Friendship

I wish I could say that life has been pleasant lately but it sure hasn't. Life has been rough. I feel more alone that I have ever felt I think, then again maybe I just say that because I am in it at the moment. This week I started the process for discharge from the military. It was a very sad day for me, even though I knew it was going to happen one way or the other. I don't know how long it is going to take or what it is going to take. Will I have to out myself with Don't Ask Don't Tell? Will the just let me go with an administrative discharge? The unknowns of when and how are really hard for me to deal with. I am heartbroken that my military career is coming to an end, especially this way. I just need this to be over. After almost three years living in the closet and now with this I need to be done and walk away. I don't' even want to walk away but for my own sanity and emotional health I have to. As long as I am in the military in some fashion I feel so trapped. 


This week I also lost the person I thought was my best friend of a few years. I thought this person would be there to tell my daughter what I was like as a woman, to walk this path with me. They were so supportive of this transition and now they have chosen to walk away based upon their own selfishness and it really hurts. I would be lying to say I am not heartbroken over this too. It presents as anger because that is always how I have dealt with emotions that make me vulnerable but I am so sad at this loss. Oh and I had finals this week which were super stressful but that is just a side note. 


I have felt isolated ever since getting sober. The military was my life prior to that, all or most of my friends were military. We traveled the world, fought hard and played hard. Then I got sober and that all stopped. I lost a large group of "friends"  that weren't military when I left the church/cult in order to get sober. That left me with my military friends but then I lost those too. Once I stopped drinking it made me so much more isolated. Then I met my partner and had to move really deep into the closet and spend the next three years there further isolating me and losing friends out of fear. Now here I am, lost the military, lost my best friend, feeling like I am losing everything around me other than my partner and baby. I feel lost. 


I don't know how to make friends now. Do they make friends with Jamie or Jonathan? I am the same person on the inside but on the outside things are very different. A lot of change is going to be happening the next year, can people deal with it? That seems like a lot to ask. Some people have already let me know they can't and have jumped ship. Will there be anyone left by the end of all of this? It makes me start to wonder if it is worth it, but then again I am not sure that matters because I know I HAVE to do this. 


 I don't even pass as a guy, ever. So I am Jonathan in a woman's body? I feel like I am not a woman and not a man. So what does that leave me? Who am I supposed to make friends with? Someone told me to "just go make friends and then I won't be lonely" but who am I supposed to be friends with? Especially because I am still living two lives. At home I am Jonathan and Daddy but a lot of the time in the world I am still Jamie and mommy. I have to live both lives and that is incredibly hard. I thought attempting to live as a straight person in the military was hard, it makes this look like nothing compared to this. I just want to be free to be who I am. 


I don't know how to let anyone in anymore, or if I want to even after all of the pain of this week. It is hard because unless you are living it you can't really understand it and I just wish that someone could understand or get it on some level. I need to feel like I am not alone in this world, and yet I do. Even at home with my family a lot of the time I feel all alone in the world. How do deal with the feeling of being all alone on an island in the middle of a huge ocean? I want to go to a transgender support group but I always have school that night. It is so frustrating. I don't know what direction to turn. 

Some days are easier than others. My partner has two of her best friends here and they are awesome woman. I love them and I am so grateful my partner has such amazing friends that I get to know and who are so accepting of me and welcoming. They went to the spa and I watched the baby and even though I was completely supportive of them going when they got home I felt really jealous and burnt out. I had been a rough day with the baby, and I needed a break and to relax and I just realized I had nothing to do and no one to do it with. 


I have been so blessed these last three years with an amazing partner and a beautiful baby. Yet at the same time the last three years have brought such deep, almost catastrophic loss that I really don't know how much more I can take. The fact I have survived so far shows me I am stronger than I thought I could be, but strength only goes so far and I don't really feel like I have any more.