Sometimes I feel so amazingly grateful for my life – even in the midst of all the difficulties, stressors and hardships. As I write this, I’m on a airplane heading back to Houston from New York. I just spent the weekend reviewing national epidemiological trends and how those trends are being responded to by government and community action. In other words, I spent the weekend getting primed as an HIV activist. I’ve been a member of UCHAPS for a couple of years now and it’s really awesome to be part of a process that sets national policy on HIV prevention.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up and go to the Transgender Center. That’s literally what I do for a living and to top it off, I’ll get to go to work on my Harley Road King. Not only do I get to go work at the Center I put together (with the help of a lot of amazing people), I get to assist people through the various programs that I’ve helped to put together. In my down time, I’ll use the trans archive that I set up to work on 2 papers for journal publications around the topic of trans identity terms… a historical body of work that I got to help re-write. I’ll work at my desk in my office with my dog, Gypsy under my feet.

I like the person I’ve been able to become… and there was a time in my life that saying something like that would have been an absurd thought. All along the way, I’ve had people cheering each and every time I tripped and fell and worked hard to help me not get back up. I don’t know how many times people have attacked me, yelled at me, shamed and hurt me. I’ve been raped twice (pre and post operatively). I’ve been homeless three times. There are a number of people who hate me still and you know what? It’s true that the best revenge is living well. I get to live in a world where their opinion doesn’t matter to anyone of any consequence. I’ve made it long enough that I get to watch as anti-trans RadFems are marginalized as the nutty bigots they are. I’ve gotten to make peace with those I wanted to make peace with and I win awards for blogging about stuff that used to inspire real anxiety and fear in me. I mean, I’ve even gotten to do stuff like debate right wing nuts live on TV (Fox) and came out on top.

I’m so grateful to have this life – a life that I, at one time, felt was a curse. That’s not to say that I have it easy; far from it. It’s never been easy or simple; it’s been so… so fucking hard. I’ve felt such despair, grief and isolation at times. However, in the middle of everything, there have been a few people who were candles in the dark. I’m alive today because the Houston trans community reached out and interrupted my suicide attempt. I’m clean and sober because some really amazing people helped me when I couldn’t help myself. While I started out as an addict, I’ve about 25 year clean and sober now. I don’t smoke, I’m absolutely free from religious dogma and I’m a vegan. I transitioned and had surgery years ago. I got to be a part of a number of amazing things that’s helped a lot of people because I was privileged enough to know courageous, loving and inspired people who valued making the world a better place.

It’s been an amazing, frightfully beautiful ride thus far. Thank you for being my traveling companions… I wouldn’t be alive today without y’all!