not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.

Here's something Papi sprung on me this morning.  "Do you know what happened a year ago today?!"

I thought about it and freaked out.

What have I missed?!?!

What important day have I forgotten?!?!?

My love enlightened me with a proud face, "One year ago today you were sobbing your eyes out because I had my top surgery."

Oh god, yes.

Now I remember.  The Great Breast Disappearance in Florida.

I have selective memory.  That, and I've concluded my 5 stages of grief and moved on to acceptance.

I do look back at that time and realized that I may have been a little more dramatic about the whole thing, but hindsight truly is 20/20.

I wish I knew then what I know now.

But isn't that the story of our lives?

It's why we're here in this beautiful life.

To learn.

My love's scars on his chest are calming down now.  They seem to be less angry.

So do I.

Everything seems back to normal now.

I guess.

Here's something funny.

I think Papi's chin hair is kinda cute.

Yes.  I said cute.

It used to freak me out, even just to think about the fact that there would be hair there.

It's no longer just face fuzz.  It's more bristly now, but it's sweet looking.

Maybe, it's because it's on my love.

I suppose it's because I love mi esposo so much that it just doesn't matter that there's fur there.

People see my love's changes so much more than I.

That's because I see him every day.  The changes are too slow for it to be drastic.

However, I realized that I'm seeing my love a little differently.

Still, it's hard for me to consciously think of my love as a male.

I'm not sure when that will happen, if ever.

I just see Papi as Papi.

I still can't say 'my husband'.

It's always 'my spouse'.  Other people will just jump to 'your husband' immediately in conversation.

They automatically assume that it's a male, because to this world, I'm just a straight girl.

Even as a lesbian in gay relationships, the world still sees me as straight.

It's hard to be a femme in the gay community.  We are completely invisible.

And disrespected.

And adored.

We are who we are.

Anyway, this femme is no longer searching for peace around Papi's male transformation.

I have found it.

It's called unconditional love.

we look forward to the time when the power of love replaces the love of power.  then our world will know the blessings of peace. ~ William Ewert Gladstone

Loss.

It was such a lovely start to my day today.

Morning coffee with one of my sweetest friends.

Of course, I was late.  I didn't set my alarm properly, because our hang out wasn't documented in my phone, hence I forgot.

sometimes, i think i'll never get better from this ridiculous brain injury!!!!!

That was of course, until I woke up and saw the message from her,"I'm in the coffee shop, see you soon!"

That brought on the 1 minute brushing of horrid morning breath, a hat to conceal my almost dreadlocked curls, a backwards shirt that now has toothpaste on it, and my day old socks I'd slept in to keep my tootsies warm at night.

Can you say, "Classy?!?!?"

Hey.

I never admitted to being classy in the first place.

I'm just your run of the mill white trash verging on redneck femme who managed to get out of the house in 5 minutes flat.

I got the the coffee shop, had a quick cuddle with my sweet friend, ordered coffee and went to squeeze my dose of honey in, when I was duped by some mother fucker who left the cap off.

So.

The entire lid and a really massive glop of honey went 'gloop' into my coffee.

No worries!

They made me another one, and handed me a really clean honey bear.  It's not often you get to have the 'cleaned' honey bear at a coffee shop.

From there it got better.

We did our best to catch up in a half hour, but it's never enough with her.  We need a full day to really get caught up.

But we did get to talk about Papi and I.

It's interesting to see someone you haven't seen in a while and be able to look at your current life situation and see how much has changed.

It's a bit akin to writing out your work résumé.  I don't know about you, but I feel pride when I see my life's attainments in one page.

Well, what I realized through our chit-chat is that I am doing well.

But I am feeling loss.

Those pictures of butch breasts at the Queer Arts Festival office still have me missing my love's soft tender breasts.

While talking about it with my friend, I could almost feel my love's cool plump nipple against my cheek.

I could almost feel the encounter of rubbing my fingertips along mi esposo's ample mounds.

I'll never get to feel them again.

The Great Breast Disappearance has created a huge loss.

The good news is, I am now at the place where I can stroke the healing scars on mi esposo's empty cavity, that was once an abundance of supple sweetness.

My love has always said that if I wanted to touch other women's breasts, that there would be no issue on Papi's behalf.

However, none of them are the beautiful mamms that I once held and felt against my own bosom.

Loss.

