Jessica's Musings

Hello again, friends.

I’m so thankful you’re still here with me. We went through a week talking about different aspects of myself, then another week going through my life story. Two weeks where I shared who I am, and the events in my life that shaped me. Yes, it was a lot.

So, I am Jessica. Those three words cover so much ground.

I am transfeminine. As shared in my first post, where I introduced myself, I was born and still live life as a male, but despite that, I am still a woman at heart. I primarily express myself online, but I’ve also been finding small ways to let my identity shine through in other areas.

I am little. Yes, I wear diapers and regress to that of a four-year-old girl. It sounds strange, I know, but there’s a comfort and an innocence in it that is hard to express.

I am furry. My primary fursona is that of a cybernetic snowleopardess.

I am asexual. I’m not attracted to either gender. Porn does nothing for me. Sex leaves me feeling hollow.

I am panromantic. I love any gender deeply. I attach quickly and I cling to my friends as tightly as I can, not wanting to lose them. As a result, I often find myself in toxic relationships. The relationships are often referred to as “best friends” as opposed to what others might identify as romantic, and due to my asexuality, they have no erotic components to them.

I am Christian. Yup. Despite the fact that everything I just listed, Christians would see as wrong, I still identify with Christ. My faith is important to me and is more powerful than any other aspect of my life.

I am logical. Intelligent, self-educated, and a strong computer programmer. I’m able to see the logical structures and hold onto logic even at times when things seem chaotic.

I am creative. Just as much as I’m logical, I’m also creative. Ideas for computer programs. Creative writing. Creating 3D models. Role playing. My mind is always seeking creative escapes and expressions.

I am resilient. Over the course of my life, I’ve struggled with bullying, repressing my identity, betrayals, health crises, dead-end jobs, and so much more. Yet despite it all, I have found my resilience.

I am here. I’ve lived a life in obscurity, only gaining glimpses of my identity through Second Life. All my life, I wore the mask; only within the past month was my true name discovered. The real world still requires me to wear the mask, for better or worse. Despite that, I will not stay hidden. I have this outlet. My wife now knows I exist. I will find the small ways to never go completely back into hiding. The mask may be necessary, but it doesn’t have to control me anymore.

I am Jessica, and I am here.

Jessica is here again, friends.

Seven parts. One part a day. One week to share my resilience. This has been a wild rollercoaster ride, and I thank you all for staying with me through it all.

As before, this final entry on the resilience theme is from the perspective of my shadow, but reflected through me. I am the resilient one. I am Jessica.

Instead of hopping into a time machine, let’s sit in front of the giant screen and watch the fading images of recent years.

The year 2019 brought a significant change back into our lives. After 16 years, we were home. The house we were renting last was put up for sale, and we were forced to move, so we moved to an apartment community just five miles from where I grew up, about ten miles from the church we met at, and about twenty miles from our first apartment, the last place we had near family and friends. It’s a community we still live in today.

When we moved, we decided we’d try to get back to church again. We saw God at work in every single change that occurred in our lives. Even though the health issues were still manifesting, we also saw His provision through them. We found a new Calvary Chapel near our new home to start attending, and we were able to participate every Sunday.

In addition, my wife joined my mother at a weekly Bible Study, the same study that my mother had attended back when I went to Vacation Bible School. I went to one with my father on the same night, but this one was at a different member’s home each week.

Then the next bomb dropped. The COVID pandemic of 2020. The year when everyone’s whole world was drawn through the meat grinder.

Mary’s health put her at an extra high risk for the COVID-19 virus, so I enforced even stricter quarantine protocols for us. If she got sick, she could die, and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure we didn’t get sick.

The additional restrictions were frustrating for both of us, especially for her, but they worked. We didn’t get sick. But other damages hit close to home. Our church started meeting in a park around the corner from the house when lockdown limitations lessened. We went to the park, with our masks, and told people we needed to keep a distance. The other people, who were supposed to be loving, understanding, and filled with grace and mercy, ignored our requests. They didn’t wear masks and would come up to offer hugs. It was disheartening. They didn’t care that if they had COVID, they could give it to us and potentially kill Mary. So, we stopped going. We couldn’t trust the very people who were supposed to be trusting and loving.

