A House of Cards

Image from Angshu Parkait
on UnSplash ...

For most human beings living a life with no severe downs is very rare. Most live a life with some sort of ups and downs.

In many ways, I was fortunate enough to live long enough to have seen many severe ups and downs during my life. I went through possibly a thirty year period when I could say I was leading a good positive life. Even when it came to my gender issues, I was living on the transgender edge but still managed to walk the tightrope and keep my all important marriage afloat. Looking back on the process, all I was doing was building a house of gender cards. 

My cards I was playing included all the times I went behind my wife's back to explore living as a woman. I was living large each time I presented well and was able to get by when I went out. I became the person in the family who did a portion of the grocery shopping, all the way to becoming a veteran shopper in certain venues. Through it all, no matter how excited or secure I felt about being a successful serious  cross dresser or transvestite, I was just playing more cards I didn't really have. At times, I even gambled and played them very recklessly.

I did crazy things such as flashing semi trucks on the interstate when I adjusted my mini skirt up my leg to it's limit just so I could validate myself as a woman. It took me quite an amount of time before I could outgrow this portion of my life and become a more or less secure novice transgender woman. In the meantime, my house of cards grew and became less stable.  Little did I know, I was headed like a runaway train down a track which would end in failure.

What began to set off my failure was the arrival of death in my life. Since my parents had passed on before as well as several other close family members, I thought I had some sort of handle on how to deal with the finality of death and dying. I had no idea of what I was going to face when my house of cards came crashing down. The crash began when I had several close friends pass away. Adding to the impact was the fact I didn't have many to begin with. Plus, it was during this time, my second wife passed away quite suddenly leaving me no time for grieving and/or closure. As my world tumbled, I was a hot mess and wondered what else I had to lose. 

It turned out, I didn't have to wait long to find out. In the middle of a crippling economic recession in the old Ohio rust belt town I lived in, I lost my restaurant I owned and fell behind on my house payments. Perhaps the worst part of it all was the fact I somehow deserved all my problems. Out of all the friends and loved ones I had, why was I the only one left standing.  Why?

Once I met my wife Liz over twelve years ago, she began to help me rebuild another, much more secure, house of cards. Hopefully one which is built to take on the ups and downs of life. At the least, with my gender journey mostly behind me, I won't have that portion of my life to worry about. I can now commit more deeply to enjoying my life as well as the life of loved ones around me so my current house of cards can continue to be stable. Until the end.