I suppose I'm now at the acceptance part of the 5 stages of grief.

Now that I'm here, is it supposed to stop hurting?

Well, it doesn't.

The Epic Moment has come!!

So, I was going to just point you to my article today and say here ya go: Today's Blob/Blab.

However, I had something I really felt I had to share about the epic moment.

I'm not actually referring to how this article is my first publication ever.

that you were here to witness mwuah!

I'm also not touching on the mushy love notes that friends are leaving on my Facebook page, and the delightful comments on the Xtra! page.

I'm certainly not going to bore you with how proud I am of myself, and how exciting it is to be embarking on a new adventure in creativity.

The epic moment has absolutely nothing to do with my first-ever published article.

It's about Papi.

i mean c'mon. it's all about papi really, right?

Anyway, I knew the day would come when I'd hear the words that could only feel whole if accompanied by an air fist pump.

 I just didn't know it would be so soon!

You see, my love has been diligently working his aim.

I bought mi esposo some handy dandy earth friendly wipes ...

... that have awesome words worth reading on the back.

They were there for Papi in case there was some troubles with penis practise.

Well, yesterday my love took the usual stroll down our narrow hallway/catwalk for a Bathroom Buddy visit.

Papi has been very respectful of my recent phobia unleashing it's Pit of Doom, and has been good about closing the bathroom door to be sure I don't get any unwanted Plastic Penis ogling.

I heard the door slide shut and then the loud stream, that by all laws of physics, creates an echo because of the depth of distance between stream and toilet water.

did i mention that it's loud?

So, there I was doing something in the kitchen ...

... i'm there 3/4 of the day really ... when am i not in there making wheat free, dairy free, alternatively sweetened, organic food?

... when I heard it!

"YES!!"

Papi followed this up with, "I didn't spray on the toilet or the floor and the seat was already up!"

It was mi esposo's shining moment.

So, yeah.

I had to share that instead of just pointing you to my first article published.

Well, if I'm being totally honest, I was also going to point you to an event tonight that is free and internet wide.

I have a project called Bluelight and we're performing live on air tonight.

Please join us wherever you are via live streaming at 7:00pm Pacific Time.

Ok.

So, that's everything I was going to tell you.

Now I'm going to go bask in the rays of pride.

Is 'selfish' one of the 5 stages of grieving?

Soooooo ...

I'm still screwed.

Not that it's really anything out of the ordinary in my world of re-occurring back injury flare ups, but the timing on this one really couldn't be worse.

Remember I was talking about the Gender Odyssey and how they actually accepted me for a subsidy?

Well, there's not a hope in hell that in 48 hours I'll be strong enough to handle a 3 hour drive to Seattle.

Hence, I've missed the Pride Parade, missed being in Dykes on Bikes, and now I'm going to miss going with My Person to Gender Odyssey, even though I've already paid my subsidized entry.

permission to have a temper tantrum now, please?!

What's interesting to me however, is the fact that I was really looking forward to going.

yes. you read that right. i was looking forward to going.

It's a strange phenomenon, because never in my life have I even stopped to consider much about the third gender.  I've been burrowed in my bubble, never thinking that for a second that I may need to take the time to think about the topic.

Really!

I mean, if I'm not going to date an F-M, because it's not what I'm attracted to, why would I need to grow and learn around this?

ahhh ... the irony

No.

I'm just going to date someone of the third gender, be in denial about it for a couple of years, marry them, then 4 months later, sit in a La-Z-Boy for 6 weeks straight sobbing because my soul mate dropped the transgender, male transformation bomb.

So, when I think about the fact that I was looking forward to going, it shocks me.

Now I do want to learn more about my core issues, so that my mind will open further, and there will be acceptance and love around this topic.

this also means I have to learn to love the hairy legs that have popped up on mi esposo.

I actually am grateful to Papi having thrown me into the pit of doom on this one.

There is nobody else in this world that I could love this much, and stay with throughout this.

So in turn, I'm forced to find a place within my heart where this male transformation can fit, and I can be more of a loving person, instead of fighting this every step of the way.

I feel horrible when my love has problems with injections and I'm not there emotionally to help.

Oh, I'm around, but I'll be in the other room, trying to pretend it isn't happening.

if you ignore it, it will go away ... wait ... i've been trying that for almost 9 months now ... how come it hasn't worked yet?!?!?

