I Want To Live!

I missed out on 28 years of life.

I'm turning 40 in less than five months. FORTY. I started living at 33. I was living a half-life until then. Seven years, and that's it. Add back in five years that I would barely remember anyway, and I'm basically 12 years old, with the maturity and responsibilities of an adult. So I lost 28 years.

I'll be forty, and I have no job, and hardly any friends. I have no life, and I'll soon have even less of a life, watching kids 24/7. I haven't been able to continue my transition, and who knows if I'll ever have the surgery that I need to be physically whole (gender reassignment surgery).

I have a choice. I could say goodbye to the love of my life and go back to New York, and possibly get one (or both) of my old jobs back. I would have a job, money, a chance to go out and have fun... a life that is my own.

But then I would be missing my love, whom nobody else has ever compared to, and nobody ever will compare to.

Why can't I have both? Why can't I have life and love? Why can't I have a job and be a part of society? I've finally learned how to be me, and now I'm stuck in the house all the time. When Skylar is 18, I'll be 54. Fifty four years old. I look in the mirror now, and I can see myself getting older. Hormones help one look younger, and a life sans cigarettes and frequent liquor has only aided my youthful appearance. But time is catching up with me.

I used to be so apathetic towards my life. I didn't really care about having a life, because I wasn't even being me. My life was not my own. It was all an act. An act that I thought was real. Someone wrote something recently like this, "While others didn't know what they had until it was gone, I never knew what was missing until I found it." Now that I know it's there, I want it. I want to live.

Life or love? Whatever decision I make, I know I'll look back with regret. I'll look back wishing things were different.