Turning 30…Going Through Puberty

I turned 30 this week (Nov 1st). It wasn’t a hard birthday. I was fairly excited about it. I mean it’s the big 30. However, it was very strange for me too. I am so not where I thought I would be at 30.

In high school, I had it all figured it. I would be married with at least one kid and probably working on kid number two. I would be in a successful job.

Real life:
I’m divorced. No kids. I’m going through a second puberty. I work at a retail store and will be going back to school.

You know what though? I couldn’t be happier!! It know it’s strange to think about. I look at my life and it can seem like this long winding road that seems like a lot of doors are closing. However if I look closely enough there are so many open doors.

SO what does my 30th year going to look like? First I have no idea and that excites me. It’s also crazy for anyone to have an exact plan on how life is going to go. One of the things that life is really great at is throwing curve balls. Oh and it really does!

What are my hopes for it?
I want to start school and study social work.

I am going to change my name.

Explore myself more. There are so many things that I am finding that I like now that I’m going through my puberty. It’s crazy. I don’t know what is going to continue to change, but I welcome it.

I want to play more! I want to find more people who can continue to teach me. There’s so much out there that I don’t know about and I want to try it.

I want to start making a stand for people who speak out against the LGBTQ community. I want to educated people on various issues. It’s so tough sometimes find safe places. That needs to change.

I want people to love each other.

So if you’re concerned that life isn’t what you thought it would be, celebrate what you love and change what you don’t. No one needs to stay where they are. Live a life that makes you happy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If family or friends can’t accept the life you want to lead, then they aren’t your family or friends. You can’t pick your relatives, but you can pick your family. Family are people who love and accept you unconditionally!

My Identity Is Not Up For Debate

To say every day I struggle with discovering who I am and what my life means may seem like an exaggeration. However as a trans guy, this is a fairly true statement. Being a trans guy who is on the femme side of masculine spectrum is extremely touchy. However, I know that I’m a guy. I am a man.

Man is a new identity to me. For a long time, I wanted to shy away from that term because of all the connotations attached to it.

“Man up.” “Don’t be a sissy.” “Don’t cry.” “Talk like a man.” “Act like a man.” “Be a man.”

Men are expected to demand respect and not take no for answer. Men don’t apologize or admit their wrong.

Does this sound familiar? We put so much pressure on people to conform to gender “standards” or “norms”. These standards can be stereotypes and cliches. Standards should be affirming or milestones such as graduating high school, getting their first job, etc. Standards should not be things in which put down other people.

Another reason it took me time to be comfortable is with the personal effect that the word man means to me. As someone who lived the majority of his life as a woman, I have personally seen how men interact with women. Women are looked on as inferior, soft, delicate, or less than. They are questioned all the time to ensure they know what they’re talking about. Women have to present facts and figures and look professional  but also attractive to be heard. If they become tired or sick, it’s because they can’t handle the work load or have too many distractions. I didn’t want to be part of something that can make people seem small.

Women are not without faults. They can be catty and tear each other down.  Gossip is definitely a problem. However women are tough, extraordinary, and capable of so many wonderful things. They have come so far and will continue to soar.

As a man and a trans man, I do not want to raise my voice over my femme siblings. They so deserve to be heard. I never want to be ashamed of my background as a woman, but that doesn’t give me any more of a right to speak for women. No one person can speak for an entire gender.

As people and humans we need to remember that just because we don’t agree with someone or persons, it doesn’t give us a right to demean or disrespect that person. We should focus on building up each other.

I want to use my voice which unfortunately may be heard louder than my femme sibling as a platform to build up the others around me. I’m not just talking about femininity vs masculinity. I’m talking about all the minorities and majorities helping each other to create a better environment.

Happy Birthday Flynn!!

My name is Emery Flynn. I go by Flynn.  He was born on October 12, 2015. I prefer he/him pronouns. I am gender fluid. I am still exploring my gender identity.

I prefer masculine clothes because I feel they express my gender best, but there are days I like to look pretty.

I have bought new clothes and cologne. I have started styling my hair differently. Tomorrow I’m actually getting my hair cut which I’m excited and nervous about.

This didn’t happen overnight. I slowly built to this new identity. I started by accepting that I could be gender fluid. I looked at groups Facebook and Google. Reading blogs and watching Youtube videos.

After I accepted that the term gender fluid fit me, I started talking to people who were gender fluid, transgender, or other non-binary identity. I wanted to learn how they experienced they gender identities and learn how they learned about their gender expression.

