Thursday, September 30, 2010

Freaked Out By God

When it comes to God, I don't believe in coincidences. I don't believe in random acts converging into something momentous. I don't believe in accidents, and I don't believe in luck (even though I am notorious for saying "I was just lucky" when something happens). I believe God's works happen for a reason, and that they happen in a practical and orderly fashion. I may be transgendered. I may be autogynephiliac. I may even be a crossdresser. But I also love my Lord, and believe that as long as I put Him first in my life, all other matters, including "Kelli", will be taken care of.

I love church work as well. I think most folks think of church work as preaching or something, but there's lots more to it. There's outreach, giving folks rides to church, giving tithes, changing the light bulbs in the children's Sunday school classroom, mowing the yard, and publicizing your church. Recently, I've been invited to help out more in the church as Kelly, and have been very eager to do so, but there was one thing I didn't count on, and that was Kelli.

I'm still trying to sort some of this out, so please bear with me. I've alluded to, in previous entries, how when I am out and about as Kelly -- a male -- and I am acting "properly" as Kelly, I have no problems. Shoot! I might as well say it as the 300 pound gorilla is sitting in the room with me anyway. If I'm out and about as Kelly, and I start acting the least bit like Kelli (my female side who regards herself as pretty girlish), then I sometimes give people the wrong impression. A woman who acts feminine is considered normal. A man who acts feminine is not considered normal, and since I need to address the 300 pound gorilla who is staring at me right now, that man is probably going to be considered a homosexual whether he is or ain't.... Okay, the gorilla is no longer staring at me and is off to steal bananas from my kitchen.

This is something I have thought about and studied about for a long time. I am not gay -- never have been, and can confidently state that I don't think I ever will be gay. Now let us completely leave the subject of homosexuality for a moment and walk to the other side of the room while the gorilla is still in the kitchen. I am a crossdresser, an autogynephiliac, transgendered, and a conservative Christian. Unfortunately, the average person on the street still includes transgendered people with homosexuals, and our cause is not helped by the militant transgendered and transexuals who align themselves under a big blanket group labeled LGBT. TG and gay are not in any way related, and I have never understood why informed people would insist that they should go together. Homosexuality still has a negative stigma in this country as does transgenderism. I'm doing what I can to change that with transgenderism, but not at the expense of anything or anyone who has a high priority in my life.

Maybe I'm starting to get off track a little bit. Point is, if I am doing church work of any sort as Kelly, it needs to be done strictly as Kelly with as little to no input from Kelli as possible. Doing so would be sending mixed messages no matter what I was doing, and a house divided will not stand.

The part of this little episode that completely freaked me out and had me praying and soul-searching for days was a dream I had last week. In the dream, I was a woman. I was Kelli, and I was in church. It was beautiful. I was dressed beautifully and appropriately for Sunday morning services. Sunlight was filtering through the windows, and the sanctuary was full of people praising God with hymns and Gospel songs. I can't fully describe the joy and peace I felt at that moment. Everything was so beautiful and you could feel God's Spirit moving through the service. The pastor called for a couple of volunteers to help collect the offering. This is normally done by deacons or elders at my church. I'm not anything like that at church, but I started to walk towards the front to volunteer. I was stopped by a loud voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once that said You can't serve me, Kelli. I found myself totally freaked and totally awake at three in the morning.

I believe the message was this: God's got specific tasks for me in my life as Kelly, and He's got specific tasks for me in my life as Kelli, and based on the way the world is today, those tasks are not interchangeable between the two. Kelli is free to roam all over the internet and physically visit lots of churches here in town. Kelly can too, but must go in a different direction. Maybe instead of thinking of it as some sort of limitation, I should look at it as an opportunity to cover twice as much ground.

I'm slowly getting over the freaked-out part. I can't remember the last time I was freaked-out that badly over a dream! I was doing better at blog posts and hopefully that will resume. For those who disagree with me in any way over this post, that 300 pound gorilla would probably be willing to side with you if he hasn't left my kitchen yet. Oh no. He's on the sofa again....

Kelli

Thursday, September 16, 2010

September 16, 2010

Thank heaven for a day off!!!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Strange Dream Time

So last night/early this morning, I posted a blog message. After re-reading it, I guess I was trying to convey my feelings on balancing the good and bad in life, and turning the bad into something positive. I mentioned specifically school students and some of the trials they face as they grow up and mature. After surfing a few internet sites I normally visit, I put my surfboard away, slipped out of my cyber bikini, and went to bed (figuratively speaking, that is).

I had a strange dream last night. In the dream, I was a male college freshman arriving on campus for the first time so I could move into a dormitory. I started unloading the car and began carrying boxes up the stairs to my new room. The dorm mother (for a guy's dorm?) would stop me each time I passed by the front desk. First, she just introduced herself, then she would ask general questions about me, and then began telling me specific rules and regulations for living in the dorm. Most of it seemed pretty bland, so I wasn't paying much attention until she began criticizing my clothes and told me the university had a strict dress code.

