Relationships -Me, Myself, and I
Life is about relationships. Girlfriends, boyfriends, marital, friends, parental, addictions, inanimate, pets, and the plethora more. Who -or what- you share your life with can boost your emotions. Give you confidence when you need it. Laugh together. Share your sadness. And you reciprocate that same support. Bonds of love, of varying degrees, coalesce and strengthen through time. This wonderment only succeeds when you have an honest relationship with your self.
This relationship with your self is the single most important relationship you can have. Who you are is the important variable to every relationship. This personal connection within you keeps you on a positive track. Losing this connection derails you. It gets hard sometimes to find that positive again.
Positive doesn’t mean happy. It means being honest. Having an honest relationship with your self isn’t always easy. In fact, it rarely is. It can feel like piecing a puzzle together without a picture to guide you. With it comes some form of compromise. That is scary…and liberating when you succumb to it.
It is this introspection that transgender females and males have to our advantage. We are bound by our dysphoria to seek out our truth. To search for that which makes us different. We do this young, typically between 4 – 6 years of age. Our proclivity for deep independent thought allows us to truly find our selves. That is the journey.
My marriage failed because I allowed it to. I could have continued to deny myself of a nurturing relationship. I tried all I could, I was kind and attentive. I was present when we were together and took care of her when the needs arose. When my needs were in need of attention, she wasn’t there. She hadn’t that relationship with her self that was required to be. See, I accepted who I was and that wasn’t the me she expected I would be. My relationship with my own self was finally more important than denying either one of us honest happiness.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought
“Happiness comes from within” is more than just a cute aphorism. The second verse of the Dhammapada reads, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.”
I realized I was fighting both sides of the battle to stay a couple. My thoughts waned from pure to muddled. So, when she asked if I was going to transition to a woman, I said yes. I didn’t hesitate agreeing that I should leave. It was obvious and it wasn’t painful. It simply was.
I was honest with myself for the first time in what my life path was. I hadn’t the foresight to see how my leaving would end up letting her poison the minds of my beautiful children. Had I known the ramifications of my decision, would I have still left? I honestly don’t know.
Working on my relationship with my self has been in earnest over the last half dozen years. Out of that toxic relationship, I was drawn into a relationship with the most affectionate and beautiful woman I have ever known. We have been together while I was pre-transition, during my transition and my post-transition. My girlfriend and I have seen each other at our appalling worst and our glorious best.
In the nascent stages of our relationship, there were scores of questions
I was strong enough and honest enough with my relationship with my self that I told her about me a month into our being with each other. She was strong enough and honest enough with her self to want to stay. In the nascent stages of our relationship, there were scores of questions. I was honest with her in answering. I was amazed that she was eager to understand, I fell in love with her there, on the isolated bench, overlooking the grassy hillock and early Spring foliage. I knew I never wanted to leave her.
Then, shortly into our relationship…Zingo! My decades old defenses returned, conflicting my self. I regressed and started giving up pieces of me. This lasted for a time, until my self realized what was playing out and I had to make a decision. From then on, our relationship has been healthy.
By healthy, I don’t mean fairytale perfect. I am a fallible transgender female, also with a cripplingly over-analytical, estrogen infused, brain. As such, I have strayed from my happiness path on numerous occasions. Each time this has tested the resolve of our relationship. She has continually torn down my reticent defenses and we communicate honestly.
We are right now on a return engagement of sorts. Rejections from my past latched onto present moments which cast dark shadows on my self. We are committed to each other and are committed to our nearly 6-year relationship. My self knows her self on every level, as she does mine. Our relationship, this threesome we have together, is of indestructible beauty. We have the key to the door to each other’s happiness.
mir, irini, peace, amn,
-jahn
jahn westbrook – |Twitter | E-mail
“Life Reset” captures moments of my journey to becoming the female I should have been born as…since that universal magician played a trick on me and birthed me male.
