wasn't by choice that they are the last to know.. it just happened that way. most of my coming out was not by my hand.. handy having vengeful family member (whom i no longer recognise as family for what he tried to do..)
this is my first draft and i have till the end of October to have it finalised. right now i am happy with the way its written.. tho i will happily take any criticism. please note, there is no way i can do this face to face. i know its fairly long.. but i aint no spring chook and responding to my recent bday letter in part in it as well.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I have spent a lot of time and wondered how to write this letter. It is the single most difficult, soul searching thing I have ever done my entire life. Opening up to both of you, after decades of keeping the real important parts of me hidden (my inner struggles and my personal battles) all my life is so hard. I am too used to standing on my own, using my own strength and will power. I considered hand writing this letter, but then who the heck would actually be able to read my cursive hand writing? Certainly not me, I can never read my hand writing. I think it's time to be honest, as I feel that keeping truth has hurt the relationship between us and continues to put a strain on it. Why a letter? Well it gives you time to read this at your own time and hopefully gives you time to understand me your child a little more.
Please, please understand this has nothing to do with your parenting skills whatsoever. You have both been wonderful parents to me. You have given me strength, courage and the tenacity to stand no matter the storm. You have given me many pearls of wisdom, and wonderful words that has kept me going all my life. You have introduced me to the love of music, the piano, the wonders of God and our universe. The most important thing ever was the Bible and God, its only thing that has sustained me (your love not withstanding) growing up. It's helped me weather storm after storm and is the back bone on which I stand. I have had an amazing childhood and done things that others can only dream off and admire, many simply struggle to believe it all. You have given up so much for your children, I have always stood in awe of the things you have done and sacrificed for your children.
All my life I have done my best to do things that please both of you. Done what's expected, folded under pressure as it was easier to keep the status quo and the peace. And overtime I lost who I was and was just doing and being what everyone expected of me. I lost all hope in life, hope in future, I lost myself. I didn't know who I was anymore. It was easier than facing the truth, just to coast thru it all. Its one of reasons I continued smoking was to simply end it all taking it all with me to the grave. To live a miserable life and hating every moment of it was just how it was, my lot in the universe to live in constant pain, hating every moment.
Growing up before going to boarding school, I simply thought myself as me, I knew inside I was different. I simply didn't know what was different, I simply latched onto the idea it was because we were Christians and that is what was different between me and others. I simply considered myself me.. Nothing truly special. Please don't take this next bit as your fault, its important to understand nothing you did is the cause.. Absolutely nothing in the world would of changed it, I was born this way. Mom, Dad truly please believe me.
It wasn't till I was in boarding school and I told my friend steward (or was his name Steven, I know it started with an S) while on holiday with him I told him what I wanted to be growing up. And that somehow spread to one person at the school. It wasn't till then that my dream got shattered. I become violently angry at the world, the unfairness of it all and I resolved to grow up and simply disappear into the world as soon as I could. I realized the impossibility of it all, buried it and it angered me even more. I resolved to never tell you what happened, as it is not your fault and I didn't want to burden you with the truth of what occurred. And I still wont, I love you too much and you were doing your best for me.
I lived in anger, easily set off, I knew I was different from everyone around me. I never understood what it was or why. Was I headed straight to hell? Did it make me an evil person? Why did everyone at school hate me? Why did no one like me? So many nights in bed as a teenager I silently cried, my dreams gave me anguish which I learned to conceal. And then I was dared by Mark and Dwane about getting my hands on an adult magazine, so I went straight to you and asked you to buy them for me to prove to them I could get any book I wanted. You also preferred total honesty rather than me hiding everything. See I spent hours in the library looking for an answer and never found one. Combing any medical book, hating myself for my dreams and hope for the future. And it wasn't till I read an article I realized the truth of myself, I finaly had a label and my search began.
Finding out the truth about myself was a Godsend, and I became even more determined to do my best and simply at age 18 vanish into society and begin the process of discovery. And one thing led to another and we ended up in New Zealand. My life began taking on a mode of simply existing, and I slipped back into old habits and did what was expected, causing as little waves as possible. I resided to simply living a life of constant pain, anguish and hatred of myself. Am I simply destined to fail at everything? am I so ugly and unwanted? Unlovable by others?