Once I became comfortable with the information, I wanted to try to start smelling like a guy. I went to the store with my girlfriend and checked out a couple of deodorants.  We settled Speedstick Ocean Surf. She recommended that I buy an out from the mens clothes section.  I bought mens underwear, jeans, and a shirt.  The deodorant was nice, but didn’t make me smell quite how I wanted so I also bought Old Spice Pure Sport.

When I came home and put the underwear on, it was such an amazing feeling! I felt so giddy. They fit and felt good. It was like what I had been looking for. I put on my new pants and shirt and felt like I could be a guy!

I slowly started referring to myself in my head as he. The other day I referred to myself as he, when talking to a friend. That’s when I decided that I wanted to be referred to by he/him by my friends and family. My situation is a little different which one of the great things about gender fluidity is. With my husband, I still prefer she/her pronouns because with him I feel feminine in our relationship. I love being his wife and I feel those pronouns honor me.  For other relationships, I go by other pronouns to fit my role. The pronoun one person goes by doesn’t have to fit their sex or gender expression; it’s whatever honors them the best.

I’m still figuring a lot of this out, but I think I’m doing pretty well so far. Please ask me any questions. I really would like any advice or to help anyone who needs it or make friends along the way.

Entering A New World

I have made some self discoveries about myself over the last year and am finally ready to share them with the world. For those who are not open-minded or do not want to read about controversial topics this your chance to click the red x in the upper right corner and never look at this particular post again. I won’t promise this disclaimer in all of my future posts, but this is going to be the most shocking for those who know me. I’m giving you a chance to continue to live in bliss if you would like.

I am going to be using newly learned vocab even to me so I will try to include that in this blog. However if there’s a word you don’t know, you can message or even google it. That’s how I’ve learned a lot of I’m writing about.

Now to the meat of the blog.

Part 1-Sexuality

I’m Pansexual. This means that I am attracted to a person regardless their gender identity. http://www.stop-homophobia.com Uses the Definition: pansexuals have the capability of attraction to others regardless of their gender identity or biological sex. A pansexual could be open to someone who is male, female, transgender, intersex, or agendered/genderqueer.

This of course doesn’t mean that I like everyone or that I am attracted to everyone. Just like you reading this blog have certain attributes that you like when looking at an attractive person, I do as well. Being pansexual does not mean that I am attracted to everyone and will sleep with anyone. It just means that I have the ability to love or am openness to all genders and gender identities.

Part 2-Polyamory

I state what I do in part 1, because it’s important for the 2nd part of the story. I am in a polyamorous relationship with my husband. He’s fully aware of it (it wouldn’t be polyamorous if he didn’t).
The definition that I really like for polyamory is from http://www.morethantwo.com. They also have a fantastic book that we are in the process of reading. The definition is as follows polyamory  is the non-possessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously. Polyamory emphasizes consciously choosing how many partners one wishes to be involved with rather than accepting social norms which dictate loving only one person at a time. Polyamory is from the root words Poly (meaning “many”) and Amour (meaning “love”); hence “many loves” or Polyamory.

Talking about polyamory is too much for one blog post and I couldn’t even really talk about as any sort of expert on it. As I said I have just recently discovered the term. I do plan to use this blog to write about my experiences so that people like me can learn from me and also so that I can seek advice from any of you who are out there that can offer it.

Part 3- My Girlfriend

This is the exciting part. I have a girlfriend. She and I have been dating about 2 weeks. She’s quite amazing and she blushes when I say that. I don’t know why because it’s true. I also won’t go into much detail about her at this time because I haven’t gotten explicit permission to do so. So until I do, all you really need to know is that she’s beautiful but more importantly she makes me happy.

Part 4-Why Post all this Online?

I no longer want to hide who I am, but more importantly and less selflessly I no longer want others to feel that they have to hide either. I want to help inspire others to live life to their fullest and to be happy. I want them to find courage in my posts and stories and be able to go to school and face their classmates. I want people of all orientations, gender identities, and life styles to feel that they don’t have to be ashamed because they don’t fit into the norm. I’ve heard so many stories and felt the pain of losing friends for telling them of who I was. I do not want this to continue any longer. I may be only one writer, but it has to start somewhere.

So please share my posts. Pass on the acceptance and love. Stop the social conditioning that this has to be swept under the carpet and not spoken about. I wish I knew a fraction of what I do know when I was first learning about myself in high school. We need to be able to inspire change! It has to start somewhere!

