stella41b
Posts: 4258
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: SW London (UK)
Status: offline
|
I'm a transgendered female, so loneliness and isolation are just as much a part of my life as abuse, rejection, misunderstanding, prejudice, abuse and exclusion from others. This together with my artistic career and success as a fringe playwright and stage director has rendered me just about unemployable and creates tremendous difficulties when it comes to forming friendships and entering relationships. The TG label and a few inches of flesh from my past which to me is totally unnecessary tends to put most people off and stigmatize me as being unacceptable in society.
As a close friend recently pointed out, I'm a 'giver', whatever I have I give and share freely, openly, and my loneliness and isolation in recent years exacerbated not just by being street homeless, harrassment and abuse from hostel staff, two sexual assaults, being forced to live without an income for almost five months but also from the fact that I'm no longer a service type submissive who makes herself freely available to be used by Dommes but that I do actually expect in return a certain amount of acceptance, understanding and emotional support.
When I was sleeping on the streets in Warsaw and London, looking for the quiet corners where nobody would find me and eating whatever I could find out of dustbins I thought that a small room with a lock on the door would be heaven. Then when I got the room in the hostel I would keep myself out of the way until I got my present apartment, a Housing Association apartment under the Rough Sleeper's Initiative I figured that I needed to keep life very simple and just have a computer with an Internet connection, enough income to pay the bills and this would be life.
But it isn't, and I quickly realised this. Even when I was homeless I did what I could to help others, and have thrown myself into my voluntary work with the street homeless and those living in hostels, I befriend, give advice, I do a lot of translation work between Polish and English for different agencies who have to deal with homeless Polish migrant workers, most of whom don't speak a word of English. I also run theatre workshops and in this time I've written two plays and also developed my own theory of modern fringe theatre and my own interpretation of the Stanislavski method of acting, studying psychology, philosophy and the works of people like Rudolf Steiner, Noam Chomsky, Pavlov, Dr Eric Berne, Freud, and so on.
The thing is, even though I've made quite a lot of progress, I'm no longer on the streets or homeless, I've also got myself out of suicidal thinking, deep depression (it's now just melancholy) binge eating and a weight problem which at one point in 2006 saw me tip the scales at 450lbs (and I have The Largest Transsexual in London T-shirt to prove it) and I got a beautiful apartment I'm really not in a much better position than when I was before.
My being who I am has somehow split the family. I have a sister and cousin in London who along with a widowed aunt in Glasgow don't want to have anything to do with me, my side of the family are my godparents and their family in Toronto and an aunt and uncle in the South of France. I've got a wonderful support network of friends and family but the thing is, they're all online. I'm under increasing pressure from family to leave London, which I'm happy with because I never intended to stay here but just needed to get myself back on my feet, to be among 'ma ain folk' My godparents and their family are all naturalized Canadian citizens and all come from the family base of Glasgow. My godmother wanted to adopt me when I was 3 and take me to Canada and she's made it clear she wants me in Canada or somewhere on her side of the Atlantic. Recently I found Mistress, who's just over the border in the States, so there's hope and a future.
However I'm in a funny situation. I've just done by far my longest stretch on welfare, and if it wasn't for the homeless and the voluntary work and what I've written I'd go nuts. This isn't a life, it's existing, I've got about as far as I can in my transition on my own, and I know I'm holding out until I can change my situation and life. I apply for jobs, I look for work, but there's either no response or it's a case of 'We understand you're transgendered and we have nothing against it, but we don't have the necessary training or company policies to be able to employ people like you'. If I take on the authorities or society on my own I'm going to lose or be seen as some sort of nutter. Therefore I'm working on what I see as my only way forward and that is to set up a theatre and a registered charity to fight social stigma, which is what I'm currently working on. I've got productions of my work in Europe, in Italy and Russia, my change of gender and name hasn't affected my reputation as a playwright, I'm directing two more plays and then from then on no more, I'm devoting the rest of my life to my artistic work and the charity and replacing my stage directing with charity work and social activism. I want my independence back and I can't see any alternative of achieving this.
What about my needs as a submissive? Hmm, well I could ask what about my needs as a person and a member of the human race. You see I've gone through so much in the last few years it kind of registers somewhere in my mind that I'm alone and isolated but I don't feel lonely. I alternate between periods of isolation and being alone to being out there among people, I'm not short of people to go see when I do really feel lonely, most of my friends were homeless with me, they're in similar situations to me, or worse - one of my closest friends is a gay man with HIV who is dying of lung cancer. It tore me apart recently when he told me that I was the first person to hug him in over three years. This is also what keeps me from truly being lonely, I have a couple of friends who need me just as much as I need them.
But you know, I'm lucky. Two of the themes running through my life are BDSM and theatre. The last couple of years I have had neither which has been especially difficult, and I just can't describe how I felt when my play opened in London last month. I see so many similarities between the two and there's a lot of my theory which has come out of BDSM, and there are elements of my submissive persona which come from Kant, Grotowski and Bertholdt Brecht. Both are based on a transaction, a unique experience of interaction and intimacy between two or more human beings. But the two experiences are totally different for me, for in private I am submissive, but in the rehearsal studio I'm much more of a switch and every so often there's that little sadistic side of me which comes out which is spelt 'bitch'.
