Time To Start - The Wedding Ring

So hi all, and welcome if you are just finding this. Since this is the very first post I expect it is the one that gets read by everybody. That is too bad because the good stuff probably comes later and like a TV series that has a lousy first episode you might switch this off before you see the end.


So lets cover two things. First I am not a writer by passion or trade. In fact as I look back on things I was a lousy student of such things. If I knew how much of my everyday life required me to write I might have paid more attention. So apologies to the reader, if my structure, and methods seem off. Second, and more important, I am transgendered, or more specifically, transsexual. (Sound of bomb going off in background). Yeah this is another one of those blogs, if you are reading this then you are probably like me in some degree. I am not going to guess your interest. That one is on you. But for me, I want to be a woman, hope to be a woman, am working on how to be a woman, hope to get there before I am dead.


Ok so now that the 800 pound gorilla is exposed what is the purpose of this blog. Well it is for me. Not you. Sorry. No matter how much I might like you. Or call you a friend, or acquaintance, or passerby, or hit and run. This is not for your benefit. It is for my benefit. A way of sorting this out in my head. So thanks for reading, love to hear comments, and that is fine. But this is going to be my way to capture my thoughts for me. So dear reader, you might ask, well then why do it in public? That one is easy. If I do it myself, then I have the option to say it never existed. If I do it here then I cannot deny it existed. Call it a tall drink of reality.


Ok enough about that background crap. I am just going to jump in and roll. Some thing I read about in "The Making of Star Trek". If you have to stop and explain how the phaser works, then by then the bad guy has run away. So lets go to the meat. The Wedding Ring.


Ok so I am married, been so for 20+ years, I have known her for like 30+ years. Yeah that is a long time. I have to thank her, last fall 2008, she pushed me to go see therapist. I said sure, but I am going to see GID (Gender Identity Disorder) therapist. The "why" of this was easy, I was this angry, over the top, uber macho (compensation), person she hated and that she was getting ready to dump. I love her, and so in order to keep things working, I agreed to go. So I went to therapy.


Well I told the therapist all. Ever since my first inkling of this "issue" (I refuse to call it a problem). There was never much discussion about "what" I am. The discussion was, "that's nice, what do you want to do about it". So there you are. What do I want to do about it (answer found in a previous paragraph for you speed readers). Mind you that all happened about 3 months ago. Oh the result of the therapy session, I told my wife I feel inside I am a woman, have so most of my life, basically came out to her as transsexual.


At that point she said ok, well I will support you as I love you. I am still finding out what "support" means. At the moment it means my bags are not on the sidewalk. And I still get to live in the house. Her big question, is what do you want to do, or rather, have you decided what you want to do (smell a theme here all?). Of course my answer would be, um gee, be a woman, starting tomorrow morning? Of course there are problems with that, which we will cover in other posts.


I offered all of that as context for what this post is really about. I have been wearing my wedding ring all though this. I love her, I married her, we have children. I would not call what I have today a family. It is a mostly functional economic unit with common DNA. There is some affection between some of the members. But in essence, it has been reduced to those things. Basically everybody gets up, does whatever they want to do. Whenever they want to do it. As a parent I make some extra effort to participate in and attend as many events as I can for my kids. For example I always make it to my son's home wrestling matches. I am active as an adult in some school programs (the specifics redacted for this blog, sorry). Basically I think I am a good and supportitve "dad".


But today I asked, are we all going to watch the Superbowl together, something we have done most every year to date. And the answer from her was, probably not, and then she listed that the kids would be busy with online stuff, game tourney, etc. And she was "busy". So I said again, so we are all going to do, whatever we want to do today. She said yes. I asked, is this how it is going to be from now on, everybody just does everything separately? She said, she did not know, but that is how it is for now. Then I noticed it. She has removed her wedding ring. I did not ask about it. But in her mind I know, that us being married now, is just a legal construct. Yeah, I am married on paper now. I will talk more about this in other posts but now I am asking myself, why am I still wearing this ring? I actually went shopping for a more feminine version of this so that when I am dressed, it looks nicer, but still shows I am committed. Am I being foolish?