The Tale of Two Sisters
As I have written here in Cyrsti's Condo over the past week or so, I recently came out to my deceased wife's sister when her mom passed away.
While she "accepted" what I said with few misgivings, naturally she has questions and seemingly, the coming out process with her will be a work in progress with a good ending.
To give you a little background, she was as different from my wife as sisters can be. She was the wild, flashy daughter and my wife the older, more responsible sister. In other words, fire and gasoline on occasion - my wife wasn't short on temper. If you saw the arms crossed and the foot tapping, you got the heck away! During my marriage to her sister, she had 27 years to judge me and our relationship from the outside. It turns out that once again, I did a damn good job of being...a guy. Not only did she not have an inkling of any gender issue I may have had, she keeps wondering how her "seemingly" more conservative sister stayed with me till her death approx eight years ago.
I simply said our business was on a "need to know" basis and no one needed to know. It was far from easy but that's how it worked. No one needed to know the "real" reason we were going to Columbus (to hang out as two girls or that when my wife wore makeup, either I did it-or she asked me for advice.) In essence my wife and I were incredibly public people but no one got in. Sadly now, my wife's sister is the end of the blood line in her Mom's family and in her own words "I (me) am all she has left, family wise." (No pressure?)
So now she gets to look behind the curtain of how I was able to deal so well with her extremely macho Dad, work a great job and deal with being bi-polar and transgender at the same time (before I really knew what it meant.) The answer is easy, for the most part it was hell because as I lived a gender lie, at the same time was selfish and dearly loved her sister, knowing full well I couldn't have both. But, I damn sure tried!
Interestingly, her and my partner Liz - and maybe my daughter to a lesser degree want to take my wife to task for her attitude of drawing the gender line with me. I never could because, the parameters of her accepting a cross dresser but not a transgender woman were always drawn. I knew deep down inside, runaway trains were heading down my track at each other, only to have both derailed by her death. At the least you can say, I'm a survivor because I was allowed to get up from the wreck and walk away a better person.
Speaking of Liz, she is due to meet up for the first time this weekend with my wife's sister, who is so paranoid about it. Forget about being transgender and all the easy "stuff" my family just wants to see who can interact with me period! Keep in mind my first wife (the mother of my child) lives about 6 blocks away from where my wife's sister lives and my deceased wife's ashes are on the mantel. None of them hate me, I'm just damn hard to live with! Isn't there a country song "All my Exes Live in Springfield"?
As confusing as all of this is at times, the bottom line is how all of this has turned into such a fascinating look at how good of an actor I really was.
Finally, I have barely touched the surface with her on how she was actually my secret "idol." in so many ways.
I will "post" the results to you later!
While she "accepted" what I said with few misgivings, naturally she has questions and seemingly, the coming out process with her will be a work in progress with a good ending.
To give you a little background, she was as different from my wife as sisters can be. She was the wild, flashy daughter and my wife the older, more responsible sister. In other words, fire and gasoline on occasion - my wife wasn't short on temper. If you saw the arms crossed and the foot tapping, you got the heck away! During my marriage to her sister, she had 27 years to judge me and our relationship from the outside. It turns out that once again, I did a damn good job of being...a guy. Not only did she not have an inkling of any gender issue I may have had, she keeps wondering how her "seemingly" more conservative sister stayed with me till her death approx eight years ago.
I simply said our business was on a "need to know" basis and no one needed to know. It was far from easy but that's how it worked. No one needed to know the "real" reason we were going to Columbus (to hang out as two girls or that when my wife wore makeup, either I did it-or she asked me for advice.) In essence my wife and I were incredibly public people but no one got in. Sadly now, my wife's sister is the end of the blood line in her Mom's family and in her own words "I (me) am all she has left, family wise." (No pressure?)
So now she gets to look behind the curtain of how I was able to deal so well with her extremely macho Dad, work a great job and deal with being bi-polar and transgender at the same time (before I really knew what it meant.) The answer is easy, for the most part it was hell because as I lived a gender lie, at the same time was selfish and dearly loved her sister, knowing full well I couldn't have both. But, I damn sure tried!
Interestingly, her and my partner Liz - and maybe my daughter to a lesser degree want to take my wife to task for her attitude of drawing the gender line with me. I never could because, the parameters of her accepting a cross dresser but not a transgender woman were always drawn. I knew deep down inside, runaway trains were heading down my track at each other, only to have both derailed by her death. At the least you can say, I'm a survivor because I was allowed to get up from the wreck and walk away a better person.
Speaking of Liz, she is due to meet up for the first time this weekend with my wife's sister, who is so paranoid about it. Forget about being transgender and all the easy "stuff" my family just wants to see who can interact with me period! Keep in mind my first wife (the mother of my child) lives about 6 blocks away from where my wife's sister lives and my deceased wife's ashes are on the mantel. None of them hate me, I'm just damn hard to live with! Isn't there a country song "All my Exes Live in Springfield"?
As confusing as all of this is at times, the bottom line is how all of this has turned into such a fascinating look at how good of an actor I really was.
Finally, I have barely touched the surface with her on how she was actually my secret "idol." in so many ways.
I will "post" the results to you later!
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