I used to be a Mormon, a good ol' Mormon too

Relentlessly Forward (January 2021)

 My transition has been long and not at all traditional. For many, it’s a process that takes two years or less. I first started taking hormones way back in early 2009. Christmas 2007, my ex and I were at her parents for the holidays. Our corgi drowned the day after Christmas. I still get tearful thinking about our “Pookie”. His official name was Romney Trystan. He was a beautiful dog. Our human baby was six months old, and Romney vigilantly watched over him. Conlan has always loved dogs ever since Romney. I took Romney’s death very hard and blamed myself. I had let him out so that he could chase the cats. I went to check on him and saw his body floating in the pool. I yelled for help, and we tried resuscitating him. 

His death was the spark for the beginning of my transition. Life was good and the feelings from my childhood and teenage years were tightly sealed and deeply suppressed. But the grief process brought out those feelings. And my addiction raged. And I started researching how to tuck my penis, how to feminize my body, how to get hormones, etc. I tried herbs like saw palmetto and fenugreek. It wasn’t enough, so I ordered hormones from the Internet and used a pseudonym for the recipient’s name. I wasn't home when the package was delivered, and not recognizing the name, my ex refused the package. So I picked it up from the post office. I remember getting so nervous and excited all at the same time. And scared that I would have to show id or that it had already been returned to the sender. But I did get the package. Around this time, I had gone across the border into Mexico and bought spironolactone. I hid it all from my wife, from everyone. For subsequent orders, I got a PO Box in a nearby town.

This went on for a few years. I would take hormones for a few months and stop for a little bit. Once I dressed up and went out to the mall. I didn’t pass at all; teenagers snickered. But I felt so high and jubilant. It was wonderful!!!! But my wife did not like any of it, not the hiding, lying, pills, clothes, not any of it. I had stopped taking hormones, sacrificing myself in an attempt to save the marriage. It didn’t work, and she divorced me anyway. I was devastated. I got back on DIY hormones and then found a clinic and endocrinologist where I could get hormones without waiting a year of living full time. My first appointment there was so amazing. The specialist asked a bunch of questions and finished the interview with “you are trans”. It was so affrming to hear that, to have proof that I wasn’t crazy, that this wasn’t just another part of my addiction.

I started dating my now-wife. After two weeks of dating, I told her that I am transgender. She responded with love wanting to learn more. I was floored! True, unconditional love. I had never felt that from someone before. Complete acceptance. It was so foreign.

I came out at work. Then I changed jobs and socially detransitioned reverting to male mode in public. I was taking hormones off and on. But I was a mess. I came out at work again (at the new job) and in the running world. And I’ve been on hormones pretty much since then.

I never thought I’d get to the surgery step. From the time that I decided to transition, there were three things that I identified keeping me from having surgery: I thought I would lose my family, the cost was just too much, and I would likely get excommunicated from my church. All three of those pillars have fallen, one by one. My ex divorced me anyway, and I eventually got custody of the kids. Many insurances now cover surgery, partly due to Obamacare. And now I’m leaving the LDS Church.

Last spring sometime I heard about the NYU Langone Center and was very impressed. So I made an appointment for a consult, but the wait time for just the consult was eight months. Those eight months are now up, and my appointment is next week! Wahoo!!

 Hearing others talk about dilation scared me.

Western States Journey (August 2019)

WOW!!!! Just WOW!!!!

Western States was an amazing experience.  And it isn't finished, even now over a month after the race to Placer High School. It began much earlier than 5 AM on June 29, 2019.  As far back as when I was in seventh grade.  But for now, we'll go back to July 2012.

