Following on Progress Report # 2, where I find myself in the middle of the "life is a river" metaphor.
The way I'm seeing it at the moment, life that is, is that one's life can be split up into basically four major areas or levels. These are: 1. The Personal Level, 2. The Pyschological level, 3. The Spiritual Level, and 4. The Professional Level. Using these as my guideline, here is what is happening with me as I move into the 'actualized' segment of my life. For those of you who don't know, I have lived a 'non' life for the last fifty years, coming out of that last year around this time, and starting to learn how to live life all over again with a now full compliment of 'normal,' psycho/emotional tools.
- The Personal Level
- Finances, shelter, food, physical health, that kind of stuff. In general, that is all taken care of at the moment, in various stages that is.
- Finances, food, shelter etc is compliments of our social welfare system, I on disability. am working towards removing myself from this. It's getting close I think.
- SRS - am thru the psychological assessment, and am now waiting on the bureaucracy to catch up so that I can make an appointment for surgery. I still want to go thru with this, feel that it will complete me, even if I never get to employ my new body parts in anything other than urination and masturbation.
- Relationhips - I have come to the conclusion that this is going to take care of itself as long as I don't let my psychology cloud my perceptions. The last two or three relationships have engaged in, have been with people that are not in my fields of interest, and were happening based on needs rather than mutual likes and goals. One don't go out with the guy/girl because zir* has a cunt/dick. One incorporates the cunt/dick that comes (npi) with the person you are attaching to. And a good plan of attack is to let that happen in and around where one lives/works and plays. Mutual Needs are co-dependent: Mutual Goals is inter-dependent. Although it occurs to me that one could go wrongly either way with those two too. However, a good plan of attack it seems to me is: Do what you like to do, and the relationships will follow in and around those endeavours with people who more or less are playing in the same ballpark. Does this mean one goes around fucking those with whom one works. Not really. As in anything really, discretion is the better part of valour.
- The Psychological Level
- Equilibrium - I now have, for the first time in my life, as memory serves, a personal 'normal.' That is to say, a stable, reflective and objective place that I can return to (and more and more quickly as I learn) when things have spun out of control in spite of or even against my conscious, actualized will: Equilibrium. I now know what it is, and how to maintain it. Phwew!
- Issues - I've had a few. Been working on those the last 20 odd years, and believe I have come to a significant milestone: Acutalization
- The "Spiritual" Level
- I have discovered this 'equilibrium' to be a state that can be induced, to a degree, by meditating. I am working diligently every day to become more and more capable in this regard. Meditation, as I got to lean it, was a drag, full of long periods of waiting for it to be over. That has changed, and is, to my new way of thinking, a way to consciously connect to the... universe I guess, to hook up to the mother ship, and to, along with creating a sense of equilipbrium...download perhaps. I find that this is adding something to me that I have never experienced before. I also noticed the other day as I 'hooked up,' that when a solitary ship horn sounded way over in the bay, I actually felt the sound as an impact on my body, thru my skin. Actually felt this, somatically, indicating to me a degree of somatic sensitivity I have never noticed before. Actually, I had noticed that when watching someone fall from a hight on tv, or in a movie, I would often 'feel' that too. Unique as far as I can tell. I would hear a similar horn a couple of days later from the same spot, and notice that I felt no somatic impact this time, as though my senses were duller somehow. I had also not meditated, or 'tuned in,' that day either. Connected? We'll see. Still working on this. What this has to do with "Spiritual" level i am not sure yet other than I think it's in that ballpark. Not big on the sacred stuff. As far as I can tell, we are all part of the universe, all one with it, and therefore, all 'sacred,' if anything is sacred. All the rest of it cowtows to hierarchy and superstition.
- The Social Level/Community
- It occurs to me that this is taking care of itself to as I develop in my fields of endever. I am stopping worrying, or even looking, around this. It's happening. As I progress in these endevers, I meet and form new relationships with people who are interested in what I am interested in. Out of that, who knows? But it really does seem the way to go. Random factors, of course, will always play a part, but that's another story**.
- The Professional Level
- Performance Arts:
- Singing -
- Lessons with Craig Tompkins. Finding out what my voice can do. We are 'peeling back' the onion on this, and I am being blown away. I love what's happening with my voice. Today, Sunday Feb 5, I can feel my stomach muscles taking over the breathing, and my wind coming from down there. It is altering the quality of my sound I think, and much for the better.
- Choir with Solidarity Notes
- Performing - at a small restaurant, El Barrio on Hastings a block and a half west of Nanaimo, every Friday night with Caroline Stewart, as her lead guitarist, and doing my solo stuff. This is 'pahing my dues' and is moving along well as my voice adjusts and I learn from singing in front of people. I have no fear here anymore. 'Tis a wonderful thing.
- Acting - Thought I was giving it up, but have been asked to do Mrs.Warren's Profession. Have found that I am enjoying the work I am doing, so we shall see. It may not even happen.
- Social Work - I have found, thru volunteering at Qmunity, an LGBT resource center, that I like what I am doing there, that this is what I want to do when I grow up. I am good at it, and am going to continue on to this end, if only to stayed tied into life on a different level than performing, although it occurs to me that they are, in some significant regard, very similar. Or perhaps it is that it is I what is the one and same, employing similar methods to different ends.
- Qmunity: I shall endever to stay in touch with this organization in what ever way I can. I am at home here.
- VAMP - taking a five week volunteer training course with this addict recovery organization. Very good, and love the instructor, Oona.
- Peer to Peer training: am re-applying, this time with a different focus. Before, it was to get a job. This time, it is to venture farther afield in this field. I could counsel if nothing else.
Add to this that I now have some semblance of order, or maybe focus is a better word, about who I am and what I am doing. There is of course, the "sex change", but that's more like body sculpting. Quoting "Killing Floor" by yours truly, "I bin him, and I bin her, and now I'm some'thing more," reflects a deep need in me to fully incorporate and express the feminine side of my psyche so that I am perceived by all as being more in the female world than in the male world. I learn more and more each day about how and what this truly means to me, emotionally and psychologically. This sort of feels like it's a finding one's personal style kind of thing, only body wise rather than clothes wise.
* gender anonymous pronouns: he she zee it; him her zer; his hers zers. I think this covers all the bases. Let me know if it doesn't work somewhere, grammatically that is.
** here's the thing. If one meets someone who is sympatico, emotionally I guess, although we are usually talking about sexually at this point, then one may be well tempted or whatever, to suit one's persona to match the situation, instead of letting the situation suit one's persona. Something like that.
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