story

Jessica's story....

It seems funny to me typing out the name and seeing it there in front of me. J-E-S-S-I-C-A. Just seven simple letters. I've said her name a thousand times. "Her" being the key word in this paragraph. It was much easier to think of, and refer to "her" as someone else all these years. An evil alter ego that I will someday gain control of. Or maybe Jessica was that ever temping devil sitting on my shoulder ( like in cartoons as a child), wispering naughty thoughts in my ear. No wait a minute, I've got it, I must just be crazy. I think I belived this one the most growing up. Its been so long now that I sometimes forget what exactly it was that went through my head. So many different years, so many different excuses. So many different me's, only one thing staying the same. Yes you guessed it, "Her". So what if....no it couldnt be. Perhaps Jessica isn't someone else at all. Perhaps "She" is me....
Sounds simple right? I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately for Jessica she was born a male. No really I've got her birth certificate right here. Ok, enough with the hers and hims.... I think I've got my point across. I've spent most of my life divided. Living as a man, thinking as a woman, and feeling completely unsatisfied in anything I do. If you are transgendered like myself, then my heart go's out to you, for you know exactly what I mean. IF you are not, this may be hard for you to grasp if you havent experienced it for yourself. For this reason I have included A hyperlink to a very special site about *transsexuality*. Here it is explained on a level(grade school they call it) that anyone can understand, even if they haven't experienced it for themselves.

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OK, so now that we have what we are figured out, where does that leave us. Well, still pretty confused I must admit. Although a lot better than I used to be, now that I'm at least facing these facts and moving on with my life.
My life, now there's an interesting topic. Its been quite a rollercoaster ride to say the least. I'll spare you all the gorey details as since I've been online I've realized that my story is not unlike any other one you may have read. I've been through all the stages you might expect. The "there's something diferent about that child , but I just cant put my finger on it" stage which covers the younger childhood years. It's during this time that I realized I was different than the other boys my age. Back then it didn't really matter though, as children can act and develop pretty much anyway they want without too much conflict in society. Apparently my inner feelings bled through into the outer world quite often as I have fond memories of "mistakes" with gender. "My what a cute little girl you have." My mother dealt with comments like these quite a bit when I was young. I think she just past it of as my hair was too long, or that the woman must of had bad vision. Who knew why people noticed , but they did. Ironicaly, back then compliments of femininity filled me with an unexplainable happiness. I can remember this now as the majority of my childhood memories are from that era (ages 2 thru 10ish). It was a loving and happy time for me. The only world I knew was the one my parents made for me. It was free of all the evils of the outside world , and allowed me to develope a strong mental foundation which I have fallen back on these later years. If not for the accepting teachings of my parents, I would never have been able to come to grips with "me" and been able to move on with my life. **** thanks mom and dad ****. Reflecting back, these happy years were the "calm before the storm" as puberty was right around the corner. Soon massive quantities of testosterone would change the way I thought about myself and the way I lived my life.

Around age 13 or so I hit the unavoidable fact of biological manhood. Puberty came on with a vengence and my happy little life suddenly took a turn for the worse. Again ,if you havent already, please check out the site on *Transsexuality* that I keep linking to. It explains this a lot better than I can.
All I know is that practicaly over night I felt as though I went "nuts". My body was going through changes that my mind just wouldn't accept. The more masculine I became, the more I disliked myself. This proved to be a very destructive path that continued long past puberty and well into my adult years. The first sign was my grades. I went from a "straight A" student, to unbelievably low failing grades in one term. This patern never changed and I spent my junior high and high school years in a lot of hot water. The school system was very concerned as to why this happened so suddenly and forced there reasons on myself and my family. I think thier final explaination was just that I had a bad home life. I agreed to anything that was said as long as it put people off the trail of what was really eating at me. Unfortunatly this left my parents thinking that they somehow had been bad parents. This couldn't have been further from the truth.
   Eventualy I came out to my parents about my " secrets" over the years, effectively letting them off the hook so to speak. This didn't come until the age of thirty though, and I wonder how much pain I could have spared them had it come a little sooner. As for myself the same wonder bears true, as each of those years was just a repeat of the prior. Growing a little more self destructive in the process. The only time I would find happiness was when I could be feminine.
   During my early teens this was only possible when my folks went out for the evening, or very late at night. I would dress in items that I swiped from freinds ( as most of my friends were girls.... go figure). This "collection" would grow and grow until testosterone would take control. I'm not entirly sure what would bring it on, but it would be like night and day. Suddenly I was so embarased about the things I did, I wanted nothing to do with it ever again ( or so I thought ). All feminine items where cut up, thrown out, and in some cases even burned. I would then vow to never do it again. This vow of manhood might last a week.....a month....but soon the longing to be female would return.
   This repetative pattern continued from adolesence, thru high school, and on thru my twenties. Once I had a license and a job I could buy my own clothes, and drive to other places where I could be myself. This proved to be quite costly as I think back to the thousands of dollars of clothing I just threw out to prove to myself I was still a man. As the years grew, so did my hatred for myself. By age sixteen my value of life had bottomed out. I honestly didn't care if I lived or died.
    I became quite the trouble maker at school as well as in everyday life. At night I would go out with friends trying to break as many laws as possible and bring myself as close to death as I could. I wasn't afraid to die. Why not flaunt it. Not only did this attitude help me to forget who I was, it also painted a very "masculine" picture to the people around me. I thrust myself into relationship after relationship. I feared downtime the most. What if I started liking guys. So right back into another doomed relationship I went. One after another, never caring about what type of person I was with, just that she was a girl. On a few occations I actually met a nice girl but as she grew closer to me she'd have to go. Couldn't risk her finding out. All those years, the lie just growing and growing, until most of my time was spent covering my tracks. Over the years I had forgotten who I was, the real me, and above all I had forgotten happiness.