July 2012. On Friday the 13th, my ex filed for divorce, and I signed for the papers that afternoon right before heading to run my first ultra, the Cuyamaca 50k.  It was only a couple hours west of where I lived in Yuma, AZ on the way to San Diego.  I had no idea what I was doing.  It was hard.  I got lost towards the end.  It was hot.  It took over five and a half hours!!!  I was covered in dust/dirt with the infamous dirt tan line above my ankles. But I had so much fun. I WAS HOOKED.  With nowhere to go, I stuck around after the race to eat pizza and met other runners. As is expected from me, I had more than my fair share of pizza.  It was almost as fun as the race itself.  I was hurting and needed that community.  They were there for me in ways they'll never know.  I camped another night there and woke up to a neighbor camper talking in Hungarian.  That was AWESOME.  Another neighbor camper came over sometime over the weekend, and we got talking.  He and his wife were so kind.  He had just started running long distances, but hadn't run an ultra yet.  We agreed to meet up later that week since I was going to be in San Diego for training for work anyway.  Even though I was beyond sore, I had a blast just a few days later running some trails with him and some of his friends.  They invited me yet again to another workout that week.  So I went and had more fun doing a track workout.  This week was crucial for my mental health.  My world was changing, drastically.  With the pending divorce, we were also going to move to Virginia a month later for a new job.  Some of the racers and this camper and his friend helped me move forward.  Running helped me move forward, and it kept me alive.

My new job in Virginia was a nice break from the 60+ hour work weeks in Yuma, but the bosses quickly made my already-hellish life even more hellish.  Somehow though, I just kept going forward.  I found another 50k race a few hours away.  I ran the New River 50k in a smoking fast 3:37 finishing in second place.  That weekend further lifted my spirits.  Throughout this difficult time, nightmares were common.  It was hard to focus.  But somehow I managed to find sobriety through running and frequent 12-step meetings.  I connected with other addicts and runners, with church leaders.  I found support groups for both the addiction and for transgender.  I found a therapist and started hormone treatment.  All of that support somehow got me through.

Then I met Heather.  I wasn't looking for romance.  I just wanted to have fun dating, get my mind off the hell I was going through with my ex and her fiancé.  But Heather and I instantly connected.  As corny as it sounds, fate brought us together.

But what does all of this have to do with Western States?  Well, those two runners from San Diego talked about one day running Western States together.  I thought the idea was crazy.  I had read "Born to Run" and had no desire to run 100 miles.  And I didn't know what this "Western States" race was all about anyway.  But then, I happened to run a 50-mile race that was a qualifier for Western States.  The race was the weekend before our wedding in early June 2013.  But since it was a qualifier for States, I put my name in the lottery anyway later that year.

The next year, they removed all the 50-mile qualifier races since they had so many runners entering the lottery.  So, I bit the bullet, and ran a 100-mile race, the Massanutten Mountain Trails 100 Mile Run in May 2014, a month after I ran Boston for the first time setting a PR of 2:52:10 that still stands (it was a BLAST!!).  I finished the 100-mile race.  Not finishing never even occurred to me.  So the last 30-40 miles were a slogfest, a death march to the extreme.  At the half-way mark, I was on pace to finish in about 20 hours.  But then after mile 60-ish, I pretty much died and walked most of the last 40 miles.  My pacer was super patient, gently nudging me along.

. . . to be continued . . . (I hope)

Farewell to a "Deer" Friend

Reflections of Grace, part 179.

Almost two months ago, I hit a deer. I felt so awful - he didn't survive the untimely encounter. I'm very careful about deer and know where they usually are along our road. This one and his friend surprised me at a new spot. I now drive much slower going down that hill.  I was quite shaken up and very nervous while driving the rest of that week.

Anyway, I took the car to the repair shop a few weeks ago since the headlights stopped working; otherwise I would have kept driving it for a few more years. Ignorant of insurance policies and procedures for cars nearing their ultimate end of life, I tried filing the repair with insurance. But since the damage was more than their estimated cash value of the car (it had almost 200,000 miles), they declared it a total loss. I was devastated.