Over the course of my life, there have been many close calls.. the only thing that stopped me, is whatever happens to the souls that send themselves home early? But despite that there were two extremely close ones where I nearly sent my soul home. The first one twenty years ago and someone grabbed me and stopped me and sent me to a shrink and I got counselling, but I was too young and the Christian counsellor totally destroyed me and I moved back home.
In my soul I knew going with Karl to Raylenes flat was a bad idea, and I knew at the alter I was making the biggest mistake of my life. But I went thru with it anyway, its what everyone expected of me and it kept the peace. And my life spiraled out of control, I tried my best to keep things together, trying to keep everyone happy and do what was expected. Failing at everything I tried. Tried to shove the pain away, it slowly began to eat me away inside of me and each die I died a little inside. And then two years ago, the pain had gotten so intense, I was soo dead inside, I came with in a foot of sending my soul home and it wasn't till someone on the platform yelled for someone else that stopped me.
That gave me pause and I made a decision to go and get help. I spent the very next weekend in Tasmania examining my life and where do I want to go from here. And the following week I decided my relationship with Raylene had to end. I knew the path I had to walk she would never agree with, and I have never truly loved her, cared for her yes, loved her no. I had to move forward with my life and be real to myself. To do something about the pain inside. To take all the lessons life has thrown me, to find myself again, to be around for the next 40 years for my children.
It was the best decision I have ever made. Over the last two years, I have found who I am and have had the best time of my life. Discovering who I am and the path I am going to walk, to work thru many issues to get on the path my life should have been on all those years ago. What did I discover all those years ago in that article (and each and everyone after I could get my hands on, every documentary I could watch)? I discovered I wasn't alone and that there was a perfect word for what I am, and its very well known word.
I am a transsexual, I know what this word means and all the ways it is used. More specifically a transwomen, or male-to-female transsexual. Its not something one wakes up one morning and decides hey this is a great idea and go thru all the pain and suffering that goes along with it. To undergo all those surgeries, and to lose ones' family. No this is something one is born too, it's not something that can be tucked away and ignored. It's not a constant pain one can simply bare just because it makes others uncomfortable and conceived as "wrong". One always loses if you try to simply ignore it and be what everyone else wants you to be. To be totally heart and soul broken each and every day of your life. To have a constant soul deep pain of existence, to feel like an accidental creation, an whoopsie daisy nature done and stuffed up.
I have been a transsexual all my life, I wanted to grow up and be a women all those years ago, the secret I told my boarding school friend. I hope and prayed every single night a miracle would occur in the night, and my disappointment each morning that it didn't. my height, my male looks all of it made it an impossible to achieve. Until two years ago when I made the decision to walk my road and start to live rather than exist. I am happier now than I have ever been, more confident in myself, more at peace with who I am.
So a year ago I made the decision to begin transitioning, to begin living as my true gender. To stop living a lie and so I began Hormone Replacement therapy and its my intention to go the whole way. I know this is hard for you, and I am not asking for you to understand what I am going thru as only those who have been thru what I have been will ever be able to understand. Please, please don't feel that is your fault, there is absolutely nothing you could of done differently that would of changed me. It is not a failure of you as a parent that caused this. I was born this way, was meant to be this way all my life. My heart and soul are at peace with my choice.
There is absolutely nothing you can say or do that will make me change my new and right course in life. I am going down this road, and I have great friends who will walk alongside me. I have even started going out in my daily life as my trueself. I love being myself and going out as the true me and its amazing not hiding who I am anymore. I won't be attending Christmas this year as the old dead me, infact I will be doing my own thing and its up to Darrian if he wants to go. Darrian also knows as well and he stands by me, and we are working to tell my other children (Raylene knows as well, we no longer have any secrets between us). I have also taken the large step of telling Human Resources and my companies CEO as well. And they are standing by me and fully support me every step of the way.
I have also made the decision of returning the ford focus to you, one its too expensive to pay off and I plan to get a cheap runaround to get me by. So I am getting the car detailed and left it parked in the visitors section and Nadeen has the keys. I know that you will never accept me as I am, and that you feel I am making the biggest mistake of my life. And that I shouldn't do this at all. But I know for definite that I am making the right decision and moving forward with my life.
Please don't come to my house to have an argument about this, or anything else. I have taken the opportunity to also change my cell phone number and leave all the family chats and shut down all my old online profiles. For the time being, lets keep communication between us in letters.
Its time to live the truth and be the real me.
Your loving daughter forever
Veronica
