tekla west
08-01-2006, 11:58 AM
Positive thinking is good, but as fine words butter no parsnips, good thoughts grow no turnips either. So as long as your are filling your life with positive thoughts you might as well try out some positive actions too. Positive thinking is fine, but action rules the world.
So resolve to do something more this year. Resolve to be more honest, to go out more, to go out once, to go somewhere new, make a new friend, talk to a new person, and find a way to just be yourself tonight. Here are a few things I thought of, but there are more, so if you don’t like these, make some up for yourself. We all are pretty much making this up as we go anyway.
1. Tell someone – And I mean, tell someone real. Don’t just do it on some internet chat room, but tell a friend, or someone you work with, or go to school with, or your sister, or that real good friend of yours who just happens to be a girl. Just resolve that this will no longer be your little secret. Every bit helps, every person who knows is not a threat to you, but rather a liberation. And I don’t mean find a sex partner, or someone else to play with, but just find someone to talk to and tell them the truth. Share with them. Level with them. You might be surprised at how open and accepting people really are. Then again, you might find that your resident liberal is just a knee jerk conservative when it really comes down to it. Either way, its good to know. Now this is NOT TO SAY, run out and scream it at the world. Discretion is the better part of valor. So think it through carefully, and perhaps your wife is not the best place to start – though I strongly disagree with keeping secrets in a marriage, though if you started out that way, it may be very problematic to bring it up now – but just one friend you can talk to in real life is so good and so important. Lacking that, try a support group, or TG society in your area. (See below)
2. Write out your story for posting. It does not have to be huge, but anything is better than nothing. So read all the stories, and then write your own and post it. You will be surprised by not only by what your read, and what you find out about yourself as you write it out, but by the sheer joy of sharing. You might find someone you share stuff with, you might find out that your life ain’t so bad after all. Both are good to know. First, there is Unity in Diversity. Second, its nice to know there is someone like yourself too.
3. Reach out and find some support – There are lots of support groups. They range from strictly social, to radical leftist political, to some that resemble a marriage encounter group situation. Some are wide open, and others rather closeted. One should be just right for you. And nothing, but nothing matches the feeling of finally being able to be with real people who really understand who you are, and what your are going through and have been through.
4. Reach out to help someone else – reach out to a new girl in chat or just posting for the first few times and try to bring them into the group. Talk about their fears, worries and concerns, not only will they feel less alone, so will you.
5. Go out – Take a drive, go through a fast food window, anything to get you out of the house and away from that mirror and into the big, wide world. You don’t have to do much, little steps at first, but it will start to change your outlook, and it will change your dressing too. All these changes will be for the better.
6. Go out to a real place – Go out on the town, find a friendly club, a cool restaurant, go shopping, go dancing, go to an art gallery, go to a concert. Do something very public. Do something where you will have to talk to people, and hang out, and be a part of something larger than yourself. Remember, GOING OUT is not necessarily COMING OUT, you can be very discrete if you must, only you know your own situation. But it’s not a bad deal, in fact, it can be pretty cool.
7. Be strong in yourself. When my mom took me on civil rights marches when I was just a young kitty Kat, people used to sing a song that went "Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around!" Good stuff really. There is a whole lot of advocacy stuff going around these parts and you don’t have to buy into any of it if you don’t want to. If you are happy being you – Don’t let nobody turn you around! If you think this way or that, and you are cool with it – Don’t let nobody turn you around! If you think something is not right for you – Don’t let nobody turn you around! If someone is telling you that to be a "real TG/CD/TV" whatever, and that is not you – Don’t let nobody turn you around!
8. JUST BE YOURSELF TONIGHT!!!!!!!! – the best advice there is really.
It might seem big and scary, and indeed it is, but remember "Fortune favors the bold." If I could list one big difference between the happy members and the not so happy members it would be this . . . The people who have supportive spouses, work in accepting environments, the ones who have GGs that talk with them, listen to them, give them makeup tips and even shop with them are ALL people who took the chance and simply told the real truth. Christians are always saying "Know the truth, & the truth will make you free." That is right as rain. So let that be your positive thought, but don’t let it end there, back it up with positive action. "A little bit harder, just a little bit more, a little bit further than you’ve gone before."
