That’s just it- its an outsider’s perspective. We never know what is happening in someone’s brain, in their heart. Nor can we grasp the immense pressure that we sometimes inflict on ourselves, unbeknownst to others.

As a parent I react by questioning how I can help my child to keep talking, keep relating what she needs and what she feels. As she gets older I know that the lines of communication naturally get strained, but how do you keep a child feeling safe enough to share intimate feelings and realities? Love? Stability? Security? Leading by example?

It’s funny… before I logged on I emailed my sister. Earlier this morning I had a little surgery that brought about a revelation. As the flurry of preparation buzzed around me in the cold operating room I slipped into a trance like state (meditating has proven a success in the face of uncertainty here, and the kirtan music didn’t hurt) and went to my happy place. In my email I reassured that I was fine and then I went on a tiny tangent saying that I felt like I must have been a prisoner of war or a hostage or something in another life because I have an uncanny ability to transport myself to another place when I need to endure pain. I did it giving birth. I did it for my marathons. I do it when my back pain ceases to be manageable.

I guess I did it for my emotional pain as well. When my father died I had just survived a near fatal injury months earlier and was, for all purposes, emotionally tapped. I’d been isolated in the hospital and near silent for hours and then days on end. I went inside myself for comfort and reassurance and it worked. I guess.

After his death I was left without words. It wasn’t that I kept my feelings hidden, it was that I could not sort out the shock from the pain from the grief from the fear. “Jenny doesn’t talk,” was what I heard in my bubble, but I felt too overwhelmed to try and piece apart my confusion and despair. Was this what Mike/ Christine experienced in some way? The inability to translate the tornado of emotions inside. The guilt for not being able to bring something to the table, so to speak. The hatred building because I couldn’t make anything better. The fear that if I said a single word I would lose myself completely.

Now thirty years later I have found my voice and my courage. By writing I’ve found a way to unzip my armor, let every emotion spill out into words, expose the most vulnerable parts of me and witness the reality of where I am at with love. It’s not perfect. It’s not logical at times. But it’s real. And it’s out there. I am grateful that this journey leads me to this result. Standing in my truth.

Sat Nam. Truth is my name. It rang through my ears as I laid on the table today and I was peaceful despite pain. It’s all I could hope for. Maybe tonight I will sit with my kids and talk about my experience honestly. I’ll tell them that I didn’t know what to expect, but I took a deep breath with the knowledge that I could face whatever comes my way.

Yoga has been with me and inside me my entire life though I have practiced on and off over the years. From the very first moment I saw the mysterious little orange booklet in the checkout aisle at the grocery store I knew I had to have it.

At first glance the otherworldly figure on the cover sat peacefully in lotus with hands at the prayer position. For me it was as if the yogi’s hands were motioning to me. “Grab this book and never let go,” was what I heard. I started when I was only 5, but I spent the next couple years staring at that little book, desperately trying to stand on my head and twist my body to look like the illustrations. It was a godsend for a lonely child with countless hours on their hands. I became lost in my peaceful practice.

Now after all these years I have found a practice that brings back the wonder I felt when I was a child. Fresh. Focused. New. Alive. My favorite part is when the instructor reminds to simply sit and receive. Receive. Accept it all. The overwhelming love I feel spilling out like a fountain. The fear that rattles my core. The delight that crashes like waves. The pain like a noose around my neck. The words I’d like to take back. The tender moments I never want to forget and on and on and on. Whatever messages are coming through. Receive. It felt like an epiphany the first time I heard it.

Even my meditation felt like more like quieting my mind, rather than opening my mind. Like a librarian telling a chatty student to “Shhhhh!” complete with finger tightly pressed to an exhaling mouth. My practice now feels like I am becoming a more beautiful part of the universe. Connected. Strong. Fierce. Whole.

Another step on the journey. Another awareness of love and comfort.

