I keep jumping on, writing a post, intending to get back at blogging daily but then I don’t. I can’t really figure out why this keeps happening. I started out the year strong, but got distracted for some unknown reason. Maybe it’s just that I got really busy with kid sports and life. Maybe I went into some weird place mentally. Maybe the reason is just unknown to even me. I intend to keep at it this time, but also recognize that we are going out of town this weekend. Even though I will be bringing my computer, I may get too wrapped up in what’s going on that I don’t have the energy to actually write. We will see, I guess.
For updates, Boy #2 graduated last week, Boy #1 came into town with his roommate and was a complete jackass, my parents told me months ago that they couldn’t make the graduation due to unknown expenses (which weren’t so unknown I found out), Girl has decided to continue her break from soccer and wants to stick with lacrosse. And my college is closing.
Yeah, that one hit hard. We have known the college has been struggling financially for years but we didn’t see the closure coming this year. Sadly the college continues to make poor choices and told everyone, including faculty, staff, and students at the end of April. APRIL. The college chosen to be the “preferred teach-out partner” is one that is hours away and not even a little bit similar. It’s infuriating. So unfair to students who planned on returning and incoming students who had already put in their deposit. I can’t even wrap my mind around the mess that this has created for some of these students.
I really enjoyed coaching lacrosse goalies this season. I ended up working with all the goalies and found great success with the older two. They were both receptive to my suggestions and ideas about what they needed to work on. They both made amazing strides in a short period of time. I know that I can make them even better as well, although the oldest is moving on to high school. From what I understand, they don’t have a goalie-specific coach, so they’re on their own at that level. There’s a coach that works with them, but not someone who played as a goalie. That’s where the greatest success comes from-people who understand the struggle that is lacrosse goalie. Speaking of which, our college is having their last reunion this year and we are going. There’s an alum lacrosse game planned, which is pretty exciting! Time for real in the goal again. I only needed to buy padded shorts to play, so I am ready to go! I played on the field during practice with some of the players I am ooaching, but it’s not the same thing as actually playing in a game.
For more personal stuff, I have come out as trans to more people in my life, with the remaining ones in key areas of life that I interact with on a regular basis-the people at my wife’s work, the lacrosse league (which I am not sure I will notify in any way), some family members that I really want to know before I just make it all public, and then public. It has felt so good to tell people and it’s gone really well every time so far. The more that I accept myself mentally and move into who I really am, the more frustrating it is to hear the wrong pronouns and my birth name. I already despised my birth name so hearing it now is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Bottom line, I am tired of living in two worlds some of the time so I need to get to one side of this, which is the side that is harder for other people to get to.
There are some people I have so much fear about telling them I am trans. I honestly love them, they aren’t hateful people who generally spend time hating others, but I just don’t know how they will react. And that is what scares me. I wish I knew who would be supportive and who will be a problem to keep in my life.
And then there’s my parents. After seeing them in the fall and then again in March, both times my father ignored me for a period of time afterwards. He’s also borderline cruel, like he cannot stand how I look. I am not what he wanted and I know this. I have always known this. But based on his shitty behavior and my mom’s coldness, I have decided to continue with low/limited contact with them. We mostly only message anyway. My father and I haven’t done a podcast in months and I have decided that I am done at this time, after he treated me like a child in front of my children while we were visiting in March. That’s a line I won’t allow him to cross. It took a lot for me to get him to stop talking down to me and then he started it back up again. I will not allow that and he never speaks to my brother that way. He didn’t when we actually were kids either. Once my brother was a teenager, he got more respect than I do now. No more of that disrespect for me.
I still sometimes have these thoughts that I really wish I wasn’t trans. I have worked so hard to not hate myself and not wish I was anybody but me. I have spent so much of my life trying to be someone else. It doesn’t work. I wish I could make people understand that no one would choose to feel like I do. I tried so hard to fit in and be what I thought I was supposed to be, but it was so much work. Working on something that feels completely unauthentic to who you are at your core is such a waste of time and energy. The less I am trying to be someone else, the more energy I have for living and loving. That’s the place where I want to be.
So I haven’t been avoiding writing completely; I have been writing some songs. Or poems at this point I guess, because I don’t write music. I hear the words in my head without music. Boy #1 could help with that, but he’s really busy with the rest of his life. He’s just not in a place right now where he can help. He’s got to get his own life together at this point.
Hopefully I will be back writing more tomorrow, or even later today once I get a few things done around the house. I do enjoy blogging and I want to stick with it. I started this year strong and then I faded out, so maybe this isn’t my year for blogging after all! Or maybe it still is, just more so the second half of the year instead of the entire year.
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