Tag Archives: and insiration

Falling Leaves and Family Love.

Well here we are deep in  the month of October out here on the prairie of the southern great lakes.WP_20151019_001 

The Gods paint their last picture as we near the winter  solstice, soon the tree’s will be bare as will all the fields that produced the plenty of another harvest in the life of this rare girl who continues to recollect the love of family and the security it brings to my reality.

On Yesterday I had the occasion to attend a remembrance service for my fathers wife of over 50 years.

 Mrs. Juanita {Bailiff] Iles

I will try in some short words to define how I thought of this grand lady,as I grew up in the home of my mother ,God Bless her she was always very bitter of my father and Juanita’s relationship and  I get a women scorned is not likely to forget the ones who wronged her. the circumstances were as I can collect not very pretty. I was very young at the time ,but the consequences did and do have an effect on my life. But this isn’t about me or my circumstances,it’s rather about my fathers wife and my extended experience of  motherhood.

This was a Lady of the finest degree,who came from very humble beginnings,on a poor farm in Western Indiana ,who grew up with a not so very great childhood ,and moved to my home town at the age of 16, I was not privy to any of this at the time of it’s happening as I was very young,she met my father and for reasons I may never know caused the eventual end to the marriage of my Mother and Father. Learning to love them in separate family circumstances was a bit confusing as I began to come of the age understanding, because I was beginning to understand by no means meant I had an adult understanding of  the situation,it only meant that I had to make decisions about my reality of the experience

Facts are facts I was as a teenager dealing with the hard reality of knowing  that something was very ascue in my own life.I had know Idea of how profound this was to my life back then as I only knew something was seriously not right with my mind and body.

Not sure if it really was the reason for being very rebellious ,or if it just came along with the lives of all teens,

I was about as confused in life as a butterfly that couldn’t escape my cocoon,at around that time in my life,my Mother and Stepfather confronted me about being adopted and losing the what I considered was my last and only ties to my birth father,who for all intents and purposes had been only a memory that came from brief encounters of visitation on  birthdays and whatever other times were suitable between the feuding parties.

All I can say is teen years are a collective fog that rarely lifts until you are in your late twenties,or later. which leads me to my first encounters,with my fathers wife, rebellion was my middle name around that time of life and rebell I did, I left my mother’s home to experience first hand my father’s life,truth is I was about the last thing my stepmother needed in her life about then and I was about the last thing I needed in my life too just then, that being said she welcomed me and my stupidity into her life without question,I saw almost immediately a woman that was as selfless as any I had ever met,in order to help raise the Children my father and she produced she gave very much of herself,taking on babysitting of other people’s children while they worked, to doing laundry and ironing for others, she never had a complaint,and always put my father and his children all of us first before herself, never a day you would ever go hungry around this lady no matter who you were .

She remains a lady of my highest regards and will live as a good memory to me,as she gave my father over 50 years of never ending  Love and Happiness To this I salute her a true soldier of life.

Along the way She and Father gave me a generous group of brothers and sisters ,they are all of great quality,with kind and generous hearts,on this occasion of the remembrance of their mother’s life is the first time any of them or their Mother’s family had ever met the lady I have become in recent history,not a single one treated me any different than ever ever and none failed to embrace me as the human being they grew up with.

I think for most girls(Ladies) of my age group and circumstance the fear of losing family and loved ones is our greatest source of anxiety in life,I have been so very fortunate to have the love of ALL my family still with me. I am truly Blessed,and grateful.

With a Happy Heart ,

I wish all Love and Happiness

Butterfly

Across The Rubicon

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As most of you know already,last year before our Family reunion I made the decision to no longer hide who I am from my people. This has resulted in the biggest and best turning point of my not so young life.

It has allowed me to forge better and stronger relationships with members of my family and their friends as well,without doubt it has lead to a relationship between my youngest sister and I that I  dreamed about but never thought would exist, we have grown so close and formed the most wonderful bond It’s like it was somehow destined to have happened.We have become inseparable friends. It makes me cry sometimes knowing how long I kept myself from the fruits of love my family had to offer.

As with most Like me in my age group we began our journey with very conflicting and confused views of our condition,and over time we confronted nearly every emotion and self doubt that anyone could conceive,most going through periods where we thought we could defeat the reality of what we are by as many methods as our twisted understanding could dream up,as with myself I went the whole gambit ,practicing  immersion therapy thinking if I could just do the most male things possible It would somehow go away or at least I would be invisible and no one would discover my socially abnormal lust to be what my brain kept telling me I was. 

Well as it turns out,after a few years now of consistent hormone therapy I threw caution to the wind in favor of living as the person who had been trapped by utter fear of discovery and just began reconstructing what I had left of my life as just me. A me even I wasn’t sure I really was after these long years of confusion and lack of understanding my true self.This round of things is much different than my previous temporary jawnts into womanhood this time I went in with a commitment  to never turn back again but always continue moving forward no matter how frightened or difficult it might get.

