Sandra, Lori,
Many thanks...great words and truly empathetic and understanding...
I feel the need to share a real life story that I hope serves as a metaphor...
I remember an old friend from University I kept in touch with... we both married our respective partners (he my best mand and I his) and we met up as 'couples' on weekends (as we lived in different parts of the country)... we had our first daughter... problems... she caused problems when going to pubs because she didn't like sitting still for hours... we kind of cooled a bit but kept the friendship/realtionship going. They had their first (daughter)... she would still for hours drinking lemonade while our first and then our second daughter continually got bored and life was one big continuing problem with thie friendship/relationship... so we drifted apart for a few years...
Then they had a son... we heard about his wife's depression and the problems they were having with this kid from hell....
So we invited them over as it it had now been a few years... and met this normal kid... not a kid from hell, a normal kid who was cool!
As they left, they said... now you know what we have had to put up with!
We thought... yeah... welcome to our reality...
I have some increasingly major age related issues. I am glad that our younger (and some older) peers don't, but then they don't share my reality. In fact, from many angry posts around here.. they won't even accept my reality, let alone try to understand it...
Oh.. if life was so black and white!
My 'friend' judged us as ineffective and weak parents for years, until he had a 'normal' kid.. then he reinterpreted the issue as having a problem child... so he successfully ignored the whole point and reconfirmed his own prejudices...
I have three fabulous daughters who are now grown up women (well they think they are!)... and I am too old to be prepared to do surgery and HRT just for a few more years of illusion...
I also am still required to bail them out at times and step in to solve crises... so I need a job that pays!
In my head, I am Kaz and female... but I now know that I always was... I just lived a different life... a good one and I did some good stuff... I don't regret it, but I do regret letting them down because of who I really am...
