Personal Inspiration

I wrote in an earlier post how I'll use music, movies and even books to get inspiration.  Inspiration for moods, for characters and character traits.  But obviously those aren't my only way of finding inspiration.

And to be honest, while those types of inspiration will color my mood, my primary inspirations are from within.  Take for example the 'Good Guy in the Wrong Place'.  It's one of my favorite scenarios to use.  The impetus for that scenario is me thinking of myself as a Good Guy (or at times a Good Girl).  So it's easy enough to draw upon that internal feeling and put it down into a cap or a story.  

But I believe that the most personal of inspirations can come from our own emotions.  We've all been happy before (although sometimes it's hard to remember those times).  We've all been sad (although thankfully it's sometimes hard to remember).  We've all been angry, indifferent, and aroused.  We've all been afraid, disgusted, and expectant.  And just because I was happy when I passed a test, doesn't mean I can't channel that happiness and use it in a character with a whole different scenario.  I can sit back and recall that joy I felt and use it to write out how happy a character is at getting his new breasts.

But for me personally, the most powerful emotion I can call upon is sadness.

You see at this time of year I celebrate an anniversary.  An anniversary that I dread.  It's strong enough to color Christmas and New Years.  Its strong enough to color my birthday and Valentine's day.  About seven years ago in mid January my father died.  And while the joy of passing my first test lasted for days, and the anger of someone being mean lasted for hours... this sadness lasted for years.  I can't put a time on it yet, because it's still here.  This sadness has been with me for so long that it has become part of me.  I'm not talking about grief... although I did grieve for a very long time.  I'm not talking about depression, although at times it feels like I'm slipping into depression.  I'm talking about sadness.  Sorrow.

I can not... CAN NOT... express properly in words how strong this sadness is.  For most of the year I hide it away.  I push it to the background.  I try to forget it.   But here... now... it's all consuming.

It's strong enough that I want to share it.... but at the same time just expressing it here is becoming overwhelming   It really is hard to type through tears.   You may remember how low I felt after failing my NCLEX last year.  That was nothing compared to this.  I've lost friends.  I've lost lovers.  I've lost other family members including cousins, aunts, uncles, and all of my grandparents.... but none of that loss scratches the surface of this pain.

My father passed away before I had my name of Caitlyn.  It was before I started capping, and even before I started to enjoy caps as an art form.  So in a way, you've never known the truly happy me.  This sadness has always colored me to one degree or another.  My successes and joys have been reduced, and my failures and dysphorias have been increased.  At my highest points, when I feel the happiest, I always wonder what Dad would think.  He always celebrated success with such vigor that not having him here to share with now makes it feel almost hollow.

My life has truly been divided.  Before Dad passed away, and after.  You see I left my last big job to come home and be with him when he was diagnosed with cancer.  I stayed with him and did everything I could to help him.  Physically, spiritually, emotionally.  When the doctors said that there was no more to do... that no chemo was going to save him... that no radiation could fix him... that no surgery could remove this cancer... his first reaction was to go into a hospice home.   Not because he wanted to die alone... but because even in this time of desperation  he wanted to save his family pain.  None of us wanted that, and we brought hospice into our home.

Between then and his passing, the cancer evidently spread to his brain.  Watching him actually pass away was the second hardest thing I've ever experienced.   You see, for the most part he was 'gone'.  He was just a man in pain.  He lost control of his body and we all hoped that the part of him that we loved had also been lost.  That the man moaning away his last few days wasn't Dad.  But the hardest thing I've ever experienced... the thing that haunts my dreams and makes me know that I'll never be half the man that he was.... was occasionally looking into his eyes and knowing that he was there.  Seeing him look out of those hollowed out eyes and knowing that he was still there.  Experiencing everything.

I really didn't intend for this post to be about Dad... I just meant to show how I can draw upon this sadness and focus it into my work.    But... if you'll give me leave... I'd like to share him with you.  I've never written his down... I've never shared this with anyone.

I know it's cliche... but my father was great.  He wasn't rich, or powerful.  He wasn't brilliant or model-like handsome.  But he was great.  I've never met someone that could make friends like he could.  When I was a teenager it was embarrassing...  it didn't matter if we were at the Secretary of State's office to get my drivers licence, or just walking through the florist while getting mom some flowers... he would start chatting with the people around them.  These people could be doctors and lawyers.  They could be politicians and police.  They could be degenerates and damned.  It didn't matter at all.  Within a minute of talking to him, you were his friend.  And in almost every case, he was your friend too.

I remember one time when I was young (maybe around 14 years old?) and we were on a family vacation.  We went on these vacations every year because my parents, especially Dad, thought it was important that my brothers and I see the entire country.  From Main to southern California.  From Washington State, to Miami.  The Atlantic coast, the Pacific coast, the gulf from Texas to Florida.  Even into Canada and Mexico.  In fact the only states I haven't been to are Alaska and Hawaii, because no matter how well he kept the family station wagon (and later minivan) running, they couldn't go over water (although I swear he still wanted to drive to Alaska one year).  But anyway... one one of these vacations we were at the Grand Canyon.  It was crowded of course, and while we were at one of the viewing points he started chatting up with the people next to us.  He was surprised to find out that they were a German family and that they barely spoke English.  You'd think that would stop any attempt to get to know them... but not for my Dad.  Through the broken English they became friends.  We even shared a meal with them before moving on..