There is a wonderful history of feminism called Everyone Was Brave and I have always liked that idea of how to do a revolution. Its time for all of us to get brave, get up, and get out. If the real numbers of us were known, and we were all very public, we would all have a lot less problems as a group. That much I’m real sure of.
What got me thinking about that was years and years ago when I had to get a National Security Clearance and the whole deal with them was pretty much that as long as everyone knew, they did not care. It was the secrets and hidden stuff they worried about, because the secrets were the set up for blackmail. No one can hold stuff against you that is more or less common knowledge.
More importantly, I think that those type of secrets are an emotional cancer. They eat you up from the inside out. They color all your relationships and poison quite a few too, and the other people don’t even know why its going on. They block off so much of you, and not just the part you are trying to hide, but eventually everything even remotely connected to it. And you just kind of freeze up inside. There is little doubt that many of the real big problems one runs across in here are the result of keeping that secret from someone who should have been informed of it a long time before, like right from the get go.
Janis used to sing "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" and that is pretty good stuff along these lines. I know that for me it was like a huge weight had been lifted off, and it has always felt good not to have to carry it or drag it behind me.
That is not to say that the world will stop dead in its tracks, or create a new national holiday to celebrate the wonder that is you. Most people will not want to participate or share or even hear anything else about it. So what. Its so good not to have to hide it that much is reward enough. I think we all have that deal going on with stuff in our lives and in other peoples lives too that we are not real hip on. I know who among my friends starts to roll their eyes up and glaze over when the Grateful Dead or Bob Dylan are mentioned, so I just don’t talk about around them, but I don’t have to hide it either. Likewise I have friends who hunt, and I let them hunt on my land with the provision that I don’t want to hear about it and I don’t want them field dressing the deer on my front lawn or showing me what they killed that day either. So they don’t.
In the end I have found people are a lot more open and accepting than we tend to think, or they just care less then we would expect them too. Perhaps its just like the old cowboy song where the chorus went "Its your misfortune and none of my own."
So resolve to do something more this year. Resolve to be more honest, to go out more, to go out once, to go somewhere new, make a new friend, talk to a new person, and find a way to just be yourself tonight. Here are a few things I thought of, but there are more, so if you don’t like these, make some up for yourself. We all are pretty much making this up as we go anyway.
1. Tell someone – And I mean, tell someone real. Don’t just do it on some internet chat room, but tell a friend, or someone you work with, or go to school with, or your sister, or that real good friend of yours who just happens to be a girl. Just resolve that this will no longer be your little secret. Every bit helps, every person who knows is not a threat to you, but rather a liberation. And I don’t mean find a sex partner, or someone else to play with, but just find someone to talk to and tell them the truth. Share with them. Level with them. You might be surprised at how open and accepting people really are. Then again, you might find that your resident liberal is just a knee jerk conservative when it really comes down to it. Either way, its good to know. Now this is NOT TO SAY, run out and scream it at the world. Discretion is the better part of valor. So think it through carefully, and perhaps your wife is not the best place to start – though I strongly disagree with keeping secrets in a marriage, though if you started out that way, it may be very problematic to bring it up now – but just one friend you can talk to in real life is so good and so important. Lacking that, try a support group, or TG society in your area. (See below)
2. Write out your story for posting. It does not have to be huge, but anything is better than nothing. So read all the stories, and then write your own and post it. You will be surprised by not only by what your read, and what you find out about yourself as you write it out, but by the sheer joy of sharing. You might find someone you share stuff with, you might find out that your life ain’t so bad after all. Both are good to know. First, there is Unity in Diversity. Second, its nice to know there is someone like yourself too.
3. Reach out and find some support – There are lots of support groups. They range from strictly social, to radical leftist political, to some that resemble a marriage encounter group situation. Some are wide open, and others rather closeted. One should be just right for you. And nothing, but nothing matches the feeling of finally being able to be with real people who really understand who you are, and what your are going through and have been through.
