Goals

     So...where was I last time? OH!...yeah...the swelling everything. My hands, face, feet and swollen unhappy life. So that's not completely gone but it's not nearly as scary now. I still have som,e itching but overall, it's getting better.

     Usually I talk about things that are going on in life and explain whether they're helpful or horrible or whatever. But things I want are on my mind right now and I want to capitalize whenever I am focused in a positive way or on posisitve things so here I go.

     So I have a bunch of things I am thinking about either doing or getting that are currently at the top of my desire list:
   *Cosmetics, cosmetics, cosmetics - Makeup and things that can help change my appearance has been something I want to learn about and master. I have been playing a very little with things like eye shadow and blush that reforms my eyes and that is really fascinating but I am looking to learn more about foundation and concealer.

Another thing I really want us laser hair removal. I have always hated face and neck hair and even if I want transitioning, if still want to get rid of that forever. I don't personally like the hairy look on me or anyone else (not that I'll criticize anyone else, that's just my preference. I don't think it's bad, I just don't like it)

     *A new computer!
I do so badly need a computer to be able to working on videos and edit photos and really to do anything in this day. I'm going to need it to do taxes and check stuff online or use a lot of sites without the absolute annoyance of mobile versions of sites. And to make things really dreadfully bad, when I move I need something, some kind of sounds I can put on to not live in silence. Silence is truly one of the biggest tortures for me personally, I don't know if I could survive with nothing at all to help that.

     *Travel
My cousin and I have been talking about going somewhere for years now and we finally have a chance to actually make that a reality in 2018. Between WowAir and Air BnB, the price is right to take small trips to places like Paris, Dublin or Amsterdam.

I got my passport a few years ago and want to make use of it. The plan is to take a few small like 3-6 day trips throughout the year just to say we did it finally and eventually take bigger trips and make videos documenting my time.

     *Transition
I've already started this process so it's not exactly only a future plan but it's something I want more than almost anything. It's really important for me to be passable as a female and to be successful in this so I can finally identify the way I have always seen myself.

It's been good being able to talk openly about being trans and worrying less and less about who I speak in front of but the next step is physically doing more things that confirm it as real, even if it's just to show others or myself that this is not a dream/not fake. A few friends thought I would grow out of this one I talked it out but it's not just something I thought of on a whim, it is very real and something I'm following through with for me to even try to be okay.

     *Medical things:
There are a number of things I need to finally attend to, and since I just recently got health insurance I want to focus on them. Glasses, a check up, therapy and to find out what I can get help with as far as future cosmetic surgery... Stuff like that.

Ok so that's all for the moment, those are the most important to my current state of living.

Have a wonderful day.

Thanksgiving part 2: Aftermath

     Well, it's been just over a week since Thanksgiving and my life has been one to forget with a few blessings in between. I know it sounds like it on here but in life I really do try not to complain too much unless you catch me at that perfect time when I am at a breaking point. I try to smile even when I don't have much in me to smile about, it's hard but I really give it an honest try.

     So let's get into my past week:

So Thanksgiving was decent, I spent it with friends and their family. That was different, I'm used to some kind of sprawling fight, someone yelling at someone over the turkey and eventually the police showing up for some reason or another and the worst thing that happened this time was a few corny jokes that we all had to endure. It was really good and I appreciate their hospitality.

Later that night, talking to a friend who has been very good to me pretty much since our friendship started,got very upset with me and I inadvertently made said friend cry, which made/makes me feel like crap. It had to do with my decision to transition and I don't think it needs to be explained any further but it made me feel bad in a way.

     Throughout the week, something very strange happened. I was at work, my second to last day before a paid week off, and my hand started to itch...really badly. It felt like my bones were itching and the skin was just in the way. I tried not to scratch too much but I ended up not even noticing when I was doing it and by the end of the day my hand swelled up a little bit. 