Recently a reader sent the following document listing recommended books to read (composed and commented on by the reader) and I quickly asked if I could share with the rest of you. If the creator of this list agrees, I will share their contact info with you as a resource. Many thanks & enjoy… Jen

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The books that help people understand:

The Transgender Child, Sephanie A. Brill and Rachel Pepper.

I’m including this even though you’ve read it, because it’s just too important to leave off the list. This book is about the future. It’s changing the present, and helping us leave the painful legacy of the past behind, one child at a time, and one family at a time. It saves lives. All parents of trans kids and teens should have multiple copies on hand.

True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism–For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals, Brown and Rounsley

This book is the analogue to The Transgender Child for adults. It’s from 2003 helps further the understanding trans people. It’s easy to read and humanizes the struggles of trans people. It’s become a classic.

The best book for grounding academic ideas in reality:

Whipping Girl, Julie Serano

Whipping Girl is absolutely amazing. It transcends all the other books that have come before and it fundamentally changes the conversation. She’s the one who brought the concept of cis privilege out trans-feminism academic writing and made it accessible to people in the trans community.

The idea of cis is very simple but really hasn’t even filtered through the whole of the trans community yet.  Cis is a Latin prefix used all the time in science like hetero, homo, and trans. It means: on this side or same side as. Cis is basically the word that trans people can use to describe someone who isn’t trans. The idea of cis is probably the best thing to happen to trans people well since Christine Jorgenson said hello world.
The History:

How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States, Joanne Meyerowitz

This book is basically the only history of Transsexuality as a modern phenomenon out there. It’s a good thing that it’s so well written, and amazingly insightful. It starts with with Richard von Kraft-Ebing at the end of the 19^th century and then moves onto Magnus Hirschfeld’s pioneering work and continues up to the present day. Meyerowitz really delves into the story of Christine Jorgenson, and her story means so much more after you’ve read it.

TRANSGENDER WARRIORS: Making History From Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, Leslie Feinberg

Transgender Warriors is the book you turn to when ask “Where did trans people come from?” It’s pretty awesome. So many things we think we know are retold through a lens of understanding gender expression. Feinberg finds all sorts of amazing examples of gender expression all through out human history.

Queer Theory, and Transgender Politics:

Kate Bornstein:

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us

My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely

Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws

Kate Bornstein along with Riki Wilchins popularized the idea of queering gender, and the end of gender in the 1990′s. They coined the pronouns ze and hir and there wouldn’t be genderqueer without them.

Her books are some of the best ones you could ever find if you’re a trans or gender variant person. My Gender Workbook is a diary with writing exercises and quizzes. If Seventeen magazine wrote a book for young trans women it would look a lot like My Gender Workbook. It was big for me back when I started transition, and really helpful in accepting my truth and being able to embrace my femininity as a positive thing, not something to be punished for. It’s very pink and cute. Her newest book is a lot of fun too.

Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws is a fun read if you like shocking and subversive stuff and a life saving tool if you’re a teen thinking about suicide. The book is meant to get the attention of severely depressed teens. They need hope and it gives them hope. That’s a beautiful thing.

Riki Anne Wilchins:

Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer

Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender

Transsexual Menace was the transgender counter part to organizations like ACT-UP (a organization in the HIV/AIDS movement, which is famous for it’s protests in the 80’s), Queer Nation, and the Lesbian Avengers. It was all about affecting change through “in your face” activism and protest. They are famous for shouting down the keynote speaker at the NOW and at the 25^th anniversary of Stonewall. They started Camp Trans too after the Michigan Women’s Music Festival* instituted their “Womyn born Womyn” only policy excluding trans women.

Judith Butler:

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Judith Butler is the mother of queer theory. Gender Trouble is the foundation text for queer theory. It is canonical book in post-modern philosophy. At this point probably thousands of graduate thesis’s have been written about it. Without Judith Butler, there would be no queer as we know it. With no Butler then there’s no queer theory, and no gender theory. She takes Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Freud, and mixes it up into a strange brew and calls it queer theory.

