i am changing

I am changing. I am stepping more and more into myself and the life – the one life I get – I want and need and deserve to lead.

My transness and sobriety are interlinked. There would not be one without the other – or it would be a hundred times harder for me to see and imagine one without the other.

Could I have carried on boozing to ignore, boozing to forget, boozing to numb myself into a false sense of comfort? Yep. But it would have been to delay the inevitable even further. The more I look back at various points in my life, the signs were there, the messages were there, the feelings were there, the “if only” was there, from such a young age. I didn’t have the words originally, and didn’t know that I had the right, for a very long time. Didn’t know if I was trans *enough*, didn’t know if it was bad *enough* for me to potentially blow everything up in my life, didn’t know if I could cope with disappointing or being disappointed. And for every moment of uncertainty, every second of “oh this doesn’t feel comfortable, nope I can’t go any further”, I would turn to the booze. Because it’s easy, it’s there, it’s socially acceptable, it takes the edge off, it blurs the lines, it helps make us small and squishy enough to fit in the boxes that our family or society or profession or culture need us to fit in *for their comfort*.

A couple of years ago, in a NLP exercise during my training to become a coach, I was asked what the one thing was that I wanted to be, that I never could be. The answer was instant, and scared me with its insistence: “a cis woman”. Nearly 18 months ago, I decided to step away from alcohol for a month, to boost my energy and motivation in the early days of my business. I didn’t know it would also give the microphone to that voice inside, the one whispering: “you’ve known. You’ve always known. Now it’s time to act.” That set off the chain of events that has led me here today – choosing to see myself every day, choosing to *be* myself every day. It comes at a price – socially, physically, emotionally, financially.

To honour my choice to stay sober every day, I need to continue to build a life that I don’t have to hide or run away from. I will.

<3

Look at me
Look at me
I am changing
Trying every way I can
I am changing
I'll be better than I am.
I'm trying
To find a way
To understand.
But I need
I need
I need your help.
I am changing
Seeing everything so clear.
I am changing.
I'm gonna start right now right here.
I'm hoping to work it out.
And I know that I can
But I need you
I need a hand.
All of my life I've been a fool
Who said I could do it all alone.
How many friends have I already lost?
And how many dark nights have I known?
Walking down that long road. There was nothing u could buy.
All those years of darkness
Could make a person blind.
But now I can see that
I am changing
Trying every way I can
I am changing
I'll be better than I am
But I need a friend
To help me start
All over again.
That would be just fine
I know it's gonna work out this time
Cause this time I am,
This time I am
I am
Changing.
I get my life together now.
I am changing
Yes I know how
I'm gonna start again.
I'm gonna leave my past behind
I'll change my life.
I make it up
And nothing is gonna stop me now.

---