That night it ballooned up and my fingers looked like tiny Vienna sausages glued to an egg, it still itched and was kinda numb. The next morning I had to be at work early and because it was the opening shift, I couldn't call out early. I woke up and felt intense pain in both hands. BOTH hands were swelled up twice their normal size and moving my fingers was almost impossible. NOT FUN, especially since I have to ride my bike to work and...well have you ever tried to ride a bike with no hands? Like for the entire trip? Me either and it hurt bad to hold the handles.

     Being a cashier, I have to handle money and  that was torture trying to pick up the change to give to customers and most of them were either scared or worried about me when they saw my bubble hands.

     *Side note, I have to acknowledge this one customer who is a regular. 

She came in and brought her items to the counter and smiled at me, 

I normally have a big smile and talk politely. This time I gave her a barely 

raised lip trying to smile, in so much pain I was tearing up. She returned that 

with a sad look and said something like, "Aww what's wrong? You're normally 

so cheerful and sweet." I told her and raised my hands up and she said some 

nice things like she hopes I get it taken care of and feel better. She is always 

nice and left, leaving me thankful for customers like her. A minute later 

she came back in and pulled me aside; she said she felt really bad and since 

I am always nice to her she wanted to try to make my day a little better. 

She guided me to the candy aisle and asked me what my favorite candy 

is and she bought it. Then She handed it to me and before 

I could deny it, she left. It means the world to me that someone I don't know 

personally wanted to do that small yet big gesture for me.

 

     Back to my story, so I ended up leaving work early and going to the ER. One good thing about having to go there was I found out my Insurance has gone through and I now do have health insurance. I met with a Dr and she told me it's an allergic reaction to something, no idea what though since I haven't done anything different or new. I started taking estrogen about a month ago and I am 

going to look into that but I don't think that's it because the next day my lips swelled up really bad and that happened a few years ago. And the next day I woke up to find welts or hives or whatever you call red itchy bumps all over my body. And the NEXT day I found red bumps that look like bug bites all over my wrists (this morning actually)

     This happened a few years ago when my landlord used a certain bug spray around my room and I think that's what this is too.

Besides that, I've been walking for exercise and that's been really good for me...aaand that's been my week.

Thanksgiving part 1: Before

     So...here we are...it's 2017, almost the end of another year. And maybe it's because I just finished netflix watching a tv show that kinda has always been ther efor me or amybe it's because things are changing or maybe it's just the most painful time of year for me...

     ...but either way, I'm sad.

I'm sad because of all of that, the anniversary of losing my uncle just passed, which is weird because it hits me every day so I thought it shouldn't hit me harder on a certain time.

     Anyway, I have been running on fumes for a while now and a day turns into a week and a week turns into 5 weeks and 2 months turn into a year and so on and so on till you realize you're 35 and not happy... and haven't been for a long time.

But each morning, I can't just not wake up or get up or go to work. I can't just sit in a corner till the house is torn down and be the ghost I feel like I am. So instead I put on a face, I smile and tell people they're better than whatever they are facing and I try to make this world a better place. I try to strike while the iron's hot even when the iron is in the back of the closet, the wire is old and unusable and the ironing board was sold years ago from under the iron's nose...so to speak.

But I try. Ohmygosh, do I try. I don't cry throughout entire days, I try to laugh through a lot of my pain. It worked when I went to funerals for my uncles so it's gotta work for when customers forget theyre talking to a human and treat me like garbage because I don't know the difference between their brand of cigarette and another that's so similar I can't tell the difference even after hearing the explanation...right?

Laughing and joking has to work when I wake up to remember that I've never ever felt anything but hatred that I was born the sex that I am and the wear and tear of pretending to be a typical male for so long has me considering anything to get out of doing that ever again even for a second.

And SURELY laughing has to work when you are invited to a holiday gathering by the greatest friends I could possibly ask for but all I want to do is forget that it's a holiday or that families exist,
I just want to escape into tv shows about ficticious cities in Conneticut or fictional bars in Boston or New York City. It's easier to take my empty life and the pain when I'm watching the worst psychiatrist ever listening to people or watching a doctor say things to patients that I'd LOVE to say to customers at my own job.

