Entry #30: The Shower

I asked many times, but Annie always refused my offer to join her in the shower.

She said that she couldn’t face me in such a vulnerable manner. She also said she was terrified that I would come to hate her.

So it was that one night while out to dinner, we decided to play a little game of guessing the ingredients contained in our dinner. The winner would be entitled to anything asked for, but could not reveal what it would be in advance. I felt pretty confident.

We kept score during dinner and in the end I did in fact win. I told Annie I would collect when we went back to our room.

Back in the room, I took her by the hand and we walked into the bathroom. I said my prize is to shower together. She sobbed and said she couldn’t bear it if I left her. I wrapped my arms around her and said that would never happen.

Once in the shower, she made sure to face away from me. I hugged her from behind and told her to make the water to the temperature she wanted. She did so and with shaking hands picked up the bar of soap.

I said no…you cannot have the soap. She turned her head to me and her eyes were filled with tears and she asked why.

I said I am the only one who can use the soap here.

That was just the first of many showers together. After that evening she asked many, many times for me to join her.

Those are nights I will never forget.

Entry #21: Our First Kiss

I grew up in a big city. I lived in good and bad neighborhoods. I didn’t personally experience any discrimination even well into adulthood.

When you just hang around with a bunch of your male friends for years, you inevitably hear trash talking about a lot of different subjects. There were always side comments from certain males I knew. Comments about Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and Gays. There was a special disdain for Transgender people even though most of us had no idea what that meant.

Now, I don’t really know how to explain to anyone what it was like to live in an environment where this went on all the time, when you consider most of us didn’t even know anyone in several of these groups. Sure, I had some black and hispanic friends but I had no first hand meetings with anyone who was asian, gay or transgender. Most of these terrible comments I attribute to what they heard at home or grew up hearing between themselves. Every group had a stereotype that people would exploit for laughs, whether any of it was true or not. I would protest and refuse to take part in any of it, but in truth, I was the only one. To this day I cannot imagine why no one else had an opposing opinion. I do believe that people are easy to judge those who they think are different from themselves. An awful lot of people are small minded and can easily be manipulated into bigotry and discrimination.

So it was, that after meeting Annie and her telling me on our third meeting that she was born a boy, I didn’t know how to process that. We knew right away that there was something special between us and that first kiss was going to happen right then and there. She was pretty clear in her fear of that moment as she had never kissed a male. I said all the right things and I wanted that kiss more than she could have imagined. But, at the same time, my mind was reeling. I knew in my heart she is a woman but my mind began playing tricks on me.
Wasn’t she born a boy?
I had never kissed a male.
But SHE IS a woman.
But, she was born a boy.
But, look at her she is a woman!

She looked at me with these huge eyes for the first time and I knew this was the moment. I leaned in and we kissed. Before I knew it we were embraced and kissing with a passion I had never experienced.

My mind was wrong. She was 100% woman. She looked like a woman, smelled like a woman, tasted like a woman. Everything I ever heard about transgender women was wrong. Everything I had heard about asian women was wrong.

I knew right then and there that I loved her with my whole being. Nothing would ever be the same again as long as she was in my life. I had kissed many women in my life. Annie was the first woman I kissed who would change my life.

Entry #19: Alone In The Crowd

It’s hard to explain what loneliness feels like when you are surrounded by other people. Conversations take place on a variety of subjects but with increasing frequency I quickly lose interest and find myself drifting away into my own thoughts.

I lost more than I ever knew when Annie passed away. It wasn’t just that I had lost the woman of my dreams who I had waited all my life for. It wasn’t just losing the woman I committed to spending the rest of my life with. It wasn’t just losing the woman who loved me as much as I loved her.

I also lost the woman who I shared my deepest thoughts and fears about our relationship and she shared back. It takes a special person who is willing to make the effort to listen to what someone else has to say, to feel empathy for that other person and to join into a meaningful conversation. It is an unbelievable challenge to find someone who will listen after losing the one person who did.

When you try to find another person you can connect with on that level, you find in short order where to look. I have plenty of male friends and the truth is, not one of them fall into that category. I think it is a male thing. Males have a difficult time relating and talking to another male on that level. At least that is my experience.

Females however, no matter how they identify as such seem to possess the ability to show empathy and the willingness to engage. I have been trying to find someone with that female perspective to engage with but without success. It’s not about meeting someone to begin a relationship. It’s not about meeting someone for sex (although the human touch contains so much power that I truly miss). No, It’s about meeting someone you can establish a friendship with and to be able to engage in those deeper conversations.

I have met a couple of women I thought might fit the bill, but it doesn’t look like it will happen. So what I am left with is this overwhelming feeling of loneliness. It might be hard to imagine, when you are surrounded by people and conversation, but it is real and there is no escaping it. I haven’t decided yet, but I may just stop looking.

The decision has already been made to not seek another relationship because I will never betray what I had with Annie. Not finding that new friendship may also continue to be elusive, and if that is the case, then loneliness could be my new reality. Sometimes there is safety in being embraced in your own thoughts.

Entry #13: The First Time

I remember the first time. After all these years, that moment is burned into my memory forever.

We were in Montreal for a show and it was just another rehearsal like so many others. We played the songs exactly the way we intended them to sound and then sat to listen to the playback.

Annie snuggled up next to me with her head on my shoulder as the music began playing. All of a sudden, when the voice track began, she was singing the lyrics in my ear to the music, soft as a whisper so no one else could hear.

In French! In stunned silence, I just sat there squeezing her hand, hoping the song would never end and I would breathe again before I passed out. As the song went on I could feel her shudder as she sang. When the song ended, I turned to face her, completely confused, only to find her in tears.

Annie said she had not spoken French in years, and she loved me so much she just became overwhelmed in the moment and it seemed to be the only way she could express herself. I had no idea she could speak any other language but English. She said yes, she also spoke Vietnamese and a bit of Tagalog.

After that evening, she spoke to me in French a lot. I mean every day. I do not understand 95% of what she said and she would translate in English immediately, but I had to hear her speak to me in French.

The hours, spent gazing into her eyes as she lovingly whispered to me in French just melted me. I will never hear her voice again, but those are memories I will take with me forever.