People from the past

I have an actual topic I am going to blog about today, Handling situations when I run into people from my past that don’t know that I have transitioned. This is an issue that I have blogged about in the past, so not a new issue. However, I have never only addressed this issue, nor have I had the issues I had recently.

About a week or so ago I took my soon to be wife J on a morning “date” because lately life has been crazy and we have really needed time together. I put down the stack of homework and we seized the Friday morning that she had off. I took her out to the town I spent my teenage years in. It is a small town that I left when I was about 17 and never looked back, well for years that was. I still rarely go out there and even more rarely think about it. As with the military, there is a lot of unresolved things around that period of my life that I am slowly addressing but that is extremely difficult most the time to even think about. So anyway we went out there and the morning didn’t really go as planned, I wanted to take her on a hike I spent a lot of time at as a teenager, but needless to say we didn’t get there. It was still a good morning though. So we stopped to grab lunch and I immediately recognized the waitress as a girl I had babysat for years ago. In fact I knew her and her two brothers very well back in the day. After my first response of feeling old ha ha, I said something to my partner about it. She suggested that I say something to this young lady. Now, we are sitting in this small town restaurant and there are other people in there although not a lot. I am feeling very uncomfortable as a transgender individual at that moment in time (for my own issues that I suspect only time and experience will help to quell). I eventually said something to her though even though she had not seen me in years. If she was anything like me she had no concept of gay people even trans people because that was not something that really was ever addressed or thought about growing up so sheltered. She kind of just stood there for a moment and then was like “oh hey how’s it going” but it was clearly uncomfortable. She said she thought she recognized me but couldn’t figure out from where. We briefly chatted and that was about it. I almost immediately regretting it, but we ate and left without further incident. Hindsight is 20/20 and I am not positive I would have said something now that I am a couple weeks past and looking back.

Then two days ago I was in the mall and as I walked out of a store I almost literally ran into someone face to face who I had lived with and gone to church with. I had always struggled with this person and felt judged by them. They were never my favorite person, and are in fact still apart of this church (which I feel is a cult but who knows). She had this look on her face like she knew who I was, and we have mutual “facebook friends” and so reality is that it is highly likely that she did know who I was. I acted like I was startled to almost run into her but attempted to show no sign of recognizing her. Inside though I had a huge reaction to the situation and wanted to almost run out of the mall. I didn’t though and eventually made my way to Starbucks to do some homework, which is where situation number 2 occurred.

So I was sitting in the corner doing homework, and I realized that this gal a few tables away sat someone I knew “back in the day” from this church. When I say “back in the day” I mean I have not seen her since right before I left for boot camp, which was 7 years ago. But I just kept my head down studying and wasn’t too bothered by it. Sometimes I see people like that and I actually get up and leave or turn around and walk out. This time though I felt I could just keep my head in my books and ignore her. Well a little time passed, then she turns and faces me while interacting with the person she was with. Then suddenly she looked at me, and I know she knew had a realization that she knew me even if she couldn’t place me. She started to act like she was going to actually approach me when I just put my headphones back on. She left, while looking back at me. I sat there thinking to myself and wondering how I would have handled that. I left shortly there after and went home. Twice in one day was a bit much for me.

It is getting to the point now where the people I run into who don’t know I transitioned either are of two categories. People who might know because we still have some mutual friends or just recognize me from facebook etc. and then those who just simply think they recognize me. The thing is, between my jaw surgery and transition unlike some people I did have a pretty huge transformation and it would not be unreasonable to think I was just related to the female me (like brother or something).

Since this is taking me a few days to write, I again ran literally face to face into someone today at the store. Again I acted as though I didn’t know them although they appeared to know who I was. I just walked away. Maybe that is the best way to handle it? I honestly do not know.

Then there are those from my past who feel the need to get in touch with me via things like facebook and send me messages or friend requests even though they have never ever been supportive. Or the ones who “friend me” and then a day later “un friend” me etc. The best are the long emails that are emotional and drama filled about all kinds of things from my past. I am learning to ignore them and not let them get to me. Anyway though…so I don’t have a real good answer as to how to deal with these situations but they do often cause some degree of emotional turmoil. Depending upon the person depends how much is caused. Hopefully some day I will not have to deal with these situations anymore. In the meantime, and without any other real idea of what to do I am starting to take the asshole approach, or whatever one might call it and it is working enough.

On a different note-I finally got my gender marker changed with Social Security today. It was a very intense experience energetically. I need to get in touch with the VA and a couple other places but for the most part most places are now completely transferred over. I have to admit I am not at all looking forward to dealing with the VA on this matter, they have been less than friendly most of the time. Still debated the birth certificate though…do I do that or not? I have mixed feelings on it so I am not going to do anything today.