future. Either they will accept this like everyone else has, or they won't. If they don't, there will be new issues. But this is still raw for them, so in spite of what we know, as good people we need to remember that it is raw and give them a chance to process it.