Beginning Life Forums: New Beginnings => Midway, post transition

Members

Help

Home

Home » Public » New Beginnings » Midway, post transition (postop)

Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator

We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now [message #109688 is a reply to message #109138 ]

Fri, 06 August 2010 03:29

Anonymous

It is so good to hear from the many people who have said hello. I think of each of you and remember my own journey and how so many of you said things at the right time and helped me.

We are blessed by those who love us and those we love.

I was looking at some photos on Flickr. They were of people waving their marriage licenses in California and they were happy beyond all belief. They were same-sex and they were legally married.

It's been a long way from Stonewall. I think of my roomie when I had SRS. She was very beautiful and was a dancer and was performing when the cops raided the place, or so the story goes.

Down the hall in the same hospital, I recall the two New York hookers who had SRS and BAS. They were headed home the next day. The next day I was going in for SRS.

I remember another patient who had insisted she was a girl and had been raised as one by her very rich parents. Amazing.

I recall many of the learned debates and discussions with people on these boards. In my imagination and mind's eye, I think of the very end of the film, "The Shawshank Redemption." I imagine happy endings for all.

I recall one person saying of our own prisons, "throw down your spoons. Stop digging. The cell doors are unlocked," meaning, of course, we were free to go. Does anyone recall that from the old The Prisoner series, the episode, "Free For All."

Life is difficult irrespective of GID. We do what we can with the hand we have been dealt.

But the nation has changed since Stonewall. Liberties have been won. Attitudes, though not universally, have shifted. People are more able to love who they love and be who they were meant to be. It's been a struggle for all of us and it's been good to hear so many voices on these boards and elsewhere call out and say, "enough is enough." I hope you are all doing well and living life to its fullest -- bonus days that at times in the struggle, we wondered if we'd ever see, and which we now can drink of, at last.

It is late and I will pause.

I won't listen to this YouTube song by Dan Fogelberg. It can choke a person up.

Kate Grimaldi

Dan Fogelberg sings on YouTube

Quote:

Met my old lover in a grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
Stole behind her in the frozen foods
and I touched her on the sleeve
She didn't recognize the face at first
but then her eyes flew open wide
Tried to hug me and she spilled her purse
and we laughed until we cried

Took her groceries to the checkout stand
The food was totaled up and bagged
stood there lost in our embarrassment
as the conversation dragged
Went to have ourselves a drink or two
but couldn't find an open bar
Bought a six-pack at the liquor store
and we drank it in the car

We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now
Tried to reach beyond the emptiness but neither one knew how

She said she'd married her an architect
Kept her warm and safe and dry
She said she'd like to say she loved the man
but she didn't want to lie
I said the years had been a friend to her
and that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes I wasn't sure if I saw doubt or gratitude
She said she saw me in the record store
and that I must be doing well
I said the audience was heavenly
but the traveling was hell

We drank a toast to innocence we drank a toast to time
We're living in our eloquence, another old lang syne

The beers were empty and our tongues grew tired
and running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
and I watched her drive away
Just for a moment I was back in school
And felt that old familiar pain
And as I turned to make my way back home
the snow turned into rain

Report message to a moderator