my Senior picture

A shot before my prom

Back when happiness was a daily event

Just be'in me....What ever that may be

"gender.... whats that?"

snowboarding thru the woods at night.... what was I thinking?

18 with facial hair....ooh what a man.

Happiness, you remember that don't you? Well don't you? It had been so long since I had felt normal that I had all but forgoten what it was like way back before high school, and dating, and sex, and puberty, when I just acted like me and it was ok. Unfortunately as we grow up we are expected to follow the rules of society for our specific gender. I tried to follow these "rules" for most of my life, but in the end have decided that my happiness is more inportant to me than pleasing society. Especialy if it means one day being happy more often than not. I owe it to myself, as well as my family.

I'm sorry if this seems like I'm rambling on for ever. My story's not an easy one to tell. And believe it or not I've already left out about 90% of it up until now. Donna thinks someday I should write a book about it all. Who knows, maybe I will. Who's Donna? Shes my wife. Thats me and her over there to the right. That photo was taken back before we were married. This is where this story will have to take a turn though as Donna does bring me a lot of happiness. But before I can tell you about her I must tell you about the two little angels that led me to her, and away from my destructive path. People who know me know that those little angels are none other than my children. Yes thats right I said children, two of them. Just because I think like a girl, doesn't mean my plumbing don't work =). First came a daughter, with a girl I had been living with for a couple of years. The relationship was a bad one to say the least. My lifestyle had pretty much bottomed out, and being lied to and cheated on had become a daily event. I had let her know a little about me, but kept it to a minimum. We split up a month after my daughters birth and I began the long process of picking the pieces of my life back up, and starting fresh. My ex decided to continue to follow the same path she was on and set the new world record for men slept with, and drug consumption. Her actions fueled me to fight for custody and by age one and a half it was done. My ex continues to lead her life and has unfortunately birthed multiple children by multple partners, and inturn lost custody. My only hope is that some day she finds what exactly it is she is looking for in life. During this time I had changed job tracks, lifestyles, friends, and of course women. Although I had a daughter now who made me very happy, I figured I'd need a woman around the house ( other than myself ?=) ha ha ) to truly make things complete. Thats where my first wife came in. I met her while I was still fighting for longer visitations with my daughter. She already had a little baby boy and seemed to be interested in making a go at it with me and mine. She even helped me to get custody of my daughter. Thats when my son came along. So I married her. Sounds great right....Wrong. I'm leaving out the millions of little tell tale signs that were telling me "BAD IDEA". Unfortunately I was basking in the happiness I had found in parenthood and couldn't see the forest for the trees. I confided in my wife all that I was, I still remember how understanding she was (or so she seemed). With time all things came to light. By the time our marriage had reached the 1 year mark, she had betrayed my love, my trust, and used every piece of what I'd confided in her against me. This combined with a growing concern for the safety and well being of my children, propted me to file for divorce, and custody of the children. After a brief stay in a mental facility she fled the state and refused to return to be investigated. One year later she agreed to return to sign divorce and custody papers. She appeared only a couple of times in the next year. These were short 1 hour visits, that seemed more like a burden to her. Then after a year of not hearing from her, she contacted my wife and informed her that she wanted to give up her mothers rights to her. Donna would adopt my son with the only stipulation that my ex didn't want to see either myself or my son during the process. We've never seen her again. Although I feel this is the best thing that could have happened, its still hard to field questions like " so why didn't my biological mother want me? ". So where does Donna fit into all this? Thats the ironic thing. Shes been there all along....

It seems as if I was mistaken. There was a third little angel looking after me and my kids around the time that I met my sons future mother, I also met a quiet redheaded friend of hers. This friend had been there through the years and watched all the things she had done. This friend watched as she led a destructive life, and ruined others one at a time. When it was my turn up to bat, she whatched very closly. Especially with my kids.

