Just realized I really needed one of these.
These are the people who have meant a great deal to me.
* * * *
The crazy crowd at the Website Formerly Known As MBTIc.
When I finally broke the news and made drastic unexpected changes that fateful May, you thought I had finally gone off the deep end. (Note: In fact, I had already been quite a loon, you were just too stupid to figure it out beforehand.)
I was terrified to expose something so deep that I had been hiding for close to forty years.
But y’all stuck by me, contributing your support, wit, advice, consternation, and whatever else seemed appropriate as I blogged my way through hell and high water. You still assumed and trusted I was the same person you had known.
I had a lot to work through.
At times I know I was short-sighted; at other times, insufferable.
But you believed in me anyway and gave me courage to think that the world might actually believe in me too, despite the subculture I had been raised in.
You also pulled no punches and gave me honest appraisal when I asked for it and sometimes even when I didn’t. Maybe sometimes I didn’t seem to handle it well, but when I look back now, I see how much good you meant and I was under a lot of stress.
I’m not joking when I say I’d probably be dead if you had not been there as a community for me.
You supported me when I really had no one else.
Thank you.
You guys rock!
* * * *
My best friend, D.
We have been friends twenty years now.
And over the years, you’ve put up with my crap far too many times; I know I’ve certainly put up with yours.
But out of all my friends, you were the only one who was most honest about your feelings, regardless of whether they were good or bad … and still so obviously loved and supported me inequivocably and never lost faith in my integrity or intentions. And you were the one who raged in my name against the unfairness of life when I was unable to find my own voice. You’ve proven your commitment to this friendship time and again over the years.
(So, frankly, it’s clear now that if I want to get rid of you, I’ll have to find some other even more freakish way to do it.)
Over the years, you have been my “philosophy” partner, my writing partner, my humor partner.
We raised our kids in parallel, rejoicing in each other’s successes.
We both lost and found God in the same ways around the same time, one spiritual crisis after the next as we both tried to discover what life is really about.
We have always said that the other was like the brother that we never had.
(Although you had three.)
And even now, I want you to know…
… even with all the changes I wish we didn’t have to go through…
…you still are
The brother
That I realize now
That I have had
Beside me
All along.
* * * *
S, thank you for being my therapist long before I told you my secret.
You never told me what to do.
You just rejoiced with me in good times and grieved with me in bad.
Encouraged me to have faith and hope even when I couldn’t see anything.
And accepted me as a human being, worthy of love, even in my failings.
Thank you for giving me space to find myself.
To regain strength in my own voice.
Having you as my therapist, I was sad to get well.
Because it meant that we had to stop seeing each other.
I’ve never been so unhappy to become healthy.
* * * *
Most importantly, though… Rose.
Everything is too big to say.
And right now it’s very bittersweet.
To paraphrase another writer I deeply respect:
I will never regret being female.
I will always regret not being your husband.
We worked so damned hard to stay married over the years.
Neither of us walked away when just about every other human being on the face of the planet would have given up.
Instead, we both let ourselves change, even while we were really just becoming more of who we already were.
(We just didn’t know it at the time.)
This thing, though, never changed.
I’m sorry.
I know it kills you, it’s not what you wanted… and not what I wanted for you either.
I wish it did not have to be this hard for either of us.
You are one of the most stubborn people I know.
Sometimes I’ve hated you for it.
But I also love you for it.
It’s who you are.
We decided that we couldn’t stay together, and then we decided it was wisest for the kids to stay with you. The day I moved to an apartment, I told you to take care of my babies and cried in the car when you weren’t looking. I don’t know any other person who I would trust so deeply and fundamentally with the health and growth of our children at this time of our lives. With you, they are safe and loved even as by mutual decision I walk some parts of this road alone right now. We might not live together, but we are still a team working to keep our kids safe.
Many things have changed, and many things will continue to change, but forever after, it’s already irrevocably fixed: You’ve become part of me and I part of you until we both die. Our relationship in some ways has died; in other ways, I feel like we’ve grown closer than ever before, because all the walls are down. The hard irony is that I seem to have become a better spouse by becoming female.
I told you recently on our 16th anniversary that I will never ever regret that fateful day when I sent you flowers at college.
I am the person I am in part because of you.
And that’s something I will always be very proud of.
You gave me that passage in Ruth for our wedding and you’ve stood by it.
Never forget what I put in turn in your ring.
* * * *
Assorted small thanks:
N, amazing that we’d find each other again after all this time, and especially based on how we started — isn’t the world crazy sometimes? It has been such a joy and a laugh, and you have been such a strong and tireless support for me, I hope we stick together for years to come.
Obe, I know how hard you’ve tried even when you felt lousy about things; glad you have stuck with things as long as you have, and despite the flare-ups, you’re still one of my favorite people in the world even if we bump heads sometimes. No matter what happens, we’ll always have Rochester.
N, every time I smell vanilla, I will think of you and the deep memory you entrusted to me and the encouragement you’ve been. Thank you for being so giving, I won’t forget. You’re a true knight.
