Happy First Birthday Hannah!

Today it will be a year that you finally came to life. As I sit here reflecting on the past year I am brought to tears for so many reasons. A year ago I opened the door to your awakening, the birth of you, Hannah. Hannah the innocent. Hannah the sweet. Hannah, the lost, the confused, the scared, the little girl hidden away inside the tough as nails Mannah. The “I need no one and I will depend on no one” Mannah. Two opposing forces, both of you were happy to have me in your life. Both of you were relieved to find out that you weren’t crazy, or weird, or perverted. Both of you ready to finally find your own inner peace, both of you ready for a new beginning. I thought I was enough.

As it turns out, it seems that in my over inflated sense of self and the belief in good and the power of love, that through all the ideals I have for myself, I have come to find out that I am just not a good person. I am going to say that a year to the day that we met, December 29th, 2015, whatever our relationship started with, evolved into and rapidly dissolved into over the course of the last year has ended. I became a mistake. A bad choice.

You are still here, I still see you, every day. I keep asking you when you are going to leave so I know that there is an end to the misery I cause you. To the sadness I feel knowing I am not ever going to be able to repair the damage I’ve caused. I don’t want to inflict myself on you anymore. I hate myself enough as it is for ending up being a mistake and a bad choice. In the beginning I didn’t know there was a choice to be made. I thought the universe put us together so that I could help you. I didn’t understand that you were put in my life to make me realize what kind of person I am.

I am sorry for not being the one. I am sorry for not being the person you needed. I am sorry for destroying the life you had. I am sorry for breaking your family apart. I am sorry for so much. I am sorry that I told that it was okay to be you. If I would have known how much sadness and pain telling someone that they were allowed to be themselves would cause, I would have told you to keep living your life. I can honestly say that I wish we had never met. I would erase myself from your life if I could. I would never want someone to deal with the heartache that I have caused you. I am sorry that in real life, love hurts, I didn’t know that my love was that kind of love.

I do hope that your life moves forward in a positive way and that although I wasn’t the person and that I ended fucking your life up, that there is some good that comes out of it. I really don’t like to think that I am such a bad person that the entire last year is just an ugly scar. I would hope that the things you learned about acceptance and self respect are attributes that you can carry with you. Being able to share who you are with people was so impressive to me and I am always in awe at how easy it is for you to tell people. And I am always so very happy that you have been so widely accepted by so many people. I have always been proud of you.

At the end of the year you found yourself in a very great and honorable place to be in. You have the opportunity to help another young lady save herself and let her know it is okay for her to hold her head up high. I am so proud of you for being there for her. I have yet to meet her, and I am most likely not ever going to, but I know you will do the right thing. You will show her how a lady should be treated and to respect herself and to hold her up high and tell the world who she is. You will help her find her voice and help her free herself from her own darkness. You are amazing to me, you have been since the day I met you. I will love you until the end of time and I will always be thankful for you letting me be a part of your life. In my heart of hearts I never expected to love you so much, nor did I expect to be the one you ran away from.

I know that I will never understand what being transgender means. I know that there is so much going on inside your head from years of hiding who you were that you don’t know how to not keep things inside your head. I know that beyond just the confusion of being in the wrong body and forced to live a certain role your entire life surmounts to living a lie and lying to everyone you have ever known. I know that letting go of the idea that you are bad or sick or weird is hard when you’ve not only been programmed that way through societal influence, but through your own self imposed repression. There is so much more to being transgender than just being in the wrong body. Even if you are lucky enough to be brought up in a healthy environment and just overcoming society was the issue, being transgender has so many stigmas and misconceptions to overcome.

You have so much to deal with and I wanted to be there to help you through it all, and help you find your peace, but in the end, I am not the one that is going to help you figure it all out. In the end, thankfully I don’t have to be. In the beginning you were so certain that you were not going to find anyone to support you or understand you. You were so certain of that you didn’t even know anything about being transgender really except the over sexualized ideals and shame you felt. But together we learned things, we shared stories, articles, we talked about the impact that Hollywood was having on the transgender community. I started showing you that there are people out there fighting your fight for you and with you, and you found even more love for yourself and most importantly, you found that your family loved you for you and that they love Hannah. You found out you were not alone. You found your inner power.

You found out you didn’t need me and I fought that more than I should have. I fell in love with you and I wasn’t ready to let you go. I am not really ready yet, I thought I was, I guess I really am not, but it is not my choice either way, it is yours. I can’t apologize enough for not knowing how to navigate this in a way that I didn’t hurt you. You deserve happiness and peace and true unconditional love. I thought I was going to be able to show you how that felt, but I have my own problems and insecurities and they got in the way. I was throwing my heart at you with all my insecurities attached hoping that you would some how be able to help me through them while I was trying to be there for you and all I did is burden you with me, pushing you away.

I will say this, because of the uniqueness of our relationship I have been able to be a voice where there hasn’t been. I get all kinds of questions from the people we encounter, my coworkers and friends who have met Hannah and Mannah. We have made big changes in small gestures. I don’t discuss the particulars of our relationship with many people. I like people to meet Hannah and Mannah and then I like them to come to me with their questions. I liked that I could say I have a person. Not a girlfriend, or boyfriend, or partner, or lover, but that I was in love with a human being for being a human being and nothing more. The message of the power of love comes back to me each time we meet someone new and they hear our story. There is so much hope and there are so many good people out there. From the start I told you that you were meant to make an impact and do great things and whether you know it or not, you already have.

Good luck to you my sweet and beautiful Hannah. I hope your dreams of love and a happy life find you in reality. I love you always.

Tags: featured, Identity, partners, Transgender

Category: Transgender Body & Soul