please forgive the grammar mistakes i will proof read the blog tomorrow it is 3 am here now
thank you
rachel
I have a hard time deciding what to put in my blog since my life moves so fast. A friend of mine once said , “ Rachel, you have to have scorecard to keep up.” She is so right.
I could talk tonight about the two men that followed me home and how I pulled out my mace. Or I could talk about the other events that happened since I am Portland that were either verbal, physical or emotional assault. I have focused on a lot of the negative events in my life so let me show you a glimpse of the good life I have in Portland.
I will talk about the negative issues another time. First, I would like to talk about my perspective of how lucky I am to have had so many opportunities in my life. Today I was wondering why I have had so much success in such a short time on hormones. The answer is that the process started decades ago.
Why do I say this? I thought of what advantage did I have over any other homeless person in Portland, Oregon? Yes I was homeless and lived in a women’s shelter for six weeks followed by a transitional homeless project for 2 yrs. But what did I bring into Portland that others do not process? The answer came to me quickly as most answer do since I started hormones. ( you cannot hide your emotions, who you are or the true you on hormones) The answer is my education and experiences in life.
I was educated at Pennsylvania State University arguably one of the best universities in America. But how did I fund such a Endeavour? The answer is the United States Marine corps. The marines, veteran’s administration , paid nearly $20, 000.00 over a four year period between 1984-88. That was half of the total cost to attend Penn State University.
But how did I decide to go into the marines ? Well , I was in band in high school and a band member had enlisted in the marines and ask me to join too? I thought all of 2 seconds before saying yes. Why? I wanted to go to Penn State and I wanted to travel and that was what the marines promoted. However, I received much more than I bargained for , much more.
So on October 17, 1976 I enlisted on delayed entry into the marines and went through boot camp on July 19, 1977. I was in platoon 2088. As a marine there are things you don’t forget and the above are a couple of them. My father motivated me by saying, “ there is no way you will make it through boot camp.” I think he understood me better than I did myself at the time. My attend was that of a typical teenager at the time,” I show my dad that he is wrong.” I graduated from boot camp in parris island , south carolina in October 1977.
I served in the marines for 2 tours for a total of nearly 6 years and was a sergeant when I was honorably discharged. My last position in the marines with that of a communications center supervisor. The marines have a sick sense of humor and they had place me in charge of all of my friends. It all worked out and I never management my friends like most marines were trained to do. Again , I did things my way and me and my friends were the number one watch at the base telecommunications center.
I have always been defiant and do things my way despite advice unless you can show me your way is a better way , “I am going to it my way.” This defiance has followed me all of my life and especially on hormones. I knew before I spoke at the regional veterans’s administration conference that I was defying an entire subculture. I knew it was the right thing to do and followed my heart like I have for all of my life.
Like us we american’s say , “ the marines was ground zero for me.” I risked everything to leave a small town and live my life as I sought to and on my own terms. I have been successful and I have met some fantastic men and women on my journey.
Back to my advantage moving from homelessness to working a large corporation while in transitional housing project. The combination of my sales career, my education, raising my daughter, and life experience were a distinct advantage in moving from homelessness to independence in 2 short years in Portland. Also my passion and ability to draw others toward me to help me cannot be discounted either. Put all of these skills sets together and you have one unique woman, Rachel Reid.
What I did not know is that the leadership and skills I learned in the marines would be utilized like never before in my life. Us marines have this saying, lead , follow or get the fuck out of way. When I was in the Marines I laughed at that phrase thinking that is not me but on hormones it is me and much more.
When leadership was/is lacking the transgendered community I stepped forward when few, if any, would dare speak from their heart in front of so many in veteran hospitals. Like wise at Xerox no one was willing to stick their neck out and offer a solution to issue that was crippling a company. I did all of this while I was technically homeless . Who would dare, a marine. I am more of a marine than I thought. Further more when I asked for the authority to lead at Xerox I practically asked them to fire me. I said, “ give me the authority to improve sales and if I fail you can fire me.” I knew there was a woman inside me but never thought in a million years she was this damn strong and driven.
Ground zero for me on hormones was February 2012. Again on hormones you cannot hide the reality of your world like you have in the past. You see things as they really are not how you want them to be. So in February of 2012 a woman had faith in me and risked maybe not her career but at some level a lot to give me the opportunity to speak in front of 50 directors and deputy director of a the four state region of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The faith in me was unparalleled and gave me the courage and strength to step forward when the opportunity presented itself at Xerox.