The other day, my love asked with sincerity, "Honey, if I'm having trouble with my injections, do you think you're able to help me now?"

I wanted to say, "No," like I have from the beginning, but this is my love!

I stopped the bratty teenager from blurting out her negativity and took a look at mi esposo.  I saw the pleading look in Papi's eyes.

I can't keep hanging this sweet soul out to do everything without any support, so I said, "Yes, I can sweety."

This is the person who has been my care-giver since the accident and does everything for me when I need support.

How could I ever not help mi esposo?

How selfish can I be?!

Yes, it's hard, but damn!  It's time to get off the pity pot and start being there for Papi.  If I'm sticking around to see this love through to the end, then I should act like it.

I guess that's why I was excited to go to Gender Odyssey.  It was to be fresh steps into the rabbit hole of my own mania.

I want to learn more about myself and my clandestine contention around all this.  I really want to be of support and giving of love.

I have to remember that if it were reversed, Papi would drop everything to help me.

The Princess and the 'T'

"Honey guess what I'm getting?!?"

i'm afraid to ask ... so i won't

"I'm getting sideburns!" Papi said and jumped onto the bed.

I honestly looked with all the bleary eyed vision I could, but I didn't see anything.  Then Papi continued, "You'll have to get a magnifying glass to see it but it's there!!!"

I rolled my eyes and laughed at my love, and I was immediately reproached, "Don't try to say you can't see it!  Don't lie!  Honey can you see it?!?"

I finally spoke, "All I see is mole hair."

"HONEY!!!!" Papi yelled and the bed seemed to be having it's very own earthquake as mi esposo crawled up close as possible to be sure there was a cheek stuffed right in my face.  Even Sir Bark-A-Lot felt the fear and his eyes widened in fear of the possibility of a giant human trampling him.

No.

I didn't see it, but all of a sudden, Papi was at an angle that enabled me to see something else.  My eyes must have bugged out of my head, because my love could tell what I was looking at.

"Yeah!  See!  Under my chin, I've got more hair!!"

Indeed.  There was more hair under my love's chin.  Coarse, black hair that was definitely the beginning of my fear of the beard.

I couldn't deny this one.  There was definitely hair there, "Yeah, I see it," I said with not as much enthusiasm as my love wished for.

I just can't be happy for it.

Shaggy, stubly, smelly, dirty beard hair is not on my list of 'likes'.  We all know that by now.

My love only wants a soul patch, and it seems that's where it's not growing.

i still don't see the sideburns

A soul patch is much different than a full on man hair beard.

I get reports daily about the various people that will either call my love a girl or a boy.  It was the same before all the poisons started being injected into my love's body.

I still don't like the hormones.

I still don't like that stuff careening through Papi's blood.

I still have moments where I feel like bargaining.

I guess this means I'm still not past the 5 stages of grief.  I'm definitely in a better place than I was in December, but damn!!!  I have yet to find utter peace at the end of the path.

rainbows and puppy dogs and my butch back in my arms ...

I know that everyone who has followed my journey says I'm doing well, moving fast, being strong, but I just don't know if I will ever be out of denial.

all i see is my butch

I still don't have pronouns down, and I'm not sure as to when I will.

Well, other than when we get to the Dominican Republic.  I'll be speaking in Spanish, so I will be using the proper pronouns there.

But here?

Nope.

I just keep repeating my love's name.  I sound like a teen who can't stop talking about her first true love.

And I'll tell you, saying Papi's name over and over, in front of every sentence, non-stop is a bit aggravating to me, so I can't imagine how annoying it must be to others!

None-the-less, I continue to work through this.

My bargaining stage flows in and out, and I never speak it out loud.  I just think it, "Maybe you could just be without breasts and forget about this male transformation thing as a whole."

No.

I never say it out loud.  I just imagine it.

I envision my love saying, "These hormones aren't giving me a soul patch that I want so there's no point in being on them anymore."

i am a princess in a fairy tale land ...

Stage 2 of grief?

It's interesting that when we're in a state of loss/grief that we think it's never going to end.  Everyone keeps telling me it will end, but damn I feel like this is going to be my state for the rest of my life.  This is when I feel like I want out.  I just want the pain to end and honestly there's only one way to stop it.  But I'm not going to be selfish and make others go through grief and loss over me.  I'm just going to remain the sacrificial lamb.

