I am a global moderator here and have been since about 2009, the year I started my medical transition. I haven't posted much in the past couple of years, mostly because our previous forum administrator, Nero, died an untimely death in July 2014. Although I never met him in real life or even heard his voice, I loved him very much and had an active PM relationship with him. I took his death very hard.
We had a lot of things in common--mostly hang-ups and fears, I'm sorry to say--but I considered him as a brother. Certainly my own brother has never shown as much concern and tenderness for me since I came out to him. Nero understood--and when he didn't, we talked until he understood. I like to believe that I was a support for him as well, but he went back to using. I find it hard not to feel some responsibility for that. If I'd done just a little bit more, maybe that would have been enough to tip the balance. But I know that I had only limited influence over him. If he'd wanted more support from me, he could have asked. But he seemed to close himself off to me in those last few months, and, to be honest, I had my own demons and had only so much emotional energy to help other people. He was a complex man, with problems and flaws (just as we all have), and he made his own choices.
Now I'm reintegrating myself into the forums, mostly the FTM forums. I'm trying to be more active, trying to help out. I can share twenty years of pre-transition struggle and over seven years of transition process. I am in my fifties now and have some life experience that might benefit people who are considerably younger than I. Helping others helps me as long as I don't overdo.
But the experience of being here more is bittersweet; Nero's presence, his stamp, is still all over this site. He had an occasional lapse but was still an incredibly caring man with a terrific sense of proportion. I believe that he was a great forum administrator, doing a job that I could never do. But as a mod, I want to keep carrying Nero's influence: his compassion, his wisdom, his commitment. With tears in my eyes--a rare event since I started T--I want to renew my own commitment, in memory of Nero.
He is gone, but I am not. Here I am again. Hello, hello, to all of you, old and new.
