Moving day
CBC left for Long Island today.
We talked on the phone for over 3½ hours last night, well past my bedtime. Last night wasn’t the only long, late-night phone session this week either. Jesus that girl can talk. Headsets, I tell you, are a godsend.
In fact, halfway through last night, when it appeard it would be a marathon session, I took my meds, got undressed, took off my glasses, turned out the light and got into bed. Only had to pop the headset out of my ear and roll over when we were done. It’s noon and I’m just getting up. Feeling a little out-of-sorts because of the timeshifting.
I’m still pretty cool with the move. I haven’t burst into tears yet, and it doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. Nor does my mood match the gloomy weather. I guess it’s my experience with people I’m really, really close with, moving away just as things are getting good.
I’m pretty good with long-distance friendships. Willie, Jeffrey and journal friends have been good experience. Although I still suffer from the out-of-sight, out-of-mind syndrome on occassion. There’s always room for improvement.
Anyway, time pressure has continued to force issues between us. In a good way, since we both have a tendency to lay back and avoid talking about them.
CBC said that she’s really confused by her feelings right now. Here she is, moving back to a place where she felt uncomfortable enough to move from just four years ago. I was an easy decision and she had no qualms about it until three weeks ago.
Apparently—picking up with someone after months, yet having it seem like only days or hours—happens seldom enough in her life that it was something of a shock. A pleasant one, but still a shock.
Coupled with finding real substance in connecting with the Saturday night gang, she’s been questioning the decision, even as she loaded the truck yesterday.
“I’ve been living here for four years and made only three or four friends,” she said. “Now in three weeks before moving away, I’ve made triple or quadruple that.”
“AA is like that,” I replied.
“Maybe I can drive up every week for the meeting and dinner at Jine’s. It’s only 5½ hours or so in the Benz.”
“Maybe it’s a better idea to get hooked into AA downstate.”
“But there’s no GLBT meetings out where I live.”
“So go to GLBT meetings in Manhattan before, during or after work.”
Anyway, we talked a lot about how we met and how well we clicked—once we settled the disagreement over which night. I didn’t let on that it’s here in the journal. “Yeah,” I told her, “when you walked in to that meeting I thought, my prayers have been answered. Then after when we started talking I went, Oh my God! If there was a form you fill out online, check off everything you wanted, put in your credit card and have a husband delivered, he’s it. Except, of course for the one thing.”
“Me too. Except for one thing.”
“I’ve got a dick,” I finished for her. “I’ve heard that complaint before.” From Jeffrey.
“Did Pam ever tell you she knew about us all along? She said you used almost those exact same words when you told her about meeting me.”
[For background, read the newly-posted March 22 entry titled, Transgender 101.]
I hadn’t mentioned it because if it was something Pam wanted to share with CBC, then she should share it not I. “Yeah, she told me the other day. And she told me you said almost exactly the same thing to her a couple of days after I told her about you.”
“That’s so weird. Why didn’t she say anything to us?”
“That’s easy,” I replied. “She takes confidentiality seriously. Once we figured it out for ourselves, then she felt free to tell us.”
“It would have helped to know. I’ve been so confused.”
“By what?”
“Well… First you didn’t hit on me—”
“Boy, did I want to, though,” I interrupted. “But you know the reason I didn’t. Respect. Aretha sang a song about it. I respect you enough to follow the program and not risk fucking with your head with a relationship too early in your sobriety. I thought, just keep your dick in your pants and keep your letcherous thoughts to yourself.”
There was a giggle from the other end of the line.
I matched it before continuing, “Become a friend—a good friend—and let things flow from there.”
“Yeah, well, things have flowed, haven’t they?”
“They have—”
Her turn to interrupt, “That had me confused too.”
“In what way?”
“I really started questioning my sexuality and gender identity—”
“No way! You too?”
“Uh huh. You?”
“Man, you’re the first person ever in my life that made me ask the question, could I jump the fence?”
“You couldn’t.”
“Nope. Took me about half-a-day to decide it wouldn’t be true to myself.”
“Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“Oh man. Don’t say that! It worked out exactly the way I’d hoped it would, even if it doesn’t go quite as far. I’m happy. Maybe I don’t get a boyfriend out the deal, but I get a sister. I’ve had boyfriends before, but I never had a sister. It’s new and different. I’m kinda likin’ it.”
“And now I’m moving away.” She choked off a sob.
“Oh fuck me, CBC. Why do you think I’ve been pestering for your email address and the address of your apartment? And why do you think I asked you what time your free evening minutes begin on your phone?
“Dude,” I went on, “Hello? It’s the 21st century. We can still talk all the time. I can email you stupid shit I find online and have already started a clipping file of stuff to mail to you.
“And, you said it yourself, it’s only 5½ hour away in the Benz. A little longer for me by rail, but I can get right to your stop, no problem, right from quaint little Rochesterville. Worse comes to worst, Jet Blue has five nonstops to JFK every day.”
“You know, you’re welcome to come and stay any time, for as long as you like.”
“Of course,” I scoffed. “How could you refuse a visit from your big brother upstate? There was never a doubt in my mind—but it’s nice to hear you say it.”
Things wandered from there as they’re prone to do when you have two ADD people in one conversation—current affairs, politics, war, family, religion. With the last two I saw the opportunity sew a couple of things together.
