It is Sunday about 8:00 on a gray and misty Seattle morning. The drizzle is drifting and gentle, I sit in my office feeling remarkably peaceful. My life is full. Last week I spent a few days on the Oregon coast visiting friends I have been blessed to know in the trans community. Tessa is an activist both in the trans community with the Columbia River Gender Alliance but also within the environmental community, restoring and protecting the estuarine systems in northwest Oregon. More importantly she is my friend and one of the most loving people I know. She and her partner (Jann) welcomed me and a trans-man lover of mine JR into their home and allowed us both to rest and be nurtured with conversation, a spectacular setting and amazing food. We shared an evening with Jeralyn and Alicia, two other trans folk and friends both on line and in the real world. It was so accepting, so normal. It is the simple things that are affirmations in my tiny slice of the world. To be accepted, to feel watched over, to not need to be an exhibit, an example, a representative of anything. To be simply loved is a gift that I do not find often enough. Last week I was given that gift and I will be forever blessed and grateful.

So now what? I am sitting at my desk in an otherwise empty suite of offices at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. I have hundreds of email messages to review, a number of database alerts and logs to check on, and life returning to the normalcy that is both a blessing and a challenge. My challenges go beyond being a trans-woman. They extend to alcoholism and drug addiction too. Next month I will celebrate twenty-six years of sobriety, but I am still active in AA, and this afternoon will spend a few hours with a perfectly lovely cis woman who cannot yet find the keys to the kingdom of living life on life's terms.

I have spent a week surrounded by examples of life well lived. I often am held as an example of a life successfully navigated as well, but the feeling and internalization of that is fleeting. Not that I don't have challenges. I'm in the middle of a divorce where my gender identity and even name are not acknowledged. At the moment I'm broke. At the moment I live in a twenty-eight foot Airstream trailer. But my problems are ephemeral, I am comfortable, content with who I am and the choices I make, happy to be accepted and even celebrated by people who choose to understand or at least choose to try.

I've written about this before, but It seems that at the core of who I am is both a fierce determination to live authentically, and an absolute acceptance that how that is perceived by the rest of the world isn't my business. I am responsible for my actions and my behavior. If that side of the street is one of integrity, then the acknowledgement of that truth isn't something I need or ought to obsess over.

That said, I am not in danger of assault, sleeping rough, or going hungry. I am not (at the moment anyway) in the vortex of fear or facing the horsemen of terror, bewilderment, frustration and despair. I have been in that space and may be again, but today I am in a different land. A land of serendipity.

The question for me is how do I make this mindset and this reality persistent? Tomorrow I have bills to pay, responsibilities to fulfill, tasks to execute. How do I retain the core of self knowledge that I am lovable, and loved? How do I live a transcendent life? How do you?


Peace,
Julie

We hear it so many times but it's what we do.

Take things a day at a time and try and hold onto the positives as long as we can.

Hugs

And a softly soggy morning it is out here.  Our tree frogs seem to be awakening earlier each year and the chorus provides further serenity.  Julie you are a darling friend and a modest one too.  That girl is a true chef and even had me eating spinach in a gourmet dinner she prepared.  My vegephobia was overcome!  She is a generous and wonderful friend and guest and we talked for hours as we walked in rain and sunshine.  Julie loves to sing and even knows the words to hundreds of tunes so we were often regaled by her lilting and lovely voice.  Last summer we sang rainbow themed songs while marching with the PFLAG group in Astoria's 100+ year old Regatta and Grand Land Parade.

This is one one the best parts of being out and further strengthening the trans and queer community.  To live in solidarity with people who love and accept one another and actively support each other's triumphs and tribulations.  We talked about everything and touched the edges of our dreams. 

I understand the challenge of keeping these most perfect moments in time foremost in our minds as we face the more tedious days chores. 
Days of friendship, sharing and caring. 
All the best Julie dear.

First of all, congratulations on twenty-six years of sobriety. Enjoy the moment that you are in. Appreciate the wonderful people and things in your life. It's beautiful when you actually are living an authentic life. Somebody else may betouched by your example.

Quote from: JulieBlair on January 11, 2015, 10:47:25 AM
The question for me is how do I make this mindset and this reality persistent? Tomorrow I have bills to pay, responsibilities to fulfill, tasks to execute. How do I retain the core of self knowledge that I am lovable, and loved? How do I live a transcendent life? How do you?

I struggle with this also. Sometimes I'm more successful than others. If I can get to the place where I speak to myself as I would my best friend or a precious child, usually I can be gentle enough to forgive my own shortcomings and comfort myself.

I believe what You had experienced was the feeling of "here and now" or "the power of "now"". You were in Your very presence when future remains unclear and emotions from past do not hinder or obstruct Your vision. Getting into this very state of mind sometimes is an important sign of itself, because not everyone gets to experience that blessing. Yet, among those who have lived that experience very few are able to maintain and preserve it constantly, yet it is possible.