I know that when others are suffering, it's so bloody easy for me to promise them that there will come a day when the tears will stop.  They will look at me with those doe eyes of denial and take a step back from me and delve further into their distressed thoughts, alone and defiant.

I've been through grief once before.  I had an ex that became a heroin addict and I gave her the ultimatum that it was me or the drugs.  I knew what I was indicating.  It meant I was leaving, because heroin will win every time.

Off I went and the grieving began.  It was 2 years before I got over it.  It felt as though she was dead yet still walking this earth.  I cried every day for months on end, until I noticed the changes begin.

I started crying with a few days breaks here and there, and then the tear-free days started to outnumber the wailing days.

Eventually, I would only cry when those nasty hormones would come and invade my body once a month.  PMS would kick me while I was down and I'd spend that time waking up with those swollen, translucent eyelids for the world to see.  The evidence that I wasn't quite over my loss yet.

One fancy day came when I was PMSing about 2 years later that I cried about something different.  Those were the happiest tears I have ever cried.  I probably looked like a lunatic smiling and crying at the same time.  It was a glorious day.  I knew that I was getting over the pain and heading into the 5th stage of grief.  Acceptance.

So, here I am again grieving and suffering a loss, even though my love is still alive.  I'm losing the wife I married to an F-M that I haven't met yet.  Papi can't figure out why I'm grieving, because my love is still here and says they will be the same person.

My love doesn't get that all I'll be left with is a different version of the same shell, just like our home when it's done it's restorations.  In our home, we get to choose what it will look like.  With my love, it's a crapshoot.  I don't get to see this new person until it's too late and permanent.  I have the worst image in my head as to what my love will look like.

I know one thing for certain; Papi won't look like the person in our wedding photos.  Will I be able to look at them in time to come?  This is the person that's leaving me.  All that is guaranteed to me is I get to keep the mind and heart of my wife.

I'm starting to feel the anger of my love's male transformation decision.  It welled up on X-mas when I finally got upset with my love and expressed that my feelings of loss and grief aren't being respected.  I told Papi that the person I wind up with is not the person I married and will never again be that beautiful butch in the photos from the best day of my life.  I'm losing out and all Papi can say is, "But I'm still going to be the same person.  You're not losing 'me'."

Wrong.  My love is leaving and I'm being forced into an arranged marriage.

We've only been married since July and I'm already being abandoned.  I want my happily ever after damn it!

So, yes, I suppose I'm getting to the second stage of grief.  I'm angry.  I read a blog that I'm surely going to be showing to my love.  This M-F has gone through the transition and their blog expressed that yes! all your relationships are going to change.  It's what I've been trying to tell my love.  It's not only my love's beautiful body and skin that will be changing, it's also myself and our marriage.

I was able to express my feelings for about 5 minutes without crying and the only reason was because I was hopping mad that my love just doesn't get it.  I don't want to be angry with Papi.  I love my soul mate so much that I don't want any pain inflicted upon that wonderful person.  But I am starting to get angry now.

My recent back injury is calming down and it couldn't come at a better time.  It's time to go to the gym and show that rowing machine who's boss.  Maybe beat myself up a bit to get out the venom that's beginning to roam through my veins replacing the poison that has held me down for a month and a half.

I don't recommend anybody get on my bad side for a little while.  I think I'll still be keeping off Facebook lest I show my insanity to the world.  I just can't pretend to be the person that people have experienced as their virtual 'friend'.  I don't know who I can trust with this sick grieving person.

Besides, out of my 636 'friends' there, only a few have realized I've disappeared.  Thanx for the love.  You 'friends' really know how to make someone feel supported.

Yup.  I'm angry.  I'm just glad I have 'you', my imaginary friend to hear me out.  I promise to keep it to a simmer with 'you'.

I feel like a leprechaun ready to start fighting Irish.  Where's my boxing gloves?!?!

5 stages of grief.

You're supposed to go through these in order, apparently. So far I'm not following the norm, but in my life, I never really do. It's supposed to start with denial, move to anger, begin bargaining, fall into depression and finally accept it. Well, I'm like a bull in a china shop right now, crashing from one to the next.

Really I started with denial before my love even told me about the decision of male transformation. I honestly thought that if Papi just kept binding, packing and using the men's washroom that would be enough. From the beginning of our relationship, my love has been vocal about removing those beautiful breasts through 'top surgery'.