Today I sat in front of the laptop and finally watched and read about the documentary entitled Her Name Was Steven. Incredibly moving. It was sent to me months ago, but for some reason I was ready today. It struck me when she said that she, then he, confided in his wife that he needed to wear women’s clothes. The wife said she “played along” and dressed him up. Giggling, she said, and brought him to the living room to look in the mirror. “There she is,” he said. And his wife said she stopped laughing.

Steven said he battled that person in his life for so long and then that day he tried on the clothes she was released – born. Can you imagine someone having to hide their true feelings for decades? Running away from their truth? Tears fell from my eyes as I watched his anguish.

There was some footage about his, now her, son writing a note to her saying she was the best dad in the world and that no matter what people said or what she looked like, he would love her. The child sat smiling approvingly, but Susan was so emotional she couldn’t continue. All this time she hid from her authentic self because she thought that no one would accept her. And they do. The power of love is astonishing.

I guess we move in a personal timeframe, the path unbeknownst to us. Only divinely right. One day something happens and life is forever changed. Like a snap of your fingers. Perhaps the times when we feel off track, our true path could be around the next corner. Maybe in our running away (or in my procrastinating) we are getting closer every day. Just in our own way.

The two baskets that cradled the photos of my kids in their very early years have literally been shoved in the closet. I could barely see them when I glanced through the out-of-season section of my closet, but I’d quickly turn away when I did. The last physical contact I had with the baskets was when I packed away the school photos of Hope when before she transitioned. At her request I’d taken down her picture down from the foyer, stuffed a new one inside the frame and banished the beautiful photo to “The Baskets”.

Once it was all tucked away I melted to the floor in a heap, sobbing as if she’d just been torn from my arms, never to be seen again. My head knew this to be true. My child was safe, happier than ever and always mine; however, my heart needed more time letting go of that moment frozen in time when my child was just living like any other boy. Free from people’s judgment and ridicule. Free to see the family and friends who have since let us go. Free from the manipulations of life that some gender non-conforming children endure: searching high and low for a discreet clothes for school, swimming and ballet, growing out your hair, seeing acquaintances on the street that call you the wrong name and then stare at your new curls and dress, being called the wrong name by just about every medical professional, wondering why your grandmother or your uncle or your old best friend just doesn’t call anymore, defending yourself and your identity on a regular basis when all you want to do is just be a kid.

Sure, life was admittedly easier, but “he” wasn’t free, was he? Inside she was trapped. Lost. Silenced. Who wants that for their child? My head knows this. My heart still aches when I see pictures. It’s my Achilles heel. Knowing this, I am going to give myself a little more time to just be with the fact that it hurts me. It’s not that I don’t fully accept my child. I do. It’s not that pictures mean more to me. They don’t. This is painful for me and that just is the way it is.

Shortly after I unearthed the baskets, my sister reached out to me. She knew what this activity would do to me. Pain rippling like the tide. Always insightful, she shared a little revelation that “this little boy existed” and we have the opportunity to honor that. Not toss it away. I don’t have to run from the tender memories of holding my child in my arms, dressing him up, whispering his old name in his ear or the shear joy I felt knowing I had a beautiful, healthy son. Those memories do not have to be my enemy, unless I see them that way. Unless I fear the power of my emotion behind those memories. My emotions are love. Pure love.

This morning we found out that a really lovely person we know was murdered. For nothing, really, The person (or people) that took his life wanted his new car. Here he was waiting for the next two weeks to slip by so that he could peacefully retire and live out his happy life. It didn’t happen. I keep thinking of him and his family, wishing them peace.

In my heart I go to that place that tells me that his work here was finished. As my best friend always says, everything is divinely right. Yes. Although I believe that’s true, my mind challenges my heart by reminding me that we are all a breath away. A blink away. A wave and a smile goodbye. Flash… and it’s gone.

For the first time in my life I can honestly say that I am loving the way I am destined to. I am living the way I feel is genuinely, and for that matter, divinely right. It is all in line. Not perfect, but real. It’s flowing without regard to what it looks like to anyone else. Pure. Free. Real.