Then I heard pastors, including the one for our church, offering religious exemptions for the vaccine to anyone who asked. And former Christian friends were criticizing us for our extra precautions and for choosing to be vaccinated. All the while, they became even more blinded by politics, turning their eyes away from God and filling their hearts with hate.

I know what you might be saying. That’s the way they always were. I will grant you that some did go overboard before, but this was different. This was much worse, and those old trouble areas from before turned into raging infernos that were tearing the world apart.

My heart broke. For the first time, I truly understood the simple verse. Jesus wept. His people, who were called by His name, were denying Him, listening to the lie, spreading hate, and causing the world to reject Him. I already had a heart for the lost, but now, my heart truly ached for those who once stood in the light and now rejoiced in the darkness.

Why would my heart break for them when they teach things that I admitted were part of the reason I never transitioned? Why would it break for people who were systematically destroying the rights of members of the LGBTQIA+ community? Because I know the Truth. A Truth they once embraced. They were misguided in some areas before, but now they are completely blinded by their hate and trying to dress it up as Christianity, when it’s nothing more than a hateful lie.

Around 2021, Mary and I started attending the Christian Reformed church that she went to for Bible Study with my mom, and the one I went to for VBS as a child. They had a separate section for those who wished to wear masks. They weren’t caught up in the politics. They were showing the love of God. We started going regularly, then health troubles caused us to slip again, but it is something we want to return to.

During the pandemic, I, like many people, was furloughed and no longer receiving an income. At the end of the year, I got a new job, and on the second day, I suffered a stroke. I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital and a couple of weeks at my parents’ house learning to walk again. I have mostly recovered now, but it was a frightening time for Mary and me. It was the stroke that put me in pull-ups for medical reasons, but I later turned it into a daily routine because of the comfort, and because of my Little.

The company that hired me at the end of 2020 was a good company to work for. I did well there and was finally able to get entirely out of debt, something I’d been struggling with since first moving out on my own over 30 years prior. Unfortunately, after two years, I was hit by the company downsizing. None of the people I worked with wanted me to be let go, but the “number crunchers” saw me as one who would be hit in the layoff. I was out of work for a couple of months before being hired under contract. This was my first contract job.

The job was fascinating, but it was poorly managed and caused considerable stress. It was so poorly managed that the company I was contracted through terminated my contract. Okay, maybe they weren’t exactly fired, but it seemed that way. I was pulled to report directly to the client, still working through the contracted company. The client valued me and what I had to say, but due to contract difficulties between the client and the company I was contracted through, my contract was terminated. That began another period of unemployment while the recruiting company worked with the client to get a new contract drafted and get me back to work. The team members I had been working with were speaking with the client’s leadership and their own leadership to get me reinstated as well. I was out of work for nearly four months before returning to my job, and everyone keeps telling me how happy they are that I’m back. I even have various teams competing to get some of my time so that I can assist them.

That last period of unemployment, which was early this year, was disconcerting. Usually, I’m heavily contacted by recruiters, but it has been nearly radio silent. I blame a firestorm of problems. First, the economy. Second, the politics. Third, the rise of AI. All these things together meant that companies weren’t hiring as much, and my role is high value, which means high cost, so it is harder for companies to justify. Add to the fact that I’m now over fifty, and even though age discrimination is illegal, it still happens, just much more subtly, so laws aren’t broken. And since I’m still living paycheck to paycheck and still struggling with Mary’s health, this is not a good place to be.