     ...so here I am...in 2017, almost 2018...



I am trying my hardest to acknowledge the good in my life wevcen though I'm not very good at it. This is the part where I thank God for the things He's given me.

     I want to thank God for my friends, without whom I would not be where I am. I truly do thank God as much as I can for the people He put in my path. I also am very very thankful for my cousin who is a serious light in my sometimes darkness filled life.

A Possible Beginning to my Journey

     I remember being in preschool, there was a wall full of costumes that was about the coolest thing I ever saw...at the time at least. (Hey I was like 5, chill out.) Anyway, this wall had so many hats and scarves and dresses and fake jewelry and canes and so much more.

This wall fascinated me from the very second I learned what it was, I wanted to be anything and everything. I guess you could point to that time that formed my desire to act and write. I played with that costume wall every chance I got but there was something that I really wanted to do but never could;
I always wanted to dress up and play with the girls and enjoy dressing up Barbie dolls. I watched the girls having fun and felt jealous and sad that I couldn't be a part of that. And I understood their games and love of clothes and I felt like on some level I belonged with them.


Then I looked at what the boys were playing with and how they were playing, some of it wasn't horrible but there wasn't much that I cared about. I specifically remember playing with my best friend when we were kids and GI Joe was a big thing but I absolutely hated it! In fact, the only thing I liked at all was setting up the scenes.

I would set up a town for the GI Joes or transformers or legos for hours and get things just the way I wanted and then I'd clean up and put everything away. It was a weird dynamic I had going but it was me trying my hardest to accept me as a boy and it wasn't working but it was all I had. I had a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal that I treated like it was my kid, I took it everywhere and took care of it like it was a real baby and for a long time I didn't know why I wanted to do that so bad.

I remember seeing my friends that were boys building and digging and working on their preskool cars like they were mechanics and there I was babysitting a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal while dreaming of playing with the girls and playing with makeup.

The few times I was able to do those things, it was like I was in the right place or doing the right thing. My little sister would play with her dolls and I'd play with her, giving me a reason to dress up the dolls and match clothes and just be who I felt was the real me.

I know all kids go through phases like that but this was more than a phase and I knew it then, I didn't just put on my mom's shoes just to get attention. I knew then that I wanted to truly be a girl, like always.

That was the time it went from a boy who hated being what he was to a boy knowing he wanted to be a girl. From there it became a need that I had to bury, hide and ignore and treat like just a disgusting guilty pleasure. But I'm really starting to believe that that's when a journey began for me that might have a happier ending...


                                                                           ...I hope.

Dreaming a Little Dream

     I work as a cashier, I live in someone's apartment, I take walks with my friends, I watch hockey, I pray to God, I buy jewelry and internet window shop for clothes or makeup, I eat terribly (for now at least), I draw, I play PS2 and Nintendo and Super Nintendo, I paint my nails, I watch YouTube videos, I listen to pandora.com, I read about trans people and trans issues, I play on Facebook or Instagram and on the rare occasion I get some sleep. That about it for my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly life routines.

Then there's my unroutine stuff (I make up words, get over it)

     I question every word I use and every choice I make, I try so hard to not do certain things that I cause myself to do them, I mumble, I over emphasize words, I make sure to not bother anyone ever, I ask my friends over and over if I am annoying them or making things harder for them, I stay in my room when I feel extra introverted, I lose my voice without any reason, I look down because I feel like less than human, I break plans and let people down regularly because I feel like they'll be better off if I'm not around them, I freak out in my mind so hard that it makes me sweat and not able to think, I wish I was different...like really really hard and I shut down when stress takes over my ability to think straight.

This photo is a correct assessment of my brain a lot of the time. 

     So I had all these expectations for my life a long time ago, expectations that I felt I was able at a time to fulfill; I also included life and things that were out of my control. I expected to have to deal
with bills, things breaking down and having to work long hours or hard jobs.

I also expected to have to take care of babies and make phone calls and clean up after a bad dog...

