Lost in TRANSition Diary Entry

The Other Parent (OP)

“It’s a delicate art.” She said.

That was my former spouse’s response to my indelicate question about how he/she hid her junk in the bikini he/she was wearing. It was the moment I realized that she was no longer ever going to be he again.  Nor could I even cling to the hope of ever seeing the man I once loved reappear. I don’t know if I had hoped to see my husband again or if I was just hoping that my husband wouldn’t become a woman.

I didn’t react. I just looked at my daughter who still called the other parent “Daddy” with a little more pity than usual!  That’s probably the wrong reaction, but I wish the other parent (OP) had respected my wishes before O was born to find a suitable name for themselves as to save my child some confusion.

We were having a lazy afternoon with OP’s mom at her hotel pool.  It was awkward. I wanted to tell her how uncomfortable I felt about being around OP, but she’s OP’s mom, not my own.  I wanted to tell her that I missed our family.  The family that she was a part of until I ran away from the train wreck that was coming as a result of me being pregnant and OP coming out.  I hoped that this weekend would reunify what was now broken, but it did not.

Instead, I was left feeling wholly broken.  I had a blast hanging with OP and Mom, but it wasn’t the same.  He was missing.  And all I could think about was how I wished my father-in-law hadn’t died.  That the world hadn’t crashed down around me and that my daughter was calling her dad “daddy” and not OP.

It’s hard to be a mom of a child who’s having to deal with something she doesn’t quite comprehend yet. From time to time, she takes her confusion up with me.  She will tell me that I want to be a boy.  It hurts me in two ways:

1: She believes “Daddy” means a man

She’s seen Calliou’s daddy and his daddy looks nothing like her own.  Still, Calliou sets a model of family that she desires to have.  So, she will call OP daddy because it fills a picture of family she’s got in her head, but her picture is slightly different.

2. I have no desire to be a boy.

I don’t like her questioning my femininity even if she means nothing by it. i love being a women.  I love being a mom.  I love that she was grown inside my belly. I love my boobs, butt and my stretch marks that I got because they are mine and all-natural.

Yes, there is still a lot of anger in my heart toward OP.  I feel betrayed, abandoned and as though nothing will ever be right again. I pray time heals these wounds, but it’s been three years and it only seems to be getting worse.