For a person that grew up from boyhood into manhood in the 50s and 60s... for a man that spent his early adulthood under the Atlantic for months at a time in a submarine, you'd think he'd be a typical biased, stuck in his ways, unwilling to change or accept anything new type of person.  But that couldn't be further from the truth.  Race, creed, color, and religion never bothered my Dad.  And when something new came along that he didn't understand, he would take the time to think about it and learn about it before judging it.  And rarely did he ever judge anything in a hateful way.  I never saw him even raise his hand to my mother, even though he grew up in a family where that was done.  It just wasn't within him to be cruel or let anger dictate his actions.  And while I've heard plenty of stories about his youth in the Navy... from the fights he was in, to the carousing he did... the only time I ever saw him lift a finger in anger was when a neighbor beat my older brother.  My brother was around 12 (putting me about 10), and this neighbor was about 20.

I can't even call what he did a 'fight'.  A fight involves two people.  Two people trying to 'win'... to beat their opponent.  This was one sided.  This guy in the prime of his life only had time to put his hand into a fist and pull his arm back before my father's 40 year old fist struck his jaw.  You know those fights they have in the movies?  When the guy gets punched so hard that he flies backwards?  I've never doubted that as possible because I've seen it with my own eyes.  By the way, that neighbor still lives there, and we're all good friends.  I used to doubt my memory since I was so young and it involved my father... but he backs up my recollection of it precisely.  The only thing he ads to the story is the trip to the emergency room, and his own father coming over to apologize for his behavior.

I guess in that way my Dad was a walking contradiction   I think the term swearing like a sailor came from him because boy could he curse.  I never knew there were that many derogatory terms that you could call a car when it was broken.  But he never spoke that way to strangers, and never EVER around women.  When I asked him why he censored himself he told me that 'it just isn't right to talk that way around women or strangers'.  No further explanation... no story about why he did that... it was just fact.  That's one of the many traits that was passed on to me.   He bore the scars of his fights on his face (his crooked nose key among them), but he was the most gentle man I've ever known.  He barely graduated High School, but he could sit and carry a conversation with a college professor (I know... he met most of mine and became friends with them).

I only saw my father cry once, and only heard him cry another time.  He cried at his mother's funeral.  He cried when he called me to tell me that he had cancer.  It's not that he hid all of his emotions... he just hid the ones that he thought of negatively   He could be in pain (and he lived with pain for most of his life thanks to a broken leg that never set right, and made one leg shorter than the other), but you'd never know it from the smile plastered over his face.  I've heard people tell me that he was angry... but he hid it away so that I never saw it.  Even at times that would try the most patient of men... his career in trouble, finances so low that he had to pick and choose which bills wouldn't get paid, his own father sick... you wouldn't see him vent that frustration. You would NEVER hear him bemoan the troubles that were heaped upon his broad shoulders.  Oh sure, he wanted more out of life.  He'd fantasize about winning the lottery and taking my mom on a whirlwind drip around the world... but it never seemed to bother him that he rarely had two quarters to scratch together.

Something else that he did that I find in myself, is he always took the blame.  If something he built (a fort for me and my brothers, a cabinet for my mom...) ever broke, it wasn't the fault of the shoddy materials that were the only thing he could use.  It was his fault.  When something was spilled on the carpet and my brothers and I all claimed innocence (one of us was lying), he took the blame.  When the car broke down he didn't blame it... he took that on himself.  Now I don't mean that he honestly thought that these things were his fault... but when explaining it to someone else, he'd take it all on.  He'd let them think it was his failing and not a faulty part or broken tool.  I asked him once why he did that.... I mean, I admired it in him, but there just had to be a time that he was sick and tired of taking on things there weren't his doing.  His simple answer was that "My shoulders are broad enough to bear it."

He COULD handle taking the blame, so he did.  Just because it was easier on other people.    With me, it's not the camera's fault that it broke...it's my fault that it wasn't prepared.  It's my fault that I didn't have a backup.  It's not my workers fault he was late, it's my fault that I didn't call him with enough time.  Why?  Because I have broad enough shoulders to bear it.

I sometimes think how he would react to what I do now.  About who I am now.  About me being Caitlyn.  There's a part of my brain that says he wouldn't like it.  That it would hurt him to think of his boy (and understand, no matter how old I am, I'll always be his boy) as not only embracing his feminine side, but actually sexually taking pleasure in it.  But that part is equally opposed to how my heart feels.  That part of me thinks out of all my friends and family, he'd be the one that would accept it the most fully.  You see, even though most of his family was fairly racist (and some still are to this day), he never let race bother him.  One of his best friends was black and spoke so lovingly of my father at his funeral.  Even though his family was fiercely religious (two of his sisters were ordained ministers) and he was devoutly Christian himself, he didn't even blink an eye when I told him that I didn't believe in God.  I know he would have been happier if I were Christian... that I followed in his footsteps and believed the same things that he believed, but all he ever asked was that I respect people that do.  I guess that's something else I owe to my father... my respect for people that believe in things different than I.  He didn't teach me that with his words, he taught me that with his actions.

So... I don't think he would be happy, and I don't think he'd fully understand what I do and why I do it... but I'm his boy... and his love for me was absolute.  Something that can be so frustrating and confusing and socially unacceptable wouldn't stop his love for me.

And that's one of the reasons that my sadness is so deep.  I didn't just lose my father those years ago.... I lost a great and understanding and good and loving man.  Someone who I'll strive to imitate for the rest of my life.  Someone who's shadow I'll never grow out of.  And most of all someone who I'll try to impress with every breath I take.

I love you Dad, and I miss you so much.