That car has taken me lots of places. I lived out of it for a few months, sleeping in random parking lots and getting woken up a couple times by police. I learned how to fix lots of things on it including regapping the valve clearances, fixed the brakes multiple times, changed the spark plugs at least twice, changed the oil always by myself, vacuumed crumbs and dirt not often enough, upgraded the radio so I could have a CD player AND Bluetooth, and simply took good care of it. Heather learned to drive stick in it, and I just loved the control and efficiency from the manual transmission. It didn't hurt that I averaged about 42 mpg over the seven years and approximately 140,000 miles that I owned it. Until recently, it "fit" our entire family. It never got a name besides "the Fit" or "the Blue car"; it seemed sacrilegious to name it  "Blueberry", but we loved it nonetheless. It was a great fit for our family.

With a heavy heart, we decided to let the insurance take it and send it to auction. Sure, the best thing financially would be to fix the headlights and essential cosmetics, and then run it even further into the ground for at least another seven years. I'm sure the engine and transmission would have lasted at least another hundred thousand miles. And I was eager to learn how to do a little body work.  But we figured we'd never get as much from it for selling it as the insurance was offering.

So we started looking for cars. Ideally an economical small car that seats seven, or at least six. I remembered seeing ads a few years ago that the prius had a minivan version. So I researched and was disheartened to learn that the seven seater was available only in Europe because of US regulations.  Any small SUV that I could find, with theoretically better gas mileage, had seats for only five people. It's a conspiracy I tell you! Toyota can't bring the seven seater to the US, and so buyers are forced to buy larger vehicles such as the Sienna, Odyssey, or some large SUV, and thus use more fuel. What happened to all the station wagons with third-row seating? I think there is a Mazda model that fit the criteria, but I'm wary of the brand and just couldn't find a decent used one in our price range. And of course, the Tesla X with a third row was an option, especially since it can tow more than our Sienna. But alas, it's definitely too expensive, even after factoring in mostly-free electricity/fuel for ten years. So we gave up and decided to get a small car again that wouldn't fit the entire family and hope that our sienna would last a lot longer (it's been having issues, but I think I fixed the main problem - courtesy of YouTube).

So I spent a few days online looking for an economical used car and decided on a Prius. I was no-doubt excited at the prospect of having a hybrid, as I've always liked the Prius. I also test drove an electric, the Nissan Leaf. But since it's range was not quite enough at about 80 miles, we went with a prius. The one we ended up buying wasn't the trim level I wanted (dealer incorrectly listed it as the higher trim), but it was relatively cheap and in great shape.

Yesterday, the salvage company picked up the Honda Fit. I was sad to see it go.

I used as much of the last tank as possible.430 miles is probably a record!

Throughout this entire process, I've reflected a lot. Why am I so attached to this car, an inanimate object? Sure, it had lots of memories (good and bad) associated with it and was only "my" second car. And the new car is great, but I've realized, I guess, that it's just a car. Driving it home last week was rather anticlimactic. "Meh, it's a car." Having the latest technology, the shiny trinkets, etc. just doesn't appeal to me as much anymore. As long as it has cruise control - the only drawback of the Fit.

Growing up, my brothers and I were car fanatics, dreaming about various models. Our dad, patiently and lovingly, took us to dealerships to try out various cars. It was fun and cost him nothing. Even better when the dealer enticed us with free food, even if it wasn't the healthiest. We could identify almost any car from afar without seeing any identifying model symbols, just from the shape and sound.

So, in conclusion, my unsolicited advice is to buy a cheap car for cash, take care of it, and drive it as long as possible. But if it dies sooner than expected, just get another (if you really need it). Life goes on, and it doesn't matter whether you drive a ten year old beater or the newest Lexus, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Mercedes, etc, or even a Chevy, Toyota, etc.(definitely not a Ford, lol). Better yet, either live somewhere that you can use public transit or bike /walk everywhere and don't need a car, or become totally self sufficient so that you don't need to go anywhere.

