Normally a day is just a day...this one just happens to fall on the day I was born several decades ago...

I was going to spend a quiet morning fishing on the lake, that was the plan for the day, I had walked along the bank under the big hill, ready to head to the house to get my gear until I had heard a horn honk. I looked in the direction shielding my eyes from the light, but figured it was just some early partyiers for the weekend, it would be the Fourth of July soon, just as I was about to walk off I heard a familiar voice "Gotcha!"

Zach had snuck up behind me and locked me in a bear hug, we end up wrestling for a minute before the rest start calling from the car. He tells me about the latest conspiracy as we walk up the hill back to the other guys. Aaron shoots me the look " Hey man! Rock and Roll!" We hang for a minute catching up before Zach gets antsy "Let's go!" He shouts already turning the keys in the ignition. I know they have something planned for me, but I am not about to ruin it.

We take off fast and soon the music is blaring on the subs. I am crammed in between Bozo and Mike. Zach drives like a maniac as usual and I nearly go through the windshield when he stops the car. We all laugh it off. And soon we are out of the car and on the move again, We hang out at the house for a few hours just shooting the breeze, playing some guitar hero just because we can. And then Mike insists on doing some grilling for lunch and ends up nearly singeing my eyebrows off when a big flame shoots out of the propane grill. How he managed that I had no idea.

Aaron throws me a beer, and after that it was time to see just how drunk I could get, They all knew I had a high tolerance, I usually out drank all of them and then some. I had a feeling they all had a trick up their sleeves, And I was right. Next thing I knew we were hitting all the clubs, bars, and parties. Not my usualy scenes. They were always telling me I needed to lossen up a little. So I figured, why not? At least just this once.

Mike was the designated driver, he has not into drinking much. I meet a girl that night and we hit it off great, everyone says I open up more when I am drunk, and they are right. I still have morals-yeah who knew? so I do not do anything a few of them may just do that night, but I can tell she likes me..and it may just turn into something serious. The night goes on.. Just a bunch of guys having a good time, right? Not focusing on how we got where we are, or the pain of our individual pasts, or the regrets, or any of that just for once..Just simply being without care...I wish..

If you haven't guessed none of this took place, none of it happened. And why is that? Well I will never be "The guy". the hardest words for me to say..and I have never actually said them in fact. is that I believe I am a transgendered male. Female body, hormones, but a male mind. I can pretend sure, that is what I do. And I have learned to be and to act accordingly. People would not accept this about me, they would not understand how much I really do want to be "One of the guys" I will never get any form of operation and female to male is one that not many people have even touched upon, it seems that mostly it is male to female. So it makes me feel even farther apart from everything and everyone.

June 30th the day I was born, not exactly a day worth celebrating to me.. I do not mind the people that want to..but for me it is just a reminder of who I am not. I was not going to come out with it quite so soon..might never have at all, so I knew if I did not write this and just click send without thinking about it I might have never made that confession. Only two people in my life knew about this that knew me in person and that was it.

I do not intend to go into any details, I have no intention of talking about my self-loathing, and maybe only a little of the awkwardness I have felt over the years. This is the one and only time I will mention transgenderism at all. Wishful thinking does not help anyone least of all me, So my writing style may change randomly as sometimes I am not even aware of how well I have trained myself to be this "alternate" person, No I am not happy with it I am disgusted if anything. Anyway that is all on the matter. It was hard enough to even write this.

The irony? I don't think this is my biggest secret..nor the worst, though close.

Anyone ever feel like no matter how fast you run the past is always there, right beside you? It creeps into your every thought, every word, daring you to move out of your comfort zone. I know mine does, it looms over my every action, it makes me hesitate to simply be me. I am afraid of becoming who I use to be, but stuck in limbo unable to go forward, and I know I will never go back...but my mind seems to have a different idea on that. If I could erase everything that has happened to me, everything. I would. Unfortunately we are not given that kind of a choice. Some people find that in time the pain lessens and maybe even the memories themselves, but what if it didn't? What if you could remember every little detail of everything? As if it were only yesterday..But it wasn't yesterday for me, it was from the very beginning of my life until 5 years ago when everything changed. Bad things still happen and they probably always will but I found some sort of strength I did not know I had and I am now able to at least function.