Where to begin….

This week has been a trying one to say the least….

Let’s start with last weekend. It was amazing. I met a friend. She’s amazing. I think if it weren’t for her; I may not have gotten through this week as well as I have. She’s been understanding about my stress and emotions. She’s a transgender male to female. Which when some people read that sentence, that’s all they are going to see about her. That’s the farthest from the truth. She’s funny even if I can’t catch all of her jokes. She’s sweet and caring. She’s beautiful and smart. She can be anything she wants to be, and when she finally decides what that is she’ll be the best at it. I met her on Friday, and she’s one of the best things that has happened in a while.

That’s why I had to start with the weekend. Without the weekend, this week would have been hell.

On Monday, I was in a car accident. I’m not going to go into details as to what happened. Everyone’s okay, and I was the only one in the car. My car is totaled. I am in the process of buying a new car. I should have a new one tomorrow.

As some of you know, with anxiety and OCD my stress has been through the roof and this week has been full of emotions.
Monday-
I was fairly calm. It was the day of tasks. I knew what I needed to get done, and I went though the motions.  Fibromyalgia tried to rear it’s head. My neck really hurt and my back did too but with heavy doses of Aleeve the pain didn’t last too long. I went to my newly mentioned friend’s house and was able to get out of my head and  play video games. It was really needed after replaying the accident and everything over again. (thanks OCD).
Wednesday-
I was full of rage. I felt like my testosterone was just flowing through my veins. With PCOS, it could have been. Also with stress and anxiety it could have been just overwhelming response to that. I wanted to kill anyone who got in my path. I was so angry at Tim for not understanding that I was still sore from my accident and that I was stressed out from that. I wanted to kill my coworker for eating her soup too loudly.  I just wanted to scream til I couldn’t anymore. I received that news that my car was totaled and that I should clean out my car so that I could receive payment sooner. My friend and I did that, that afternoon.
Afterwards, we went to her house and hung out. She was able to help put somethings into perspective. I was having trouble admitting something to myself, and I didn’t even want to say it aloud. I was afraid that my car accident was a punishment for sins that I had commitment. I am a follow of Christ. I don’t know if that necessary makes me a Christian because Christians have started making that word mean something that isn’t necessary following the example that Christ Himself set out for us. My friend, she’s not a Christian. She’s actually an Atheist. She help me put it in perspective. I knew in my heart that God didn’t cause my accident, but I was letting my depression cause my mind to take control. I need to not let the dark thoughts be put in His mouth. He loves and accepts me. It was great talking with her about it. It really made her uncomfortable and myself a little (a lot) if I’m honest, but she said the best things anyone could have.  I can’t even begin to try to quote what she said.

I know there are people who are not going to like what I’ve written or agree with it, but the purpose of this blog is to be honest and inspire those who are similar to me. I can’t do that without being honest. Even this blog isn’t completely honest, and I’m doing a disservice. However, it’s the best I think I can do at the moment.

About Me

Hello there!

I am working on this blog to be an navigate my world. This is completely new to me and want to share it to the world around me. This a little scary to me but seems like it’s something that isn’t always talked about. I am pansexual and polyamorous. I want to be able to share my examples and help those who are in similar situations as me know they aren’t alone. Please know that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and that I am reading books, blogs and learning by trial and error. Please share your stories and comments with me. We can learn together.

Secondly even though just by looking at me, you wouldn’t think that I have the mental and physical medical conditions that I do. This is why I’ve felt the need to start this blog. I think it’s time to get an honest and humorous voice out there for young adults out there. We’re so often thought of as ‘invincible’ and part of that’s because we ourselves thing that. Heck, I still think that I am and I know that I’m not.

My back story:

I was adopted as a teenager after living in and out of the foster care system for 9 years. My adopted parents of passed away (Mom in 2005 and Dad 2014). It’s been a struggle. I do know my biological parents and have a strained and unique relationship with them.

I live with OCD, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, Fibromyalgia, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome PCOS, Insulin Resistance (due to the PCOS), and chronic migraines. I have a couple of skin conditions: Keratosis Pilaris which mainly affects my thighs and upper arms and seborrheic dermatitis which affects my scalp. I do not list these conditions to try to receive pity or try to say my life sucks in any way. I honestly can’t say that my life sucks.

I LOVE my life. I love EVERY part of my life some parts more than others, but every part of it. I hope that by writing this blog I can help people learn to love their lives too.