Poignant Lessons of Life

 I often reflect on lessons I've learned. Sometimes a specific lecture or lesson from a professor or elementary teacher stands out. And that lesson sucks with me throughout my life. Here are a few that have stuck.

My eleventh grade history/literature teacher had us read Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" together. After each lesson, he would talk about it. One day he got on his proverbial soap box and talked about how we as humans try to put everything in a box, make everything in straight lines. We defy nature, and therefore God. As I've been learning more and more about gardening, ecology, and permaculture, I see this over and over. We think we know so much, but in reality we know very little. The more we attempt to take nature and claim grind, the more havoc we wreak. Bees don't fly in straight lines from flower to flower. We think that making things as efficient and compact and industrialized as possible saves money, but it only creates other, more costly problems. Monocrop planting is like a huge billboard for pests and diseases. So we think the solution is chemicals, which only briefly work and are harmful to us and the environment. When nature already has a solution: diversity and attracting beneficial hugs. We fight against nature instead of working with it, as it is. We fight nature and therefore God. #rantover I promise, lol.

My fourth grade teacher was new to teaching. So new that my third-grade teacher was also her third-grade teacher. But she taught me a lot. Two, scratch that, THREE lessons stand out from her.

1. She cultivated a love of science in all of her students, especially in me. One day she had a bunch of test tubes standing next to each other and poured water into each of them and then some other water also. The result was a rainbow of test tubes. Our task was to figure out how she did it. "There was powder in the tubes" was one guess. Another was that she put dye in each of them without us seeing. Neither suggestion was correct. I silently thought about it, and in my contemplation probably missed the explanation that she gave. For years I puzzled over that object lesson and could never figure it out. Recently, my sister-in-law was teaching at the same school as her, right as my teacher was about to retire. So I asked how she had done it. Surprised that I remembered it, she revealed that the multiple containers of water were not actually water but various chemicals. My assumptions were at fault. When the transparent liquids were combined, a chemical reaction produced the various colors, based on which chemicals were combined.
2. Once she wrote on my quarterly report card that I often pout and give up when confronted with difficult problems that I can't easily solve. I remember being angry and furious at her for writing that, cause I was a perfect student. Or so I felt.  In the years since, the image of that sentence printed at the bottom of the dot-matrix paper has stuck with me. Especially when I am working on a difficult problem and throw a tantrum.  I then calm down and realize that I can do hard things.  It may take a long while and a significant amount of elbow grease, but I can do it
3. She started the Young Astronaut's program in our school. One day per week we met either in the gym or her classroom and did science stuff. We planted beans in milk cartons, learned about photovoltaic cells, contraction of eye pupils to regulate light, and many other fascinating things about the world around us. We even tried dehydrated space food - my favorite was the ice cream.
4. Okay, I lied, FOUR. Once she kept me late because I refused to write. That day we had learned about the haiku. I could not think of anything to come up with for my haiku. So I just sat there. Just three lines and seventeen syllables. But I couldn't do it. And I continued to sit trying to come up with something, but even after school I still stubbornly refused to write anything until I had something perfect. This incident, the one time that I ever faced any level of detention is probably what inspired her to write her criticism on that report card. I hated writing for many years, especially creative writing. I was okay with writing a report, but not a story or expression of my thoughts and feelings on a subject. Sometime in high school, I started a journal which I dutifully wrote in every day until sometime in college after my mission when the addiction took over my life. That's another story entirely. Long story short, I used writing to help get out of that addiction and to stay sober even now. Thankfully, writing and I are on much better terms. It has become a healthy outlet for my emotions and a way of sorting out things.

