My Journey

     Okay friends and new friends, I am taking a new journey in my life and I am more and more aware of what this means almost everyday. Even days when things seems molasses slow, I learn something new and interesting. I'd like to take a little bit of time and share a few things I'm learning:

     I am learning that transitioning for myself is something that requires a MASSIVE amount of
patience. I need to be patient with my close friends, with strangers who could either be intentionally rude or just accidentally say or do something, I need patience for waiting for Dr's appointments, for learning how to live the way I can be comfortable and a lot more.

I have always tried to be a patient person especialy when dealing with others and I'm not bragging here but I've always been a little bit better at being patient when someone else is involved. But I am learning how to stop in the midst of impatient situations like waiting for appointments or waiting for things to take effect and calmly let things come as they come.

     I am learning how to love. This one is hard.I thought I knew what love was and tried to display that, and sometimes I got it right but a lot of the time I got it wrong. I thought love was mainly
romantic and PDA and if you don't do that (especially if you're not in a romantic relationship) then you're not showing or using love fully. Before opening up about my journey, I did use love correctly with my friends and their families but not being in a relationship I saw that as a failure.

And through this I'm learning that love is a lot more than that, I'm also learning that I am not a failure for not being married. Love is a lot more than romance and I am a complete newb at using this the way I should. Loving people who may not agree with me, showing love to people who intentionally choose to be rude to me and showing love for those who don't understand are a few areas that I'm learning how to be better at.

Now don't mistake this for me letting people say whatever they want, I am a human being and deserve basic human rights just like anyone else. I also treat others moreso how they treat me with some grace because even rude people should get a little grace. Showing those who I think don't deserve grace is another area I am learning to show real love. And that takes a TON of patience (OH I read the part up above!)

     As a 2nd part to my last point, I am learning daily how people who love me actually do love me.
Some of my firends have been put in a very hard place recently because of my situation. Some of them immediately were on board with me and whether they agree with my decision or not, they didn't even have to think about whether to be my friend or support my decision or not.

Others have been trying to understand what it means to be trans and what they believe. And if you haven't read it, read my entry about being a friend vs being supportive because it is important to know that not supporting your friends when you think they are doing the wrong thing DOES NOT mean you're not a real friend. So the friends who are trying to come to terms with what they believe has been very hard, specifically for the ones who wer eclosest to me.

I bring them up because they have been very very loving in all of this and that's been amazing. I recently told a friend about my situation, a friend I thought would not speak to me again after reading the message I sent him. His response blew me away.

Once upon a time, when I thought I knew everything, I would have been offended and wouldn't want anything to do with you. I don't know everything any more. tbh, it would be weird seeing you as a woman but I think it is safe to say that it's nothing compared to your inner conflict. I'm not going to pretend to understand but I can at least understand that it isn't easy and for that at least I can sympathize.

This was his response and it means the world to me that a person that I kinda always saw as a person who has arrived, someone who doesn't need to grow or can't really learn much a tthis stage in his life has shown that he is still learning. And this is just one friend, I have been beyond blessed by the friends I have even from before becoming a Christian. I have to mention one close friend who I've known since the 3rd grade who again showed me just how great a friend she is, I told her and she not only accepted me as I am going to be but has been checking up on me and genuinely caring about me. I'm blown away by that love.

     I've been learning that this is my path in life, and to accept it and embrace it with God is starting to take weight off my shoulders that I've been carrying for a very long time. I recently started feeling a very little bit of emotionally weight kinda lift off me. It was a very little bit but that's a little bit that helped me and I am trying to learn what it means to accept what my life is and embrace that.

I am a transgendered person who has always been a peace maker, who has never felt like there was a place for me anywhere and accepting this as my legitimate path makes all the failures of not getting married when it logically made sense or not getting certain jobs that I took as a loss...etc. All thes ethings make sense now because I have chances by accepting my life as Layla that I never would have had and that feels weight liftingly happy. Yes, I make up words, accept it.

     And finally I've noticed something small but very interesting about life.
So I started painting my nails, usually some form of either pink and black, blue and purple or orange and black and I get complimented regularly from a specific type of people. This is not about race or sexual oreientation so please don't take this as me judging anyone, I'm actually fascinated by this observation and I hope it continues:
I've noticed that black woem and gay men say soemthing more than any other type of people. I look masculine so I get why gay men would say something but black women are always sweet about saying they like my nails and they talk about their choice of colors or what brand they like. I absolutely love when people talk about that because I absolutely love painting my nails and secondly because I haven't bitten my nails in months, before this I couldn't go 2 waking hours without biting them EVER. They're growing slowly, causing me to be patient but they are growing and I LOVE IT.

     Okay those are just a few observations and things I'm learning about my particular jouney of life and I hope that if there are any other people who eare on either side of these thoughts, they understand the other side and maybe learn a little bit from this.