“If you don’t feel your best today, allow yourself that space.  This is hard.  You don’t have to process this all at once.” -Unknown I’m going to try to keep this short today.  I know I have done some more lengthy posts lately…even longer than I normally do.  So, I figure today I will save your eyes and possibly save you from being nauseous. I will just say with the Thanksgiving holiday coming this week, I’m struggling.  I know that for all of us, the isolation that comes with Covid and trying to stay safe has been exhausting.  Even the most introverted people I ..read more

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” – Arnold Bennett I’ve thought a lot about this concept lately…this idea that even the most positive change brings about some of the greatest challenges.  I always knew it.  I mean, when I got married…it was supposed to be the joyous celebration and yet the stress and anxiety of being married was horrendous.  And let’s not forget when I got divorced.  That was one of the best things in my life but yet it was hard, uncomfortable and created a whole new set of challenges for me.&nb ..read more

“And all of a sudden I felt really tired. Like the world had drained me of everything I had.” -BGT It’s been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything and, honestly, I’m surprised my sponsors haven’t fed me to the wolves.  This is very uncharacteristic of me.  But having said that, I am going to say that it’s not been a matter of choice or avoidance.  It’s just been a matter of total mental exhaustion. I may have shared this before, but transitioning is an exhausting endeavor.  It kind of goes through phases of what is wearing on you and every since my surgery, I have ..read more

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” – Maya Angelou Over the past few days, I have posted a couple of more intense posts.  One shared some rough experiences I had in RL and then, of course, my last post touched on how people like me truly need the support of people like you to help us educate the world around us.  Myself and those like me can’t confront these challenges alone and while I have felt the love and support of so many of you, I also know that when the curtain of anonymity and social media is taken away, many balk on their beliefs in ..read more

“It was never their vilification but your silence that bared me…” – Humma Malik We have the presidential election coming up next week here in the US.  We all know I try to keep politics out of my blog.  Having said that, all I am going to say is this… As someone who faces judgement and attacks for being myself, I found it infinitely easier to express who I am and what I needed here in the virtual world of Second Life.  Why?  Because if it ever got to bad, I could always close the window and shut out SL.  But in my RL, I can never “close the window.”  It’s what I ..read more

“Respect is how you treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.” -Richard Branson In light of the day I’ve had, I thought this quote was rather appropriate. One thing I will never understand is why so many people believe that you have to like someone in order to respect them.  Why do the two have to be so intertwined?  Why is it we have reached this point where the two cannot be mutually exclusive?  I put this theory to the test shortly after college and it was an invaluable lesson for me.   After college, I was working as an EMT for a paid ambulance serv ..read more

“We are not what other people say we are.  We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love.” – Laverne Cox In taking this journey to be me, I had to take a long had look at myself, all those who have been important in my life and the world around me.  I have written before how some of my views on the world vary from others who are transitioning.  When I was doing my counseling internship and in talking with others who are on the quest to be who they truly are, I have butted heads heads with others about what warrants a micro aggression or discriminatory behavior ver ..read more

“Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.” – John Heywood When I went out of work for my surgery, I promised to share some of the heart warming stories from my time out and my return to work.  As I have shared in previous posts, there has been a lot of stress and anxiety with all of this…the transition and the return to work.  I am still working through a lot of things and processing some incidents, but I think that’s going to happen for a while.  Until I reach a place both at work and in my social life where all of this isn’t so “new” to others, I expect that’s going to be th ..read more

“Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity.” -Jane Austen I love this quote by Jane Austin.  I mean, in the end, it’s a pretty simple concept.  The more we know and understand about ourselves, our motivations, behaviors, etc…the healthier we respond to the world around us.  It sounds pretty easy, right?  Yeah…wouldn’t it be nice if it was that easy? Unfortunately, it is never that easy. When I went out of work for my surgery at the beginning of September, I thought I had everything in place and was as mentally ready as I was going to be for what was to come.  I had ..read more

“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” -Author Unknown So, I am just going to say something.  A few of my friends have heard this lately and I am sure I will write about it more in the weeks to come because I think it’s going to take some time to work through this.  But lately, I have have just felt completely and utterly overwhelmed. I have shared with several friends lately how much weight this transition has placed on my daily since I returned to work.  I mean, yes, I had a few weeks to prep after surgery but without a real ..read more