As a sophomore in college, I really struggled with the abstract side of math. Computational math was a breeze, with or without a calculator. I remember sitting with a fellow student in our professor's office. This was the second time I had him, first for Math 4710, Probability, the previous semester, and now for Math 4210, Fundamentals of Analysis. He basically told us to try and to keep working at it.  He compared proofs and problems with using a hammer. At first, the muscles are weak, and the body not very-well coordinated. With practice, the muscles strengthen and better swing the hammer. The brain and body become more accurate and hit the nail, not the poor thumb. With time, diligence, and persistence the proof muscles did get stronger. I learned the tools and techniques to solve theorems and other problems.

In group therapy, our therapist compared addiction to being stuck at the bottom of a well. Even if someone tossed us a shovel, how would we get out. I've imagined this many times and tried picturing how I could get out. He didn't give us the solution. And it continues to puzzle me. Maybe it relates to the infamous first and second steps of recovery. That we are powerless and need help from a higher being. For God could surely pluck us out of that well just add he did me from the addiction. I think the imagery combined with the problem had helped solidify this lesson in my thoughts. And the same for all of these lessons. I remember them well either because they were an object lesson or I imagined them intensely with great detail. I bet there's a study out there about the permanence of memories and lessons.

Mission Reflections

I realized today that it's been a little over nineteen years since I started a two-year mission to Hungary for my church. I was just over nineteen years old at the time and thought that I knew so much. I was so sure of where my future was headed. It's been anything but what I imagined, and I'm grateful for that! Three houses bought, four trips to Europe, three beautiful sons with a fourth on the way, a divorce, two education degrees, a bunch of cross-country road trips, thousands of miles on foot, various certifications including Master Gardener, four dogs (I still get teary now eleven years after "Pookie" passed), five (5 too many lol) indoor cats, countless friends from church and running from all around the world, many tears, many smiles and laughs, many mountain peaks, countless gorgeous vistas, and so on.

I like to think I've learned a thing or two on this journey that is, statistically speaking, only halfway done. I hope I'm less judgemental of others. That I listen more than I talk. That I'm more empathetic and understanding of others. That it always gets better in the end, and if it's not getting better, it's not the end yet. That's it's better to let it out than to keep it in. That Mother Nature is a way better Gardener than I'll ever be. To embrace the suck and the mundane and to enjoy the present. That stuff doesn't really matter cause it just comes and goes, but memories of time spent with family and friends, those stay forever. That it all comes down to love.

#nostalgia #lifeisgood #T-I-M-E #ultrarunner #ultrarunninglife

Gracetől való gondolkodások
Másnap észre vettem hogy tizenkilenc éve van azóta hogy missziómra indultam. Akkor csak tizenkilenc éves voltam és azt hittem hogy sokat tudtam. Olyan biztos is voltam arról hogy mit hozna nekem a jövő. Egyáltalán nem volt olyan amilyet képzeltem és nagyon hálás vagyok érte.

WHY

"Why do you dance?"
"Because it's always been a part of my life. It was there with my mom when I was a baby, and it's here now thanks to Odette. It allows me to live, to be myself." - Felicie in “Leap”

And this is part of why I run. Ever since coach Mason cnvinced me to join the summer track club while I was in Junior High and gave his full support and confidence in me.  He believed in me and gave me the nickname “Studmuffin.”  Then Coach Garn took note of the tiny, gawky freshman and taught me the basics about cross country running and shared fascinating stories of his adventures in running.  Mitch was a senior and was super friendly to me.  Later that year he won the state title but still took time for me.  And now Coach Roche has taken that support to the absolute, unconditional level with loads of excitement, contagious positivity, the playfulness of a puppy, and unbounded encouragement.

I run because it is a part of me, always has been.  I run because it allows me to live, to be myself.  When I am out on a run, it's just me and nature bonding ever more with each step. Left foot, right foot. Over and over again. The rhythm and predictability bring peace and calm to my otherwise frantic, dysphoric mind and body. The fascinating and natural beauty all around brings gratitude to my heart. I run for love.  Love of my family.  Love of other runners and fellow human beings, each with their unique challenges and fascinating journeys. Love of Mother Earth.  Love of myself.