Just here at the Public Library in Sierra Vista with my Mom, who is wandering around looking for books to read while I use the computer. She was formerly looking at the 50th anniversary yearbook of my high school. There were pictures from the early 80s and I was able to identify several of the students shown.
I really want to (as usual) say so much, but I've forgotten what, so I'm just going to write what comes to mind.
First, I'm planning to go to Wyoming this weekend. I am beginning to realize that Wyoming may be no more accepting/receptive than Arizona, and probably less so. The woman I will stay with is already hinting that she's going to want money from me for this and that... As one of my ex-friends used to say, those friends who ask money from you to stay with them are not your friends. But she is an ex methhead and prostitute, and she grew up across the street and she's far away from my mother. We must have SOMETHING in common. What's going to happen? I'm nervous. Her husband doesn't sound like he's all that nice or pleasant. He drinks, she has gone back to drinking. There's some mysterious substance that she has mentioned I might use (as an "option"). I don't know. I'm aware that I may be willing myself into a place where I get high again, but right in the moment, I'm not so very eager to let that happen. Whatever.
I had a really intense and productive session with my therapist, Jeff, this Monday. He asked me whether I had "mourned my male body" yet, and I had to tell him I had not. I asked whether I should send a casket down a stream, and he said I could perform a ceremony or otherwise address this need of mine.
We also discussed how I had discounted many of my feelings of judgment during the time between my coming out and having my operation. He asked me whether it might be that judgment was a "human" thing. Of course I agreed. Now I have been struggling for the last few years to be non-judgmental both to myself and others, thinking that this might be one key to my having relationships with others that were solid and "rewarding." Perhaps this was one more obsessive error on my part. Right in this moment I kind of resent the fact that it was put on me to change. I am changing, but if I have any friends, they're just going to have to accept what it is, I'm changing into, and that's a BITCH. I'm so sorry I'm not something that I'm not.
Still doing mostly lazing about the house, reading and watching TV, cooking and a little cleaning. Anticipating the bus trip, scared.
I just finished a book!
The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong.
It was certainly informative and thought provoking, which I suppose may be the source of the writer's popularity. However, I became somewhat confused with all the different historical developments of the Axial Age and her take on them, and what I thought of them (as usual). Unless you're a scholar in the field and know the evidence, it's not easy to make the kind of JUDGMENTS of some conclusions that I'd like to make.
What was perhaps most interesting was the general fact that the civilizations of the era between 1200 b.c. and 200 b.c. were in parallel shifting from religions of sacrifice and ritual to more interior means of achieving personal liberation from the hardships of life, and the particulars of this transition were influenced heavily by the interests of specific social classes and states within history.
Truly there is much to learn.
What I would like to say in parting is, "More Power to Freedom!"
Something else: I am very much in need of pleasure (of diverse kinds). How can I reach beyond this pleasure-denying place without endangering my life? As CL (who's she?) said, everything in moderation. Is that possible for me? Only time will tell!
I hope someone will contact me
It was good to speak to JKH.
Blessed Be,
c*
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