4. Reach out to help someone else – reach out to a new girl in chat or just posting for the first few times and try to bring them into the group. Talk about their fears, worries and concerns, not only will they feel less alone, so will you.
5. Go out – Take a drive, go through a fast food window, anything to get you out of the house and away from that mirror and into the big, wide world. You don’t have to do much, little steps at first, but it will start to change your outlook, and it will change your dressing too. All these changes will be for the better.
6. Go out to a real place – Go out on the town, find a friendly club, a cool restaurant, go shopping, go dancing, go to an art gallery, go to a concert. Do something very public. Do something where you will have to talk to people, and hang out, and be a part of something larger than yourself. Remember, GOING OUT is not necessarily COMING OUT, you can be very discrete if you must, only you know your own situation. But it’s not a bad deal, in fact, it can be pretty cool.
7. Be strong in yourself. When my mom took me on civil rights marches when I was just a young kitty Kat, people used to sing a song that went "Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around!" Good stuff really. There is a whole lot of advocacy stuff going around these parts and you don’t have to buy into any of it if you don’t want to. If you are happy being you – Don’t let nobody turn you around! If you think this way or that, and you are cool with it – Don’t let nobody turn you around! If you think something is not right for you – Don’t let nobody turn you around! If someone is telling you that to be a "real TG/CD/TV" whatever, and that is not you – Don’t let nobody turn you around!
8. JUST BE YOURSELF TONIGHT!!!!!!!! – the best advice there is really.
It might seem big and scary, and indeed it is, but remember "Fortune favors the bold." If I could list one big difference between the happy members and the not so happy members it would be this . . . The people who have supportive spouses, work in accepting environments, the ones who have GGs that talk with them, listen to them, give them makeup tips and even shop with them are ALL people who took the chance and simply told the real truth. Christians are always saying "Know the truth, & the truth will make you free." That is right as rain. So let that be your positive thought, but don’t let it end there, back it up with positive action. "A little bit harder, just a little bit more, a little bit further than you’ve gone before."
There is a wonderful history of feminism called Everyone Was Brave and I have always liked that idea of how to do a revolution. Its time for all of us to get brave, get up, and get out. If the real numbers of us were known, and we were all very public, we would all have a lot less problems as a group. That much I’m real sure of.
What got me thinking about that was years and years ago when I had to get a National Security Clearance and the whole deal with them was pretty much that as long as everyone knew, they did not care. It was the secrets and hidden stuff they worried about, because the secrets were the set up for blackmail. No one can hold stuff against you that is more or less common knowledge.
More importantly, I think that those type of secrets are an emotional cancer. They eat you up from the inside out. They color all your relationships and poison quite a few too, and the other people don’t even know why its going on. They block off so much of you, and not just the part you are trying to hide, but eventually everything even remotely connected to it. And you just kind of freeze up inside. There is little doubt that many of the real big problems one runs across in here are the result of keeping that secret from someone who should have been informed of it a long time before, like right from the get go.
Janis used to sing "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" and that is pretty good stuff along these lines. I know that for me it was like a huge weight had been lifted off, and it has always felt good not to have to carry it or drag it behind me.
That is not to say that the world will stop dead in its tracks, or create a new national holiday to celebrate the wonder that is you. Most people will not want to participate or share or even hear anything else about it. So what. Its so good not to have to hide it that much is reward enough. I think we all have that deal going on with stuff in our lives and in other peoples lives too that we are not real hip on. I know who among my friends starts to roll their eyes up and glaze over when the Grateful Dead or Bob Dylan are mentioned, so I just don’t talk about around them, but I don’t have to hide it either. Likewise I have friends who hunt, and I let them hunt on my land with the provision that I don’t want to hear about it and I don’t want them field dressing the deer on my front lawn or showing me what they killed that day either. So they don’t.
In the end I have found people are a lot more open and accepting than we tend to think, or they just care less then we would expect them too. Perhaps its just like the old cowboy song where the chorus went "Its your misfortune and none of my own."