I am not depressed. It is probably odd seeing that. Why am I in a depressed chat and blog? Well the answer is simple, I want to relate to people, and no one in the world seems to understand nor have I  burdened them with any of my problems. Everyone thinks that I am strange, but I do not really think anyone knows why. At one point though I did try to tell a person or two, but I basically feel I have been betrayed or abandoned by people, or just guilty for telling them in the first place, guilty for placing my burdens upon another soul. I am an outcast. A loner. Not even by choice anymore, though I know I still have those tendencies without even trying, sometimes I stop myself and try to be more open and social. I am sure from time to time people feel like they are pulling teeth to try and get me to talk, I do not really mean for it but it happens. a lifetime of being lied to, abused, tortured even, I suppose, would do that to almost anyone.

While these things were happening to me throughout my life I was in a fog, it was only after some of these times that I 'broke' down. This could probably be called PTSD  as well, I am sure many people know what that means..(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)..But now all these years later I do not believe I have PTSD, I have a lack of emotion most of the time, I don't really feel joy or happiness. I just feel nothing, like an emptiness. Only when I think back to those times do I feel anything, and that is the pain. I have come to terms with some of what happened to me and I understand that it was not my fault for most of it, but I did blame myself  years for a lot of what happened.

My mind races all the time, I try my hardest not to think of the past, but I have many triggers and many times it just happens. To be haunted by ones past is to be consumed by it. I try not to be. I know I have changed a lot, for the better even, but I still feel that I compare myself to the past. I judge myself harshly sometimes. I do not really care what others think of me, though I use to, I use to hang on every word, every look and I was miserable for it. I realize now that people will hate me no matter what I do or what I say or how I look or for anything else. So I see no point in caring about it. And I don't. For the most part, people, like my family are bit different. They do not even know about my past or the way I feel, or think, but I am okay with that for some reason. I think maybe my philosophy on that is, if they know nothing then I can change and it will not matter to tell them, they went all this time without knowing, and my relationship with the ones that matter is as close to undamaged as I have managed to have in this life.

Damaged people tend to have damaged relationships. I try, but maybe I have the wrong reasoning for the things I do. I do have someone in my life that cares about me very much, and I could tell them anything, and it would not make a difference. I have told them quite a bit about me, though not all of it, but the problem is that I do not feel the same way about them that they do about me, I care for them very much, but I really cannot put a definition on love for me, So I will just say something is missing, it is probably partly me, but maybe also them as well. They too have felt depression, though not for the same reasons. They felt they had nothing in their live and that I gave them everything. ( Though I do not know how) I just feel that I cannot connect with people...And I feel that I can't with them too, we are around one another but we are still so distant nearly all of the time. Sometimes I feel so far away I wonder if I will ever come back..

What is real? Sane? How does one define themselves? I have questions and often answers to my own questions, But I don't always like the answers I have. As a writer, I could probably go on and on, but even though I am a writer and I still do consider myself one, I cannot write my works. I can write this for some reason, but I cannot do what I 'love' the most. I wrote to cope back then, writing was my friend, my joy, my sanity, my hide-away from the world. It was my security net, but because I poured everything into it, and I mean everything. I still have the ability but not the means. When my stories and books and all of that floods my mind, so does the pain. I associate pain with my work because of what it did for me and when it saved me. And I cannot seem to separate the two.

It my seem hard for people to understand, but I am saying that I used it when I was depressed so I could pretend I was not, and Now I cannot use it because I am not depressed and writing brings me a kind of pain that the depression did as well. It has become bittersweet. My predicament is; do I write and let in the pain? Perhaps succumb to the depths of depression again? Or do I never again and live with a longing to do so? And a lack of any kind of real feelings otherwise.

In doing this alone I shut away something that was good in my life, I made a sacrifice that I am not sure how I will live with or without. It is my Pandora's Box...