Whenever you lose someone in your life you re-assess. This evening I said goodnight to a family who makes me happier and more fulfilled than I have ever been in all my (almost) forty years. Each one of them have been my gift. My reward perhaps. My everything.

There is an element of giving up control. A driver implies control. I think of “being in the driver’s seat” when it comes to life. Aware of your destination and how you’ll get there. Now think of sitting co-pilot. In our family that basically means your only job was to give a second analysis of whether it was safe to merge on that side. Not the first hand report, but just a second glance, just to be sure. What an afterthought. How does it feel to have the driver’s mentality in the passenger seat? Awful.

Then I think of the luxury of being driven. Seeing the sights. Able to read or talk on your cell. Text if you’d like! You are free. As a passenger you are the second glance, not the one in control. By simply looking at things differently Ram Dass not only made his situation not driving more pleasant, but he supplied a metaphor for life that I cherish. I am not in control of what happens in life. Things happen and I am sitting in the passenger seat observing them. How I choose to handle them is up to me. Nothing else.

“Don’t worry… about a thing. Every little thing gonna be all right.”

Can a message get any more perfect than that?

It’s my wake-up call. Every. Single. Word. Whisper it to me first thing in the morning so the dread dissolves with my dreams. Sing with me during the day so the permasmile lingers. Words seem lighter. The sun is brighter. Laughter spills over in my heart and I am hopeful once again. I am where I should be. Let it be my lullaby as the day comes to a close and I drift into what could be the best night of my life.

The path twists again forcing the person to accept that our Hope is just a child who is not at fault. Another twist and they need to decide whether they will be a loving and supportive influence in Hope’s life. Continuing along, the person must choose whether they can handle being with Hope in public and talking to their friends and family honestly about her transition.

The last stretch of road is where most people call it quits and go home. The final mile is where the person walks in our shoes. This means enduring public or private scrutiny for the choices I’ve made as a mother (“allowing” my child to “be” a girl) and for who my child is. Educating when someone is ignorant and speaking up against nasty comments, accusations or jokes at our expense. Stepping in the line of fire when someone tries to attack this helpless child even if it means taking a hit physically, personally or professionally. This last stretch doesn’t happen when I’m around. It happens when no one is watching.

It’s easy to be “on board” when we are standing right there and then turn your back and follow the crowd when no one would know. It’s easy to attempt to keep us in the closet from the rest of the people in your life. It’s much easier to act like it isn’t true or it didn’t happen, brushing our lives under the rug like an old tabloid article from an unreliable source. It’s easy to give up on us and not go all the way.

Thankfully people have made their way toward us. Some even seem to have journeyed effortlessly, though I am sure that’s not the case. Right now we have a circle of love and acceptance surrounding us that continue to make life worth living. They’ve acted as allies and champions for us. They’ve used sheer force to move mountains so that my child can enjoy a loving and healthy life. They didn’t have to do it. They could have taken the easy route.

If I look at my circle today I am inspired by these courageous people who open their hearts to us, comfort us and want to be a part of our lives. I admit, lots of people aren’t in my circle. Some people surprise me with their actions. Maybe some are taking their time on the path and we might see them again. Some have shown that they will never take a step toward us. That is okay. We have enough. This is the balance of life.

When spending time in nature I can discard my material trappings and just be. Light as a feather. Shed my troubles and just breathe for a while. Let all the worries of who did this and who didn’t do that fade into a hazy sunset.

Light. Air. Color. Life. It surrounds me like a warm blanket after being pushed into a cold swimming pool. Comforts me like an old friend who I haven’t visited in a while, but is always ready for my return.

Yesterday Hope asked me what paradise was and I had to turn the question around. Where do you feel completely at peace? Where do you see the glory and majesty of life? Her answer was California with it’s mountains and sunshine. My son said it was a national park where we recently hiked.

I’m with them.