So many times in my life I built wardrobes of womens clothing only to lose my confidence,or out of fear of being discovered and having to face what I thought would be the true end of life.I purged so many wardrobes only to begin again within a few months this time I did a reverse purge and rid myself of every piece of male clothing I owned with the solid mindset that this time a permanent girl would appear and grow and keep growing and never again look in the rear view mirror.

This time I have truly crossed the Rubicon, for those who have no knowledge of the term briefly it was a river in Italy that was forbidden to be crossed by Armies,and Julius Caesar crossed it with his army it was a point of no return just as I have finally reached the point of no return in my transition,I have truly become something completely unique to all previous versions of myself,It has been so powerful a change that I’ve completely released my mind from all that seemed to clutter it with doubt about my true identity,I no longer even, but on rare occasions  think of being transgender I’m just Shelle.

Some new reality has set in on me I used to be very focused on every article and piece of information that had anything to do with being transgender that I just couldn’t get a grip on working hard on the individual I wanted so much to be.Truth is the best and most motivating thing I ever did was to trust my family with what I had been facing all my life,guess had I should have trusted in the fact that I came from pretty strong people who have known how to deal with diversity and personal struggle from the time our people landed on these shores from England. I guess that learning all I could about my condition was really a right of passage in most ways a trail to be traveled,to a destination that was far from sure in the beginning.Truth is I have gained more strength and clarity in life by reuniting with my loving family than I could ever have pictured in my mind,being able to look in eyes of the people you grew up loving all your life and feeling comfortable and loved is a priceless gift only they and God can bestow on you.

I know it’s been a bit since I last updated my journey but frankly real living has overcome me,I’ve been so engrossed in living that I really forgot to be concerned about the lost soul I once was. I don’t feel anything but normal these days,something I have never known in my life,there was always that heavy hand squeezing the life out of me.I guess being recognised as yourself and being comfortable there is pretty intoxicating to someone who really hasn’t known it in an entire lifetime.Feels kind of like I need to sprint toward the finish line as there are not many ticks of clock left in my life,like I must cram every wonderful moment of a finally happy life into the small place left to fill ,before leaving this new found peace. Relationships I once thought would be burning pieces of coal,have now turned into precious diamonds,and I’m blinded by the glitter so much that I’m just living free from all the burdens I once heaped upon myself.

Seems like Shelle has become the most normal person of my life,a girl that can be best friends with my sister,hang out with the girls go shopping and just hangout, there are so many new  things in my life I’m just drinking it all down with a very humbled heart.

Back real soon sorry for being away so long,

Butterfly

From the mouth of the dragon.

So many times in the past few years,my soul has cried out to be loved,and been answered by vile and unjust people who didn’t love me but somehow loathed me for my very existence.

For some of you out there this is a subject that you never even give thought to anymore it has become just a routine and mundane part of your existence,something not worthy of the the thought of every minute of everyday,as love should truly be approached.

Do you go to bed at night thinking I must put my arms around this person of all persons,and awaken her or him with the very joy that you are both alive,another day a day when love can grow not wither on the proverbial vine of life.

Do you now take for granted that this love that once made you smile so hard your damn jaw hurt,is just a drudgery that you somehow think you must continue out of some duty you promised in times past.

Think very hard people of what the gift of true love brings to life,It’s the very essence of who we aspire to be as we grow up in the world,and yet as we think that it is ours to keep it can vanish while we are there standing next to it.

How many of us ever achieve and keep true love in our lives? A very small percentage I’m willing to bet.

Some of us have it and don’t ever realize that It’s ours,we just keep looking as if it has somehow passed us by somehow.

I will tell you that if and when I find this in my life it will be the focal point to which all other parts of my life beg to give themselves to.

For me as an elderly translady not a day goes by when I don’t dream of having that warm body,that arm over me at night that comfort of seeing a smiling face looking back at me in the morning when I awaken.

This is a prize not often found by persons like me, it’s more like worst odds than the lotto.

Have I given up completely heavens no, I’m a wonderful girl with much to offer,and maybe one of the most passionate lovers on the planet.

But I urge those you who have someone to wake up to devote all that you should to that person,loneliness is not a place you really want to visit in life.

It was thrust upon me by virtue of losing my mate in the most horrible way, I came home from work to find her dead by her own hand. And yes I have heard all the little comforting things people always say in these circumstances, It’s not your fault,It was her choice,and many more, but how does ones heart really recover from this horrible tragedy over which you have no choice ?

Somehow I chose to go on even though I at first didn’t want to, I found some courage and inner strength to hold out a place in my heart for someone else to fill someday.

If you are out there and listening please reach out to this warm and loving heart that beckons true love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHekNnySAfM&feature=related