I am blessed in many ways. I sit here, warm, fed, and with people in my life that care about me, love me and who would come and help me if I needed it. The last at least in part because I wouldn’t ask for any trivial reason.
I am blessed in my transition. Being trans is not obtrusive in my life. I travel my world free of stigma, other than that of being a female in a male dominated world. Little did I realize the amount of misogyny awaiting me behind the high heels and mascara.
Yet things aren’t rosy. At the end of September I started a medical leave due to Parkinson’s. The diagnosis was relatively recent in late Winter 2016, but the symptoms were present in 2012. Mostly it has been benign tremors but it has affected other things and is causing my early retirement from work as it interferes with my concentration and by causing fatigue.
I’m also in the last stage of a divorce and while I’m truly fortunate to have had an understanding spouse and that we’re both being reasonable in the divorce, it is still not an uplifting experience.
I’m coming up on the Ides of March. At that time I will be on disability and not just short term leave from work. An application from me will have long since been at least received by Social Security and I have to ask where is the dignity in this. Certainly nothing the system will hand me. I’ll largely be severed from MITRE, and while there have been some issues there’d be comfort in continuing an affiliation of ten years – by one year the longest I had in my career and after those two (MITRE and Prime) nothing was more than five years.
I find myself struggling to drive my car in the bounds my mind sets. My reflexes are no longer obedient – I’m safe but for how much longer? I can’t tell you if that’s due to PD or some other joy. I’m at a party and I manage to knock a cup out of my hand with my other hand. Trying to get back to the guitar playing is also proving a bigger challenge than I care to admit.
And so I find myself a little bitter considering these years to come. I worry that I will become a burden to my family and in need of real care far, far too soon. Not next year, not this decade if I’m lucky but I’m not sure my luck will hold much longer than that.
It’s a rough day in the sour apple orchard.
And Winter is here.
My Gifted Life 