What I didn't expect was to have a long term crippling desire/need to feel comfortable and the fight that that came with. I didn't expect to be beaten down so hard that even simple things like believing in God or believing that God would care about me seems impossible.

I didn't expect to be treated by a father so badly that I genuinely doubt anyone's love when they say or try to show it to me ever and I also didn't expect anxiety to cause nonsensical things to push me down daily.

     I must say I have learned some pretty important things through my struggles though and some of them are priceless...and some plague me almost minute by minute.

I've learned that I do not want to die.
      this is pretty big, a few years ago, I would have disagreed with this if I was being brutally honest with you. I thought for so long that I was only here because some truck didn't yet veer off the road and finish me off. I'm not saying that is fixed in me but the things I've encountered and the battles I've fought have made me stronger in some ways.

Whether some believe or not, I believe that some of the things I had to fight for and lost or the things I wasn't able to achieve were because I was destined for the journey I'm fighting for and happy to take on now.

The road from Vincent to Layla has been a scary, nearly deadly and nothing short of interesting one, one that I would not be on if any number of things had worked out over the last 20 years. If I met a woman and got married or if I had not been so discouraged in school and actually tried at all and gotten on a career path or if I had gotten into drugs and the friends that often comes with

...these are just a few things that could and would have changed how my life played out. I don't think I would be transitioning right now if I had a family (I'm not discouraging anyone in that situation from anything they think is right and to be brutally honest, I think I would not still be here rather than ruin lives by exposing my true thoughts on a wife and kids)

I've learned who my true friends are
     I explained before that being a true friend does not mean you should support anything they want to do so this is not attacking anyone that has decided to cut me out of their life, but I will say this: BROWNIE POINTS to the people who have not cut me from their life because of my decision to embrace my inner life and do what it takes to actually feel happy. This struggle is very very real and the friends who have kept in touch or have let me talk "girl talk" or the ones who are willing to listen to what I have to say are the ones that have kept me from going over the edge at times.

My life is owed to my friends, you can tell me I'm wrong for thinking that or for putting that on their shoulders but it is true. I have only succeeded in anything that I have succeeded in because I had someone else there to share my joys with or help me through the hard parts, I feel very strongly in this philosophy:

So without all of those people, I would have given up by now. And that includes the people who cannot support my decision. The ones I'm referring to have always displayed love and strength and I appreciate and respect them and will miss every one of them immensely everyday.

I've learned that needing help isn't always a weakness
     I have had to humble myself and go to hospitals, I've had to break down and tell people that I'm not okay and I've had to share my painful details with doctors and strangers at times in  the last few years. And I have learned that those times that I had to get rid of my personal expectations and I had to bruise my ego... and that was okay. That was not wrong.

In fact those things were the right things to do, rather than keep trying to put band aids on my issues and move on. Breaking down is not a weakness, it can in the future be turned into a strength.


   

I want to end this with a question:

What have you learned through your struggles?

An uncomfortable Talk That Needs to be Talked About

     Ok so I have been thinking about this for a while, I want to address some things that are very real in my world. As a confrontational person, it's easy for me to go to the uncomfortable areas but some of these are hard for even me.So...

     The first thing I want to bring up is the transgender/Christian situation. I know, I'm starting off with a doozy.

Christianity does not support homosexuality, there is no question about this. It specifically says, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." Leviticus 18:22 God is speaking to Moses, giving rules for the children of Israel. It's one of very many clear verses that give the principal that men with men is not right by God. I'm sure that's tough to hear for many but it's biblical.

And for anyone who does not care about the bible, the only way to continue civilization is to procreate and the way we procreate is for a man and a woman to be together and make babies, nature would have given another option if things were supposed to be another way. I'm not condemning anyone who doesn't fit this mold but there is truth in this.

The verse specifically referring to trans people I have heard much is Deuteronomy 22:5 which if you're a Christian who happens to be trans, I'm sure you've heard it so much you have it memorized,

"The woman shall not wear that which 

pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man 

put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are 

an abomination unto the LORD thy God."