I don't know how she did it, but gradually (piece by piece) she had me exchange my everyday male clothes for a female student uniform. She started with some fairly androgynous shoes, followed by a somewhat feminine shirt on my next trip past her office, and when I had dropped off another load of stuff, she invited me to sit down for a cold drink while she mopped my brow and "fixed" my hair. When I looked in the mirror, I now had a girlish bob. The final straw was the short plaid skirt. I was furious now. From the back I looked more like a Japanese schoolgirl from an anime. I decided to grab my last box of belongings, put it in my room, and make a speedy trip to the administration building to complain about this woman. When I first walked into the dorm, I didn't see her, but she grabbed me from behind and quickly had me down on the ground. We wrestled and fought, and when she turned me loose, I was now wearing a bra (how did she get it on under my blouse?). I yelled out that she was insane and ran upstairs to my room. On the way up, my bra began feeling very tight across my chest. When I reached my room, I ripped open my shirt to see what was causing the tightness, and as fans of cliche TG fiction can tell you, I now had a nice pair of feminine breasts.

The dream ended, but not the weirdness. I awoke. I had been tossing and turning during that dream. I tried to sit up, but found it difficult. I seemed to be restrained, and something tight was binding my chest. I started to panic and grab at the binding, only to discover that somehow I had wrapped the bed sheet tightly around my chest during the night while tossing and turning. Part of me sighed in relief, and part of me was very disappointed that it was all just a dream.

Kelli

What Doesn't Kill You...

... Makes You A Better Person. I've heard that saying for years and like to think it is true. I know I can think back to specific instances in my life that were very bad at the time, but now realize I learned some important life lesson from that event and/or that event helped me to mature into the person I am today. You might call it a variation of making lemonade when life gives you lemons. I would classify this as a good thing.

Another item I would classify as a good thing is a news story that came across my computer this morning. I've seen dozens of such stories over the years so I didn't really pay any attention to the specifics, but a school district someplace in the U.S. was going to crack down and try to eliminate student bullying. As a person who suffered his/her fair share of unwanted attention from the local bully, and as an adult who wants today's school children to have access to the best, I can easily applaud their efforts to eliminate bullying.

Please let me be crystal clear on this: I am against bullying. I don't like bullies. If I were ever given the power to eliminate bullying, I would do it. However, I can look back at my school days and actually see where confronting and standing up to bullies made me a better person. I was one of the quiet students back in school, definitely one of the smaller ones, and definitely one of the smarter ones. I've rarely seen a bully pick on someone his own size, but someone that is 6, 8, 10 or more inches smaller and that is some easy pickins. It probably added to their amusement that I didn't back down.

The results: quite a few bloody noses, busted lips, and large bumps on the noggin. But I have also truthfully heard people say Kelli is an easygoing person, but don't make her mad cause she's got cojones! [This is a G-rated blog, get your minds out of the gutter!] I can thank those bullies for what fighting spirit I have.

Kids today face bullying tactics I never heard of in my day. There are computers, e-mail, instant messaging, and cell phones in addition to the actual six-foot-two sixth grader waiting outside for you to exit the building. After sorting through all the pros and cons of this issue, I figured no one could ever completely eliminate bullying, and that might not be a totally bad thing. Perhaps we should try our best to eliminate it, knowing that a very small amount that we miss might make us better people.

Like I said, I'm very confused when I place these two issues side by side. On the one hand, I say getting rid of bullying is a good thing. On the other hand, I think bullying helped me to mature. Any thoughts offered by readers of this humble blog that might un-confuse me would be appreciated.

On the flip side of all that, suppose back when we were in school that everyone was mature enough, secure enough, Christian enough in the way they treated others to where transgendered (used as a blanket term) students had the freedom everyone else had in school. Maybe we could dress the way we really wanted to within the school dress code. I could have really used home economics (which reminds me... I need to buy new batteries for the smoke detector). Our high school football team could have really used all the help they could get, so decent girl players would have been a great blessing. In addition to the FFA, FCA, and the like, we could have the FCC -- Fellowship of Christian Crossdressers. You get the idea.

Now I have before me the way things were versus the way I wish things could have been. If given a choice to live or re-live, it seems obvious the most pleasant scenario would be "the way I wish things could have been". But it pains me greatly to say "the way things were" probably produced the best results.

Kelli

Saturday, September 4, 2010

In The Future, It's Already Been Invented

Matter is to anti-matter as The Flintstones are to The Jetsons. I've been looking to the past and present for what needs to be invented, however today is tomorrow's yesterday and I think we are on the verge of some great breakthroughs.

I saw this gag only once on The Jetsons, but it stuck with me. They had an automatic closet that would dress you for the day ahead. You can probably guess what happened. George Jetson, the father, stepped into the automatic closet. The machine was not working properly, and George ended up dressed in his wife's outfit. He didn't look very pretty, but with a little bit of tweaking in the machinery, I think it has promise for our select group.

A pretty gal I use to date was a major "Trekkie" and would drag me to all the Star Trek movies. In one movie, the crew of the spaceship Enterprise boldly traveled back in time to present day earth. The doctor found himself in one of our "antiquated" hospitals where he gave a sick woman a pill to take and she grew a new pair of kidneys. I found myself wondering if they made pills that helped you grow other things....

It seems that in the future cyborg bodies (part human, part machine) are very popular. Your Ghost In The Shell could find it's shell as curvy and feminine as you've ever dreamed it could be. Brain transplants are also possible, but many of the surgeons are a bit mad and could really stand some brain work themselves. I do not recommend this course of action in the future.

More freedom and acceptance of individual dress habits, perfection of human interaction with virtual environments, elimination of ignorance and hate, and the electrification of the rural south I believe are just a few of the things we should look towards in the future. Be patient, my friends and sisters, the future will be here eventually.

Kelli