So it happened just like that... Donna found me a tab on a piece of paper that had some phone numbers for a room for rent in the same neighborhood. Now I'm living in a room all by myself, which is a bit stuffy from the heat, and the carpet is a little stained, but is otherwise, quite comfortable. I can't get the internet running on my Xbox360, and I'm waiting to get my pc repaired, and in the mean time, I feel really, really alone.
I've reached a point in my transition where I pass more easily, though not fantasically. I'm at a point in life, where my family is coming to terms with who I am. My mom and grandpa saw me for the first time in my female clothes, and they hugged me, and I feel a little more comfortable around them. They are still calling me by my boy's name, and using male pronouns, but they are beginning to realize that it is in error. My life is moving forward in strides, and some of them I thought would never achieve reality... so why do I feel so sad as I'm typing this?
Honestly I know why I'm sad, I'm asking myself rhetorically. I'm lonely, and scared, in a new house, with new people, the landlady and her tenants are friendly and warm to me, even given what I am, but with no internet, my world has been completely severed from me in this foreign place. No friends all the time, and most of all, no girlfriend. I feel like I fell off the world into a new life, as Sara. My former roommate is still nearby, and we're still best of friends, but she's got so much going on that I don't feel comfortable calling her, I just don't know what to say to her.
The feeling of loneliness is worsened by the terror I feel of my neighbors. The next door neighbors give me all the usual stares, and they have a bunch of rough looking teenagers that congregate outside their house. The tenant in the room next to mine, with her little girl, is more or less a stranger to me, and I'm afraid too, that ignorant of my reality, she thinks me to be some kind of pervert, or freak. I wonder if she fears that I'm a danger to her daughter or something. I'm not used to being thought of in that way, by anyone I have a chance of meeting again. I guess I should get used to it since I'll be going back to school soon.
My ID finally arrived just before I moved with a problem attached, my middle name, was misspelled with two a's and I now have to turn it in to fix the problem. Yet another burden to overcome. The room was previously a disaster, but I've turned it into something a little less monstrous, now that I've organized it a bit. I'll have an old computer set up soon and hopefully I'll have the internet back, and then this move won't be as painful. Until next time, that's all the news about my own life. Sara
6 comments:
Moving forward can sometimes be difficult to see from our own perspective, but it sounds like those around you see your commitment towards progress. hang in there, girl. It sounds like life is pretty tough for you right now, but being who you are has some serious personal emotional and physical benefits!
We all that know you, even if only online, are still here and cheering for you. ^_^
It's hard to be in a new place... honestly, what you were describing reminded me a bit of when i was in Japan...
Don't be afraid to call your friend :) precisely because she has a lot going in her life, it's when she might need you the most, and now she doesn't have you all the time with her.
And i can imagine how you feel without being able to get in touch with your wolfie.. i hope she will pop online soon ^_^ so, as Lori said, hang in there, girl!
Sara, what you said about your mom and grandfather is fantastic! I know they've been problematic for you, so this seems like real progress. Hope it continues.
If you need an internet fix -- and who doesn't :) -- head to a library. They should have some web-accessible computers, although you might have to wait. Hopefully you will be back on the air yourself soon.
It's always hard to move to a new place where don't know anyone. I hope that is getting better with time, and that you are more at ease. You're doing really well in very tough circumstances, so give yourself credit!
*Hugs*
Thank you for your support. I got my computer running last night and I'm at my parents house today. I'm feeling a little better now and the paranoia has subsided a bit.
Wow, I know exactly how you feel. Back in June of last year I fled the environment I was living in because it was caustic to me, and bleeding me dry. Mentally, emotionally, physically and financially it was horrible, and I'd been there four years.
I drove out here, and after a six hundred mile drive, late that evening, the day before I would sign the lease and take the keys and start moving in, I freaked out. I went back to the hotel room, called my sister and had a mini-breakdown over the phone at her.
I was past panic stricken, I was utterly terrified.
I cried and wailed for hours thinking I'd made a horrific mistake (I'd already paid first months rent and security) and burned up the money I'd save on a boondoggle. My sister helped calm me down some, but I still cried myself to sleep. I awoke next morning as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
I came, signed the lease and start to move in. I was still so freaked out I stayed an extra two nights in the hotel room. When I finally spent my first night here, wow, I felt exactly the way you did, just without the fears about gender. No less lost, alone, and lonely. Mind you I have family a few miles from here But it was still so hard.
It took a while for this to feel like home. It's not perfect either, the carpet has stains, the whole place could have used a paint job and it took months to get my downstairs neighbors to stop cranking their stereo up so that I was getting headaches from the bass.
But it's perfect for me I've come to figure out. It's literally the first place I've lived in in 20 years that's all my own and affords me some peace and quiet.
Since then I've had folks visit from out of town, eve had trans friends I'd never met in person stay here instead of getting a hotel when they came into town. I'm adjusting, settling into my new life, and feeling much better. Turns out that while being one of the hardest moves I've ever made, it was also one of the best.
June 3 will be one year here, and I've already told my Landlord I'll be staying on. She was overjoyed, not even just because she wouldn't have to find a new tenet, but because she likes having me here. She stops in with her daughter in tow (her daughter's name is Sara too) just to chat. She has no idea about my past, and really doesn't need to either. It is the past after-all. Plus I don't think she'd believe me anymore than most new people I meet and let in on my past.
It will get better, and after a few months, like me, you'll be loving you new place for one huge reason. It's YOURS!
Rock on Sara, I'm so thrilled for you! You deserve a safe, quiet, place of you own. A place to get away from it all for a bit, a place where YOU make the rules. A place where you can say My way, or the highway if you want or need to do so.
Mazel Tov!
Oh, and if you need someone to talk to, drop me an email and we can trade phone numbers and can get on the phone. As someone else said, we're here for you!
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