I have been validated by the Va health system, Xerox and so many in the Portland community which has altered the my experience on hormones. It is my theory because of my experience on hormones is so different this had effected the overall experience on hormones. So many men and women have pulled me out of isolation in a sudden and dramatic way that this has altered the effectiveness of estrogen and increased the effectiveness of the drug.
I risked so much and my all or none way of doing things worked but surrounding myself with the wrong people could have meant total failure and maybe even a suicide attempt. But this never happened since , for the first time in my life, I openly trusted so many so deeply and risked it all knowing there was no way I could take on this disease by myself. I had done enough research to know I was in the fight of my life. If I did not I did the 2nd week when I started to become left hand dominant.
In the 2nd week I visualized a comparison on hormones to be placed in an never ending roller coaster. To this day it scares me because I don’t know if I can handle , over the long haul, the exponential grown and challenges of this drug. Since , again, no one talks about it openly and honestly I have more questions every day than answers.
I know how powerful this drug is first hand. I cry and I am crying now because I am so , so scared and I have no idea what the future holds. I know so many people care about me and have faith in me to help others . But my deepest fear is what if? One day I wake up and because of the drug I consciously am in so much shock it affects my memory. Is this a real concern? I have no idea since there is no long term studies to guide the doctors nor any open conversations . I have asked a few transgendered women why doesn’t the community talk opening about estrogen and the effects of the drug? I get the same answer every time. “ I don’t know.” I know I will not toe the party line and will talk all I can about this drug so I can be one of the one’s that makes it through the journey.
I have been trained by the best the marines and I can honestly tell you that the marine boot camp is like a vacation compared to hormones. That is no joke. My hormones are raging 24/7 each and every day with no let up now. This 24/7 effect started on month 23.
Lastly, the key to making through the journey is blending the past with the present but how to do this I don’t know yet. I think so many want to forget they were born with male anatomy in the transgendered community. To me that would mean I would have to forget the memories of the marines and traveling to 8 countries by the time I was 20, my years and experiences at penn state university, my sales career and most of all my time raising my daughter. I would never forget my daughter and all the friends I made all the way in the first 50 years. This is the real challenge is blending the past with present and it is a painful process since you have to relive so much and at times I think why did I have to wait so long.
The answer to that questions is I had to know it was safe to be the woman of my dreams. I want to arrive alive not dead like some however the reality is that people would like to harm or kill a woman like me just for the pleasure of doing so. I have seen statistics of concerning this years ago which profiled that most attackers are two men between 20-25 years old. So when the two men following me home after dark fall into this category it scared me so much. What did I do when I closed my apartment door? I cried and cried asking why ?
Again the answer came to me there is not reason why and because of my constant blogging and speeches /conversations I quickly acknowledged that I would rather ended up dead by the hands of an attacker then die a slow death in isolation in my apartment. The fact is I risk my life every time I leave my apartment and there is nothing I can do to change some people. I can only control me. This is easier said then done and much easier to say.
I am one of the most sensitive , soft spoken women you would every meet in your life. I changed for society for so many year thus I will stay sensitive and cry so much and embrace the pain so I can heal and then I can heal others. There are many good people in the world and I seek to meet more of you via the net and in person.
I updated my face book and other social network today. I know I am changing every day and it is not easy when your perception of the world changes by the hour.
I have not talked about Xerox much in my blog but honestly there are two people that in my darkest hours along with the va that saved my life. Without these two people I might have committed suicide . Many think that corp america does care and this is so far from the truth. Xerox management could have looked the other way and perhaps there is an argument that the corp backed me because my plan to increase sales. But given my emotion state of mind at the time I doubt a risk manager would have said stay with Rachel she will pull out and move forward.
What many do not know is that I resigned twice in a 4 day period at Xerox because of my own issues and each time management at Xerox said , “ are you sure you want to resign.”
Who ever would have dreamt that the va health care system and Xerox would be in their corner in their darkest hours on hormones? Not me .
Thank you to the man and woman at xerox that helped me pull through my darkest hours.
God bless
rachel
No comments:
Post a Comment