She'd spend all her time caring for the little ones. Seems my ex wife liked to go "visiting" during the day while I worked. Or maybe had to much fun out with friends the night before." I can't be bothered with children. I'm tired and need to sleep." Donna knew what little contact my ex wife had with the children was negative and harsh. She'd gladly step in, in place of "mom" for the sake of the children. This went on for some time and eventualy my ex wife aranged it so Donna could move in and care for the children full time.

As you've probably figured out by our wedding picture over there, this particular chapter had a happy ending. As my ex and I were aproaching our one year anniversity, I confronted her with many growing concerns that I had been making note of over the last few months. At the same time Donna decided that maybe "quiet" just wasn't her after all. She confided in me what my ex was really like and was doing to myself and children. The rest of the story you already read above. My ex went "nuts" ( she'd just been exposed by a friend for 12 years). She made an attempt to take one of our lives, then her own. At this time I had her comitted to a mental facility so she couldn't hurt anyone. I also filed for divorce. Two weeks later she was gone. Off looking for the next victim we presumed.

This was a very difficult time for both of us to deal with. Donna agreed to stay and help with the kids, as she had always done. Only this time was different. Donna and I were falling in love. This made things difficult as I was engaged in a divorce with her old best friend. Also she was dealing with feelings from a long distance relationship she had been having with a long time boyfriend. She thought it had been all but over until he suddenly flew out here to rekindle thier love. What made things worse is he was a really nice guy. I knew him myself, and liked him a lot. Donna didn't feel they were destined for one another, but that didn't make the long term feelings go away. It was a very hard time for her, that Im afraid didn't get much easier anytime soon. Why you might ask? Did I happen to mention that I was a "Transsexual"? Oh yah... now I remember how this story started. =) At that time I was only addmiting to myself that I was a crossdresser ( in that I only liked to wear girls clothing once in a while, and didn't actually feel as though I should have been a woman). I decided that if I was going to have a relationship with Donna, she'd have to know the truth. So I told her everything. To my surprise, she only smiled and loved me more.

But thats how I found Donna to be. For 2 1/2 years I tried to find faults with her. Seemed my past experiences with women ( both relationships and myself ) had left me quite bitter. It pains me to say I put her through hell. She was punished for every wrong that was done to me over the years. The others were bad so she must be too. I had lost all trust. I gave her no stability or safe haven in my heart. I was not going to allow my self to be hurt again. I even had her move out for a few months so I could "sort things out in my head". All she gave me was love, all I gave her was resentment. And still she stuck by me. This troubled me. Why hadn't she gone "nuts" like all the rest? Could it be that maybe her intentions where honest. At some point I realized that Donna had a very special ability. One which I had not yet mastered. She was able to look deep inside and love me. Not the twisted, angry me that was broadcast on the outside, but the loving gentle me thats been waiting patiently deep inside. The me I remenber from my childhood. The me I tried to hide away for so long. And most importantly the me no matter what gender I happen to be. My children taught me what unconditional love was. Its like the love we have together is on a higher plane. A plane where nothing else matters but the love we have for each other. "No I'll love you ifs" Just "I'll love you no matter what". Donna in turn taught me to feel this with another and with myself. For how can I expect to give the right kind of love to my family, if I can't learn to accept and love myself. After these revelations I asked Donna to marry me and on August 11th 2000, we were wed. Much to the delight of my other two little angels. Seems they had this figured out all along. =)

Now don't get me wrong, just because we love each other doesn't meen its not still a very hard situation. Only recently have I confided in my wife about my progression into the "Transsexual" catagory. My wife is a cosmotologist. Before we were together she used to dream of being with a man she could "make up" when ever she liked. When we got together we laughed about it saying "if you had only known". But wanting it and living with it are to different things. As Donna found out. Transsexualism is just another step in the whole process for me of finding a medium I feel comfortable in. Although SRS (sex reasignment sergery) is not on my list at this time, ( I have a fear of loosing body parts) Hormonal transitioning is. The thought of sculpting my body and possibly growing breasts makes me feel like I have a chance to feel normal in this body. Of course this would mean drastic changes to our life and the thought scares us both. But we both agree its something that needs to be done. That is why this story was intitled "a work in progress" as with the close of this chapter, we embark on a new one. This one could be the most difficult one yet. But unlike in past times I don't fear the road thats ahead. Not as long as I have my Three little angels to guide me with love.
Signed..... " ME " =)

Before the "rules" applied.

A match made in heaven?

And along comes a daughter.

"It's a boy!"

Miss Kitty.

Donna loves to change her looks quite often. Each showing off a different side to her beauty.

I find it so easy to smile while we're together.

Our wedding bands bear the inscription "DESTINY", And in this we both agree. Things happen for a reason, as did we.

Don't forget about me =).

Who wears the pants in this family? =)