“I’ve never asked you,” I started. “Where do you stand on past lives and reincarnation?”
“I dunno. I’m confused there too. It’s something I feel, but as a Christian, well, only Christ can be resurrected.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. It may not be somewhere in the Bible, but the predominant Christian sect in Lebanon fully lives the idea. Most of the past life research in the world right now centers on them. They don’t just have multi-generational family reunions, they have multi-life family reunions. It’s like, ‘Mom, I’d like you to meet my mom from before.’ Sorta gives new meaning to that Heather Has Two Mommies book.”
She laughed.
“And the Catholics have their Pergatory. Who’s to say this isn’t it? The Pope sure as hell won’t tell us. Whether this is the first life or Pergatory, either way he wants our asses out of here.”
“Funny you should mention the Pope,” she said. “I went to a past-life thing with [a friend] once. The person putting it on, one-by-one, told everyone in the room about their past lives. Until she got to me. She pointed her finger at me and said, ‘You! We can’t talk about you here. See me privately afterwards.’”
“Yeah, so what happened?”
“She told me I was once the mistress of some Pope in the middle-ages.”
My turn to laugh.
She continued, “And that I campaigned, behind the scenes of course—”
“You mean beneath the sheets.”
“Whatever. But I campaigned for women’s and minority rights.”
“And see? You still do. You’re stuck in a 500 year rut,” I teased.
“Fuck you. I don’t really believe it though, coming from that sort of setting.”
“Fine. You close with any three-year-olds?”
“Yeah, my nephew.”
“Okay. Next time you see him, ask him this question: Do you remember when you were big? See, any younger and they can’t articulate it. Any older and childrearing in this society washes it out. Three’s just about right.”
“Okay. I will. Next week. But you know,” she went on, “you’re kinda freaking me out with this brother-sister stuff.”
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“I dunno. The way we clicked almost instantly. It seems like maybe we really were once before.”
“Nah. When you were the Pope’s mistress? I was your bitch-boy on the side. Or maybe his. It was a long time ago. I forget.”
“Now who’s stuck in a 500 year rut?”
See why I like CBC? She can take it and dish it right back at me. Of course, me being me, I took it a step too far and without missing a beat retorted, “Yeah, so slap me around a bit, then fuck me until Western Civilization implodes.”
Silence on the line.
Ooops.
“Shit! I’m sorry, CBC. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No,” she sighed. “It’s okay. I didn’t take it that way.” A beat. “It just reminds me of how confused I am about everything.”
“Oh man. I’m so, so, sorry. You have enough on your plate without me adding to it.
“Listen. I’m remarkably cool with your decision, okay? I mean, since I was four, I knew without question and with every fiber of my being that I’m gay. When you told me you’d felt the same about being TG since about the same age, it was case-closed for me. I respect that.
“I won’t ever try to talk you out of having the operation, okay? My concern is that with all the other confusion in your life right now—family, career, roommate, alcoholism, me—that it’s not the right time to make the committment is all.
“Remember when you told me how great it felt when your broker or lawyer or whatever called you on the phone to say you’re officially a millionaire?”
“Yeah.”
“And other than having to manage a few commas in your checkbook, it really, fundamentally didn’t change your life, right?”
“No.”
“Still the same old CBC with the same old problems, only richer.”
“Yeah,” she sighed.
“Then you wanted to start fresh and move to Rochester. What happened then?”
“Same thing.”
“Right. I don’t want you to feel the same way after your operation. That would be tragic—forever questioning whether it was the right thing to do, simply because you’d still have the same old problems.”
“But statistically,” she argued, “we transgenders don’t live very long without having it. Life’s too stressful always feeling like you don’t belong and always having to play a role. I could win an Oscar for playing a boy.”
“No doubt. You did it well enough to fool me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nonono! Quit apologizing, will ya? Christ! Remember, I sorta led you on too by not being forthcoming about wanting to get in you shorts, right?”
“You were just being nice.”
“And so were you. And remember? You had pink toenails the night we met. So get over yourself, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, I don’t know about the actuarial tables for transgenders who don’t have the surgery, but I do know—from personal experience—several who were unhappy afterwards. Whether it was core unhappiness that, surprise, the surgery didn’t cure or they felt they’d made the wrong decision—either way, every single one of them took their own lives. I really, really don’t want to lose you that way. Jet Blue doesn’t go there.”
She started crying again. Geez, has nobody ever loved this child?
“Aw c’mon, CBC. I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying don’t do it right now. Take the year or two the program recommends about making major decisions. Sort yourself out, clear up the other confusions in your life. Work the Steps. Find the joy inside you and in your life.
“That’s when to do it—when you’re on the upside of things. That way, it’s the icing on the cake of a whole new you, not just a new cover over the same old you that you don’t like anyway. See the difference?”
“I think so.”
“Lemme put it another way. Get your shit straight first and you’ll forever remove from your mind any doubt—even the possibility of doubt forming—so that when you come out of it with that shiny new handcrafted pussy and those beautiful boobs that won’t sag at least until you’re 80, you never have to look back. Dig?”
I could go on, but I think you get the gist of how our conversation went. Only for 3½ fucking hours. I was beat afterwards and glad I was already in bed. And it felt good that, even though I’d never touched a stick of furniture or packed a single box, I’d helped a friend move.
April 2nd, 2005 at 9:40 pm EST
hug Thank you for sharing that conversation.