Good-bye 2020…
…and for the most part, good fucking riddance!
[Sighs of relief all around. Breathe out the old and evil, breathe in the new
and hopeful…]
It has been ages since I sat down and decided to write for my Blog. Some of
that was due to the brain sucking power of Facebook, some to circumstance and
depression. Chronic pain added a great deal to “circumstance and depression”.
But I also, with my ADHD, I’m told that chronic procrastination and an
inability to endure tedium are fairly common, and I have those in spades! Even
without back pain and joint problems from Arthritis or a resurgence of
Dysphoria-like thinking regarding my age or being listed in my medical records
as “Morbidly Obese”. I moved to Naperville, Illinois in 2015 to care give for
my elderly mother, who passed in 2017.
Then in November I came down with a case of Covid-19, 16 days of Hell! Until
then I had thought my pain levels to be extreme at times and often could find
no motivation to do anything but sleep, so even the ongoing reinvention of myself
that started with Transition and everything stalled—even personal hygiene had
slipped because of being so out of sync with who I discovered myself to be in
Transition, and then Covid taught me that I did not know pain or helplessness
at all and gave me a preview. The nasty headache would not quit and in the
worst days that pain was so bad I could not see clearly, everything seemed dim
and not quite solid and the pain got so intense that I could think of nothing
but it. It hurt so bad I seriously thought of killing myself, but simply could
not do anything about those urges because I was too weak and forgetful,
something I am very grateful for now. My waking world was reduced to searing
pain, worse even than when I had hydrazine poisoning in 1988, and I became so
weak and fatigued that I literally could not stand up or hold myself upright
without leaning on the walls or furniture. Going to the toilet became a
terrible struggle and the brain fog and then confusion and forgetting what I
was doing even as I was doing it. That scared the shit out of me and humbled me
and put my general (non-covid) state of decline into a new perspective, I saw
what the end result of allowing this decline to continue would be. I had just
cared for my mother as she was dying and that was a grueling affair physically
and emotionally and so the last couple years I have just been floating and
letting things slide. She was 93, but generally in good health, but she had
given up on the World and her beloved Democracy because it had become such a
nasty and deception filled shit-storm and she just did not want to exist
anymore because it was all so confusing, and living was so tedious and
frustrating being so weak and having to depend on me for everything. Here I am
in my mid 60’s I just “celebrated” turning 66 myself but was already very much
falling into the same condition as my mother who was 93 when she passed. (For
the moment I am not going to rage about politics, though I really want to and I
will soon enough). No, I do not
celebrate getting old and etc., especially in capitalist America. I don’t think there is anything much graceful
in it to celebrate!... but now I see it differently. Covid showed me I want to
live and do things—like travel and be able to schlep my newly upgraded photo
gear with me into scenic places beyond just highway rest stops or my local
river and prairie preserves so I can get the good shots too—and so I must
change my attitude! Dammit, I am NOT done yet!
I must follow my own advice and be my own hero, again. I can still dislike aging, but I can’t let it make me hopeless and I have to fight the encroaching decrepitude with all the strength I can muster! Perhaps that is the gracefulness and the Gold in our “golden years” – ask me in 10 more years and I may have an answer about that. Even if it isn’t so and years being golden are just a nostalgic pipe-dream of a raving lunatic, I still have to walk through them and press on to the source and center of my hopes and dreams that finally broke free from crushing captivity in 2006 when Eva came fully out and Evan never went home again. So, Covid left me totally drained of energy, took the last bits of physical fitness I still had after my long slump and showed me what real pain was. I was like an old garbage bag emptied of everything that made me, well, me! My mom was that way at 93 as her body failed her and congestive heart failure and dementia took her. Not that I want to compare her to that empty sack, because up to the end she was by no means an empty sack – she remained very sharp until the final week or so, but that image spoke volumes to me. Mom had an excuse – she WAS old! Me, I don’t have an excuse, not really, not yet, not for the long haul anyway. Individual days for time-out and self-care are a different story, but I am getting my medical care back on track in 2021. I found a trans specialist I will be seeing out here in Suburban Chicagoland and a major medical provider that has gone all in on supporting LGBTQ+ folks (Northwestern Medicine). I’m hoping they can get me on track to find relief in my lower back, knees, ankles and lately shoulders too. This is the fight I face this year – getting into some sort of fitness again even though the process will hurt. But I’m worth it and I need to do this if I am to ever reach my goal of GRS. And you, dear readers, are worth it too if you have found yourselves in similar straits. Don’t give up!