Let's examine this deeper than the surface, it sounds very bad for someone who wears clothes of the opposite sex...which would be anyone who is trans at least before doing anything to transition. Taking  a few things into consideration, this isn't as clear as it may seem for these reasons:

     1. Most of what we learn and take from the old testament are principals, not laws. The fact that we don't condone stoning people shows that we take the principals of what is right and wrong but don't follow their specific actions. God absolutely wants us to glean truths from even things that we don't do the way they did at that time. That whole chapter has nothing to do with men dressing as women or women dressing as men, the chapter deals with responsibility.

The first verse says if you see your brother's ox, get it and bring it to him (paraphrasing, of course) and continuing on it talks about different responsibilities. Verse 22 teaches the principal that men should not pretend to be like woman or take on their roles to get out of their responsibilities, that's something we need to follow. It's not okay to do anything just to get out of your responsibility.

     2. I know that whether you agree or not, I am a transgendered person just as much as you are [insert your gender here] and it may be a mental illness or it may be a birth defect or it may be because of someone's choices in my life when I was very young that shaped this, no matter what the cause is does not change the fact that it is very real and it's not going away.

The uncomfortable truth about my specific situation is that if I ignore or hide this, I will eventually kill myself. I'm not threatening or saying there is anything to worry about but this is the truth. This is true for many trans people who have dealt with this since long before they let anyone else know about it.

Now I'm saying all of this to show both sides because either side of this conversation believes there is no other side, that the opposition is just wrong and there's no conversation to be had. That is a terrible way to think and it's immature to shut down dialogue with someone who disagrees with you, at least till you hear them out.

Getting personal:
     My decision to transition comes with the decision to refrain from relationships and all things sexual, it has not been an easy decision because it was something very important to me. I came to this decision because The bible says to abstain from all appearance of evil and like I mentioned first in this entry, homosexuality is a sin.

And while I could stand behind being with either gender (I could say that I'm a genetic man so being with women is okay or I could say because I transitioned, I can be with men and not care what others think), I do not think it would be right to be with men and I'm not interested in men anyway.

And the appearance of me as an identifying woman being with another woman would be the appearance of a lesbian relationship. And as I stated before, to shove this down anymore would spell certain doom for VJ so there is only one option for me.

This is a personal decision, I am not telling anyone else not to do what they feel is right as long as you acknowledge these truths that I have brought up. Your life and decisions are between you and God. My goal is not to tell anyone what to do or judge, it's simply to bring up something and let you make your choice based on facts and principals.

     And the next thing is...drum roll...

     I'm going to rant about a few things that I just need to rant about, I hope that's okay. It is? Awesome, you're the best.

     I'm a cashier and I can't tell you how painfully annoying it is the way people regularly treat cashiers. Ignoring them, yelling, cursing at them, acting as though they don't know their job, speaking down to them and more.

I have a few instant rage buttons: when people see my hand out waiting for change and the customer drops it next to my hand on the counter, I want to say the most vile viscous things; when I say hello or something and they don't respond. Oooh man, I feel less than human and that sucks!

And HOW is it okay in our society to talk on the phone (in non extreme or emergency situations...I'm not a monster) while dealing with a cashier. We almost always have to speak to you to do our job so if you can...GET OFF YOUR F*&$%#G PHONE! Sorry for the language, it's been boiling up in me for a while.

One more thing, if a cashier t\asks you for a card for their store and you don't give it to them you cannot get angry when you don't get the store specific sales that come with said card. At least for the duration of your current visit when you do that, we hate you. I know...hate is a harsh word. We hate you. It goes away but it is real at that moment.

     ...I guess that's all. I get those things a lot and needed to vent, thanks for listening...er reading.

Now for the sappy part. I want to thank everyone for your 

support and attention in a world where attention is a 

hard thing to give out. My depression has been a terrible demon 

and expressing myself on here has been life saving at times.

And having fans who read it and hopefully understand 

any of my jumbled mess of thoughts...I thank you. 

Prayers, good words and comments are always appreciated.