Hummus On My Shoe

Yeah I thought that title might get you interested. You see the other day I was rummaging around in the fridge, which usually has its contents cleverly stacked in the form of a Jenga puzzle. I managed to pull out a piece of interest and and low and behold it collapsed. The puzzle that is, not the fridge. Of course it was not enough that the container of hummus fell out of the fridge, it tumbled in such a way as to open on the way down and then deposit its contents on my shoe. I kind of stood there for a moment in disbelief but then I had recalled some reference to "Murphy" about buttered bread landing butter side down on the carpet and the odds being proportional to the cost of the carpet.

And so I had hummus on my shoe.

I wondered, would hummus do better with Vegas odds makers than buttered bread and an expensive carpet? These are people who will wager on two cockroaches that happen to be racing across the floor in front of them. But it all got me thinking about probability. Now I have to confess, I am an engineer, but that probability class in college befuddled me. The Monty Hall problem still bugs me for the same reason. And I had to ask myself, as the the golden mashed chick peas, garlic and olive oil now on my shoe proceeded to drip off onto the floor. Why me?

Of course I was initially asking, why me about the hummus, but I then I almost started crying. Yes for real. You see it was not that I felt down about losing that middle eastern goodness to my shoe leather it was more of the fact that it had happened, and now I had to clean up the mess that had happened, and all I had done was open the fridge and nudge something to one side. Kind of like being trans.

(At this point the reader says, oh no, another colorful metaphor on its way, please Sharon, say it ain't so).

Ok so how did you accept being trans? I am assuming that if you are reading this, you are trans,
I don't know it for a fact but I know there are a number of you that read this blog upon occasion, some of you lurk. I know you are there because every now and then one of you contacts me and comes clean. It is ok. I really do understand, I was you until recently, where now you read about me. Anyhow so how did you accept being trans?

For me I realized that I was working on killing myself, albeit slowly. That unless I made some wholesale changes, I would die soon. I am serious about this. And not "oh my god do I have a cold" hypochondriac nutso. Being trans and not accepting it was killing me. I may have mentioned this in a previous post, 5 years ago, they cut my chest open and replumbed me. A year later they stuck in a stent for good measure. I was fat, and I mean near 300 lbs fat. Big boned is not the descriptor I would use here, dinosaurs are big boned, not me.

And so I accepted being trans for a variety of reasons but I guess the main one was, I wanted to live. I talk about dark days, and I am not yet ready to write about that, but after those days I realized. I need to live, I need to accept who and what I am, and eventually I need to do more than that, I had to embrace it. That was in Dec 08. Today I have embraced it. And that is what leads to the hummus on my shoe.

You see your life is a jumbled mess of things, work, family, friends, parents, kids, neighbors, death and taxes. And for the most part it stacks nicely even though it is almost always in flux. Just like your fridge. Often there are little compartments for stuff, go look at your fridge, I will wait here..... [Jeopardy plays in background] See, places for eggs, and butter, or cheese, a drawer for veggies, or meats. All promoting organization. Of course none of us use those bins for their intent (who was the last person to really remove all the of the eggs and put them in the door one by one, not me). But as we all know, despite our best attempts the fridge gets to be a jumbled mess, and we try and get what we want out of it and sometimes, the hummus takes a tumble.

This is being trans, your life is the fridge, mostly organized, sometimes not and the every now and then nature throws in a good one just to see if you were paying attention. Splat. This is what happened to me with this marriage thing. Splat. I am thinking, gee I wonder if she would see me all the way there. Would she accept me, would I be "ok". Guess what... nope. Hummus.

And so on it goes. Since I now know that the separation thing is going to happen I decided to start looking for a new place to live. Now not just anyplace mind you. My place. Of course there are requirements. A lot of my friends have said, oh, just go and get an apartment someplace. Bullshit. I am not a college student any more, and I do not piss away money to a landlord. Jeez, think I feel strongly on that? No I want a real house, my house, a woman's house.

And so on my errands last Saturday I kind of started looking, and bam, there it was. "The" house. Not too big, lovely yard with trees, clean, enough space for me, kids, woodshop in the garage, office. Enough room to build a shop in the back yard if I want it, no HOA, and a babbling brook in the back. Amazing. And the price, something I could afford, and it is in the same school district where my kids attend now. Wow, home run, out of the gate. And then Hummus slid off the shelf.

There was an open house. I went. So did a lot of other people. Did I mention the low opinion I have of real estate people. Oops I just did. Ok so if you are one, I am sorry, I probably would like you just fine. But in this case I called the lady on Saturday to ask what was up with the property. She says open house on Sunday, come on by. What she should have said is, I have a contract on it already, and unless you can do the same with a better offer by 6pm Sunday you should not waste your time. But she did not, in fact she only revealed this when I expressed interest after looking at the place. And told her, jeez, financing should not be a problem, I am well employed (think six figures). Have a great credit rating. I can get that done by tomorrow. She says, too late. 6PM today, Sunday. Really, Sunday? Tumble, tumble.

I call her later in the day after doing a frenzied search for an online place that will qualify me on a Sunday. No dice. Hummus now spinning, lid falling away. I call her and tell her the parameters of my offer, it is a voicemail. She calls back and leaves me one, tell me your numbers and I will put it in front of the seller. I run, do comps, a little research and call back. We chat I give her the number. I guess it should have been higher.

Plop.

There it is again, on my shoe. She calls back, she says, you were "so" in the running, but had you had a financing letter you would have been in. Day late, dollar short. Another disappointment had. She offers me a backup position, apparently the a previous deal fell through, and they would be happy to have me be the backup. Oh goodie, now I know what the sideline feels like. Thanks for the rollercoaster. Yeah I know, don't look unless you can make the deal on the spot. Lesson learned.

So what does that have to do with acceptance? Kind of simple actually. I get to be disappointed, but not angry. I get to accept that I am not going to win things. I get to accept that maybe it is not supposed to be for a reason. I do not know the reason, but it must be there. I mean lets go back up in the rarefied air. Why am I looking for a house? Oh yeah, I am trans, my wife has rejected me and I need to live my life. See, I knew it was all in there. The only consolation is that the hummus, is not on one of my nice shoes, it is just a guy shoe. And I am thinking of tossing those out soon anyhow.