My life has taught me to be a minimalist. I've lost homes and relocated so much it's hardly worth my while, and not since I had to leave behind in Poland almost 900 cassettes and half as many books so many other things including a few props from some of my performances and my awards from festivals. Now I live a frugal, missionary lifestyle, I can fit the entire contents of my 'home' into a large suitcase. I'm used to the experience of footlights dimming, the audience leaving, then the actors, of cleaning the stage and going home alone to an empty apartment and to drift off to sleep still hearing the words spoken by actors, words which I had imagined years before and wrote down on a sheet of paper. I know that I must walk many more lonely miles, live through empty days and have so much work to do before I become my Mistress's wife and live each day in her presence.
But you know, the loneliness, the isolation, and whatever else I have to go through doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter that the US authorities denied me entry into the States in Atlanta last year. I remember 9/11 very clearly, I remember standing on a stage in front of 120 people in Warsaw about to start theatre workshops and a production of a comedy. I remember being urged by my employer to cancel the workshops as a mark of respect for the victims. I also remember refusing, and saying that the workshops are going ahead to show solidarity with Americans and to stand together with those in front of me against terrorism. It is because I made such a decision that I can still put a theatre together and put a play on the stage. Nor does it bother me that I have to take a stand through my work just to survive and get where I want to be in life.
I knew all along that the day would come when I would have a play on the stage once again, and I know that when I do things start to happen and things start to change. I don't know when and I don't know how. All I know is that I have a rehearsal of a play tomorrow and I'm working on the restructuring of the theatre and charity projects, and my mind is fully concentrated on dealing with the mistake of a premature opening of a play, coping with a project that is much bigger than I anticipated, and being just as innovative and original in what I'm doing here in London as I ever was in Warsaw. My life is very much based on fears, dreams, hopes and faith in the future, that faith is shared by the people around me, my Mistress, my family, the people in the theatre, the people I'm working with in the theatre, the other theatres which I am dealing with, friends, and so on. At the moment I don't care really how it is going to happen, when, or what effect it will have.
I refuse to accept that my being transgendered makes me any different from anyone else, just as I refuse to accept that the people I work with and seek to help are of any less value in society than anyone else. This is why I decided recently to give my artistic work and theory away for charity to help others because I cannot stand to live any longer marginalized in society and living on welfare - it's not living. I'm not the only one who thinks like this either, which is why I'm sharing my work and theory with others in a similar situation to me so that they can overcome the social stigma and find a better life than living on welfare marginalized by society. The bottom line is I'm seeking acceptance for what I can do and what I can bring to others rather than the fact that I'm transgendered.
It's going to be hard to give up the stage, to stop directing. It's hard for me to describe how it feels to watch someone walk into a rehearsal studio with little or no stage experience, nervous, hesitant, and to spend time with them, watching them grow and develop with every rehearsal, watching them take on the character which was once a few lines of written text, watch them take that step out on stage, in front of an audience, and perform in the character they've developed. How can I describe how it feels to watch people who have been street homeless, drinking cheap cider day after day, get so much fun out of workshops and rehearsals, seeing their expressions, listening to their jokes, witnessing that brotherhood among them as they support each other through detox and counselling? Last week I got an e-mail from one of the drunks on one of the first workshops I ran for the homeless. This was a fifty year old guy who had never worked in his life, he spent ten years homeless with a guitar, busking on the streets to get enough money together for beer, cider, anything which contained alcohol. He left the workshops early, about a month before they finished. In his e-mail he's telling me of the apartment in Belgrade he bought with his new lawyer wife and how he has just bought a houseboat on the Danube and is starting up a TEFL English language school.
But I have to walk away and make that sacrifice for the success of what I'm doing. If I don't then the media will focus on the fact that I'm transgendered and that could be counterproductive to the aims of the theatre and the project. Far better I walk away, leave behind my name, and achieve my independence from my writing and production work.
It may seem I'm living on a prayer but that's the way my life is. I gave up making plans years ago, now I live in the present for the day in hand and just take it as it comes. I'm learning to accept the presence of my Mistress in my life, learning to trust in her, learning to accept that she means what she says and that she wants to be there for me, that she has faith in me, that she supports me, and that no matter how long it takes she will be there for me. The contact is good, in fact it's excellent, there is a wavelength, she reads my thoughts, intentions, picks up on my feelings, as I do for her.
But I still have to fight myself at times, and she knows this. She caught me at a time when I was just about to give up, both on BDSM and on relationships. Each time I open up, each time I learn to trust, so many times I've opened up and given freely only for something to happen, someone else to appear, or to be left alone. Few people know, my heart breaks silently, deep within, I'm known for the fact (and criticized for the fact) that when I do have problems I disappear, isolate myself, and either way this is the last time.
I know I'm walking a lonely path between heaven and hell, success and failure, but this is the way it is. I'm happy, I have a lot to be grateful for, and even though I've got through so much adversity I feel I'm a better person for it, I'm stronger, and besides I'm still living.
I'm no longer afraid to be myself or to be different, I'm not afraid of life, no matter what life is, and I'm learning not to be afraid of love. I have faith in myself, my future, my Mistress, and also faith that my submission to her will be unlike any other submission I've shared or given to anyone else.
The autobiography is coming along nicely too. I wonder if I'll ever live long enough to write it.
_____________________________
CM's Resident Lyricist
also Facebook
http://stella.baker.tripod.com/
50NZpoints
Q2
Simply Q
|
RE: On being alone for a long time... - 
Profile
RE: On being alone for a long time... - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread