So Dr. O got a list of interesting questions from a friend of hers, a Nun. The questions are as follows:
*As you look back on the year just completed:*
1. What name would you give to your journey of the past year?
How would you describe it to one of your friends?
What image or metaphor would you use to talk about it?
2. What were some of your "epiphanies" of the past year?
How did you grow because of them?
3. Who were your wise persons?
What did they reveal to you?
How did this influence your life?
4. Did any of your hopes and dreams become a reality?
5. What was most satisfying about the year?
What was least satisfying?
6. How did your experience of the past year affect the world in which you live?
Yeah pretty rough stuff. That nun must be a sadist. So anyway, my theraputic homework was to pick one question and answer it. And since we're all friends here, I thought I'd share my answer with you. Oh, by the way, if you feel like answering these yourself, feel free. It's tough!
So anyway, my answer follows:
What name would you give to your journey of the past year?
There is only one name I could really give it: Hell.
How would you describe it to one of your friends?
That’s the point isn’t it? I have two lives and two sets of friends.
Both would hear the following: I lost my full time job (demoted to part time) since I took a contract job. The contract job was an Orwellian nightmare and I was fired after two weeks. So now I’m part time: no benefits, no contract work. Add to that my wife and mother in law (who we live with) have specialized in making life hell.
My female life has progressed well. I am growing by leaps and bounds. I’ve made friends and expanded my horizons. I have figured out what I “look” like and am learning makeup. Yet in so doing, this puts pressure on my male life. I want to be female more and more. This means lying to my wife and spending money I really shouldn’t. Yet also this year I made an enemy. Her issue seems to boil down to she “just doesn’t like me.” I guess I can’t please everybody- that said, she touched a nerve which caused me a lot of soul searching.
What image or metaphor would you use to talk about it?
Don Quixote: Questing for something that may not exist and tilting at windmills of imaginary menace.
What may not exist? The possibility of happiness. The possibility of finding a job. The possibility of becoming Sophie in body as well as mind. Are these all illusions? Are they fantasies? Phantoms? I work hard to get a job. I work at being Sophie, and I’m beginning to believe that the road to happiness runs through being her. If not happiness then at least Peace. But that road is full of dangers. Here there be dragons! Or are they just windmills?
So now you have an idea of how I think. Scary isn't it?
Tomorrow night I will be out again- this time for dinner before Ren and laptop. To say I'm scared doesn't begin to touch the surface. I'm terrified. But I will go, as my friends will be there and I need to learn to present myself in public in "non-safe" places as a woman.
May God have mercy on my soul. And my pocketbook. ;)
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