Leaderboard

Remember the Seinfeld episode when Jerry's father kept yelling "Serenity now!" when he was upset and about to lose it? Very funny show. I'm not very religious and don't attend church.. I was raised Episcopalian, attended a church school for 6th and 7th grades, and my parents often had us recite the Serenity Prayer or the Lords Prayer before dinner. I think the prayer was for my benefit... I remember how earnestly I repeated the words in the Serenity Prayer, hoping that my emphasis would gain me that serenity that I wanted so much. It never seemed to work although I suppose we might speculate on how I would have been had I not said those words at all. These days the Serenity Prayer has come to mind a few times. I think it's a wonderful prayer and says so much in only a few words: Lord, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change The courage to change the things I can And the wisdom to know the difference. Each of these four lines says so much and they are hard to achieve. I would like more serenity. I think I'm getting better at accepting the things I cannot change, such as: - I was born male. - I am transgender. - I cannot control my wife's acceptance or behavior toward me. In the third line I'm starting to understand why my therapist (and even my wife) have said that I'm being courageous. I didn't really believe it, but I suppose I am demonstrating that: - I'm coming out to myself and acknowledging my being transgender. - I'm coming out to my therapist (which was damned hard). - I'm coming out to my wife. - Heck, I'm even coming out here. That was hard at first. I worried a lot about saying the wrong thing, or creating misunderstandings. I suppose that by listing the things in the acceptance and change buckets one develops the wisdom to know the difference. Maybe the thing to do is to consider things that I'm now not able to distinguish. I'll have to think about that a bit. Be well, Emma

Hi Mike, I think I know what you mean. "Transgender" is a good term and I like it. But it does seem scarier than "crossdresser" or "transvestite" (terms that I don't care for) since it implies some sort of gender transition or blend. And the fact that it includes fully transitioned transpeople adds to the worry. She did say at one point the other night something like "it's so much more than just crossdressing." I didn't want to dig into that since the fact is that she never accepted my coming out to her about that in prior attempts, so... The good news today is that we had been planning on having friends over for Thanksgiving, and those plans seem to be solid. So while we have this issue between us we are still a couple with things to celebrate our thankfulness for with friends. And to Sara: Thank you for your words. It is tragic that relationships are torn up so much over this stuff. I'm sure if I was the woman I would also be pretty worried and upset too. It's funny to me, though, that I don't really see what the big deal is! I'm still me, after all, and in fact, I'm getting BETTER. Sure, we have some social crap to consider. I'm okay with that. But within my own home I would think it would be okay to be ourselves. Be well, Emma

This is me with some makeup on. I think this photo was taking earlier this year. But could be last year photo also.

"And I should just say... my strange sense of humour got a chuckle out of the fact that a posting titled "Serenity Now!" received its first comment from someone named Serenity! " --Sara ... me too!

So that's where "Serenity Now" is from. I heard it a lot a while back, but never knew where it originated. I was never much into Seinfeld. I'm not religious at all, but even I've heard of the Serenity Prayer; although to be fair, I didn't know it was called that, and I thought it was more of an aphorism than an actual prayer. (I believe I've generally heard it quoted without the "Lord" at the beginning.) Of course, being the sci-fi geek girl that I am, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word "Serenity" is the ship from Firefly... And I should just say... my strange sense of humour got a chuckle out of the fact that a posting titled "Serenity Now!" received its first comment from someone named Serenity! :lol:

Yes I did from an app called Superimpose.