I could understand Papi's pain in a way, because I have never been happy about my own breasts and wanted to have a breast lift since I was a teenager. I have never wanted them to be bigger, I've wanted them smaller so I would never have to wear a bra like some of my itty bitty titty friends. That has always been my dream. But I learned to accept my breasts and I found million dollar bras that made me feel more comfortable about them.

I've never really been happy with anything about my body and my eating disorder has hindered what I see in the mirror. I had to come to terms with my disease and take control of it. I now have control over the disorder, it doesn't rule my life anymore, but I still see distorted images of myself in the mirror. I honestly don't see the 'tiny' body people tell me I have. I just accept that they see something different than I do.

Anyway, back to the stages. When Papi first told me of the decision to become an F-M, depression set in and it hasn't left. I have cried tears of grief over losing my wife every day but 3 for a month now. Sometimes I feel like when I'm being honest with my love about my feelings, I'm giving Papi a look into my war trenched brain and I have hopes that this will give my love a hint that I would like to bargain.

I won't bargain out loud, because I cannot be the one to ask my love to change anything about this decision. If my love does anything to change this decision, then that choice wouldn't be for Papi, it would be because of my pain over the whole thing. If that happened, there would be resentment on my love's behalf, because Papi wouldn't be doing it for anyone but me. It would destroy our relationship. Resentment seeps into love and rots it.

So, just as my fear predicted, there were the words last night from my love, "I'm going to stay on a low dose of testosterone."

I was terrified. Was Papi doing this for me? Oh my god, if that's the case then there could be bitterness in the future. I said, "You can't do this for me. It will destroy our relationship."

"But I see you crying every day and I don't want my decision to be what destroys our relationship."

So. There was a bit of bargaining. I just stared at Papi and didn't say anything more. I can't be the one to make any decisions for my love. I have to remain silent when it comes to this. I already harmed the heart of Papi by telling the truth about the change in smell I've noticed and how it affected me.

This is so hard. This is the hardest, fearful and lonely thing I've ever gone through in my life. My gorgeous wife is leaving me and is being replaced with a person I don't even get to see or meet until they're here. I don't know who this person will look like and they are not who I married. I married my beautiful butch. All I want is my beautiful butch.

The grief is overwhelming. If this is the depression part of the stages, I really don't want to see the anger part! It might be over the top! In my life, I've noticed that a sign of my own depression is when I take on strangers as if I were a mama bear and god forbid anyone do wrong.

It happened on my 'off day' day off from speaking to 'you' my imaginary friend. I saw a man hit a woman because the elevator was too full and she was trying to tell him to stop pushing. Nobody did anything, so I intervened by stopping the elevator door with my foot, grabbing him by the shirt and telling him to "Get the fuck off this elevator NOW!"

He was shocked and slightly afraid, but I saw him look for any kind of evidence that I was someone with lawful authority. When he realized I wasn't that person, he told me he was staying on this elevator. I told him I would remove him if he didn't do it himself and then everyone left the elevator leaving me, the other crazy person alone with the nutbar.

Finally, a man bigger than me decided to take control and I happily allowed him to. When I got on the next elevator with all the people who had left the violent man, one woman said, "You're very brave to have done that, but you have to be careful. You don't know what you're dealing with."

I replied, "Oh I know exactly what I was dealing with!" Us crazies know each other well.

"But he could have hit you."

"I would have hit him harder." And I looked at the 80-something man beside me who gave me the nod of approval.

Yup. When I'm crazy, I'm really crazy. I wanted to take out all the hurt and pain on someone who really deserved it. I would have become that mama bear that in the past has lifted a man off the ground by way of his shirt and slammed him against the wall, leaving him to piss himself.

He was drunk and was warned about my precious keyboard that he was leaning too close to. He fell on it and spilled his beer onto the knobs. I saw red and it resulted with him running out of the party with piss stained pants practically crying of fear. I was too busy trying to save my keyboard to notice the flee.

I don't know where this mama bear comes from, but when she's here, she's a scary person. My heart's pounding just thinking about her. She's an odd part of my personality. If I'm having a depression over the grief this bad, I'm very afraid about the anger stage.

I would like to just jump to the acceptance part if I could. That would please me. I want someone to tell me how to do this. Anyone?