I'm ok, how are you?

I have been posting links to my blog in places that I go because, well it's always nice to be read. One of the effects this has had is a lot of people asking me, "Are you ok?" In my last post I included a few lines about how I try to keep things light and humorous and try to end on a bright note. I even apologized for sounding too sappy and viewing things with rose colored glasses.

This is apparently this is not how this blog reads to other people. After talking it over with some of my closest friends I think I know what is happening. Some of the things that happen to me, just don't happen to most people. This is especially true of some of what I write about here since this is largely about things I wish I could have handled differently.  I think maybe people like to believe that they don't happen at all, or at least they like to not think too hard about. When they read some of my posts, even if I write them with the best spin I can muster, they feel uncomfortable and even dismayed.

Having said that, now please allow me to depress you with the amusing anecdote I had intended to write about today.

Discrimination is a very funny thing. Years ago after my transition I lost a lot of things. Some friends, a lot of the closeness I had with my family, the stuff you would expect. What I was not fully prepared for was how odd discrimination feels. 

I was pushed out of one pretty good job after my approved medical leave was retroactively de- approved when they learned what the surgery was for. Of course believing my time off was approved I didn't call in "sick" and there went that job. I tried going to various temp agencies, most never called. One however went so far as to 'politely' tell me that they "don't place people like me." Even fast food was a bust with one place "losing" my paperwork four times after one manager agreed to hire me on without checking with the other one. 

It isn't all just job stuff. I like to think I look pretty good, but I am tall and not really very into being really femme unless I am in that sort of a mood, so I get read sometimes. When that happens I get looks, mis-gendered etc. You know the drill. All of this used to really affect me. Recently though that may have changed.

I was getting gas and tic tacs and a soda at my local gas station. It was early and I didn't really have anywhere in particular to go later so i was dressed comfortably with minimal makeup. Anyway so I slide into line to pay behind this maybe 50+ guy and a very short crew cut and he sort of glares at me. Reflexively, I try to smile disarmingly as I have taught myself to do. Well his reaction was to scowl and exclaim, "Don't you smile at me, freak." 

It all just seemed so absurd to me  that I couldn't help but laugh in his face right out loud. I told him to buy his gas and leave me the hell alone and he did just that. All those years that sort of thing has made be feel small or uncomfortable, I should have been laughing instead. 

Now I see that post as uplifting and a personal triumph. When I look again though, through the eyes of someone who maybe hasn't gone through anything similar, I can see how it might be shocking, even disheartening just to hear that some of those things had happened.

I am ok. In fact, I'm doing great!

For the longest time I couldn't talk about the things that happen to me. Transition and the depression and uncertainty of it all was "too much" for many of my "friends" at the time so they just sort of peeled away and vanished. Since then I just taught myself not to talk about what was bothering me. I was so sacred to share the difficult stuff. "What if they don't want to deal with it... or me?" I've held my tongue for a long time and now I have things to say. It is nice to be finding my own voice.

Even without talking about it, all of these things still really happen to me, and other people. Worse things happen to others. Maybe people close by or even people you know. Ignoring that, not talking about it, well that doesn't help anything. It might be nice to just pretend they don't happen to us or to those near us, but they do.

I'm sorry if some of the things I write about aren't exactly pleasant to read about. They happened, but I'm ok.

I'm ok. Are you? I'll listen if there is something you need to say.