Yeah, I have some shit to deal with and fight daily, but we all have something!
But I still have stuff to do and if mom is an example of how long most in my
family live then I figure I should have 20 more good years before I get to give
into folding of the hands and lengthening time to sleep.
There is so much else to catch up on since leaving Riverside, feeling betrayed
by some folks in the Trans/LGBTQ community there. The feeling of being kicked
in the teeth after trying so hard to advocate for equality and trans acceptance
still is present in these memories. It sent me into an emotional nose dive in
my first years out here too because I tried to remain as aloof as possible to
avoid being hurt again, this time by people and things I had no experience with
previously. Even so I found myself hosting a Meetup group and as such one local
newspaper latched on to me as sort of a local LGBTQ spokesperson around the
time of the Pulse Massacre in Florida. Any time something LGBTQ newsworthy
happened I got a phone call, and was thrust into things before I was ready. Though
I suppose these things were ready for me to get off my fairly substantial butt.
And National politics were impossible for me to pass by and I have been rather
outspoken and lost several long-time friends. But I am gradually working back
into doing the work that I do love again out here though the social environment
out here is way different than the Inland Empire was and I am glad to have
taken things slow. I did manage to get out to Washington DC in 2019 for the big
Trans Visibility march. Though that has been the last march or protest I have
been able to endure because a few days later my Left knee fell apart, Arthritis
had stripped the cartilage out and suddenly I was in agony and could barely
walk and had to alter and cancel further plans for the East Coast. I have had stem-cell
treatment that worked to get me through this year but it is getting bad again,
so that needs more work too.
I am one of the original founding Board
members of Naper Pride, Inc. and we are slowly gaining a good reputation in
town with the City Council and Police. 2020’s pride fest was cancelled by Covid and
so much of this year has been regrouping and team building for our core
leadership and getting ready to make an even bigger festival in September a
reality. I was blessed to Preach in 2019 on Pentecost Sunday, June 9th at my
Church here in town (First Congregational, UCC, Naperville), the Pastor was to
be out of town that day and asked me if I would be willing to fill in. That was
also the day of a big 2nd annual Pride Parade in our neighboring
city of Aurora, IL and so after the Service many of us from Church rushed over
there and marched in the parade. My sermon Pride and Pentecost was amazingly
well received, as I equated the Spirit of Pentecost with the Spirit of Pride in
being who we are openly and unashamedly.
Hopefully the link here will take you to
the video on that Sermon. It has taken me this long to get the tools and
learn how to edit together bits from different sources so it is more
presentable than just a phone video.
Other newish stuff… I am working with a young Writer just graduated from the
local College here in town on a book about my life and some of the very human
and very odd and conflicted folks I have encountered up to this point. My dark
days of drug abuse, life abuse and hopelessness will be in there, and my
transition and reinvention of self and more details about activism and being
hurt deeply by a community leader and my move to the Midwest and some of my
travels too. Even my struggle with pain, depression and aging. And I expect I have lost just about all the
followers I had before my move and will have to get out and noticed once again
because I know I will have more to say going forward. I must say that I am a
bit daunted by the idea of putting my past life out into the public eye in more
depth than ever before, and hearing the negative voices that will no doubt have
horrible things to say, but that fear kept me in my closet for my first 50
years and now it isn’t going to stop me from putting my life out there so that
maybe someone else can find strength to be themself openly. If I can help or
save just one or two from the anguish that I went thru then I am glad to be out
and visible.
Hugs and Blessings,
Eva-Genevieve!