Last year, Mary contacted a ghostwriter to help her write and publish her autobiography. As you can see from the little I shared here, she has a powerful story to tell. When I was out of work earlier this year, I began writing my own fantasy story. I worked with the same company, not as a ghostwriter, but in a developmental editing capacity. So, while they were working on her book, they were also assisting me with mine. They’ll also be doing the website, the marketing, and the publishing. So, even in unemployment, I poured money into this company in the vain hope that our books would see a return on our investment. Neither of us has our books published yet, but Mary’s is closer to completion than mine is.

Second Life has been a constant since 2009. It has been a place where I have been visible, even though it was an exaggerated version of me with a different name. Unfortunately, even that outlet is showing its cracks. Since 2020, things with the city I co-own have been strained. There have been several times that I’ve considered completely walking away. I’m not finding the same joy in the DJ sets. Running the city, which was a place where I could share my love for others, was a struggle with the other owners to keep them from dropping bombs that would upend the city and community entirely. And my in-world anchors have been having their own health issues and other personal issues that have left me adrift.

So, except for my exaggerated fursona in Second Life, I have been hidden and unnamed through all the times listed here, but obviously, I’m being named, and I’m going back through these posts and inserting myself. So, how did that happen?

Going back around ten years or so, I tried sharing with Mary what was going on. It was back then when I first heard about asexuality and realized that I fit that description. I explained it to Mary. She accepted it, but didn’t understand it. I also tried telling her about being transgender. That conversation I started generally, not speaking about myself, trying to see how she’d react. Her reactions said to me that she wasn’t understanding or ready to accept, so that part remained silent.

I revisited that discussion with her every year or two, trying to speak about it in general terms, and each time, I could tell that the door was still not one she was ready to open.

Around the same time, I shared being asexual with her, I decided to sit on the toilet when I needed to pee. It was a small way that I could be seen, even if it was only seen by me and my shadow.

Then came the stroke and the pull-ups. Mary accepted the pull-ups as a medical necessity. She had worn them sometimes over the years due to her medical issues, so she understood the necessity of them. When I shared with her that I was continuing to wear them because they made me feel comfortable, and they weren’t a necessity, she accepted it without question.

I even started shaving my body at that time, using the pull-ups as a partial excuse for why I started. Since “manscaping” is pretty standard, and she never liked the body hair anyway, it was also accepted.

Watching cartoons was something I’d done for a long time, so watching more of them didn’t seem strange at all to Mary. Even when I said I wanted to unpack my stuffed animals, she understood, as they had been part of my life for as long as we’d been married.

So, seeds were being planted for Mary already. I was starting to show myself. However, I didn’t have a name yet, except for my online name.

LGBTQIA+  issues are an even bigger hot topic in 2025. They’ve always been a topic of discussion, but under our current political climate, and the harshness of the evangelicals toward it, it is much more at the forefront. Mary has an old friend from high school, she’s been in touch with, who is bisexual, and neighbors in our complex who are lesbian. She has been getting to know them and, through me and them, has gained a better understanding of the issues faced by the LGBTQIA+ community. Granted, since I’ve been only visible online and not active in any LGBTQIA+ community, my experience is more limited in some aspects, but I don’t think it’s any less real.

Early in August 2025, Mary started talking about some transgender issues she saw online, showing the common misunderstandings, especially among the religious community that struggles to suppress and demonize. I took the time to correct her misunderstandings and share more about it, without revealing my own part in it. She flat-out asked me, “How do you know so much? Why have you researched it? Are you transgender?”

We were almost at an appointment that I was bringing her to, so I dodged the question. I had kept it from her before, but she was showing more acceptance now, with a greater understanding. However, it would still be a considerable risk to tell her. I didn’t know how she’d react. But after her appointment was done, I decided to share the truth. As I was waiting, the name Jessica came to mind. It allowed me to keep my initials and embrace my femininity offline, and keep the exaggerated online persona as a valid expression of myself.

I started by telling Mary that this is the way I’ve always been, that nothing I shared would change anything for us. The only thing it would do would be to give a name to things that hadn’t been named before. I explained my past in much less detail than I have shared here in my musings. I told her that my name was Jessica, but she didn’t have to use that name for me. It was just voiced so she could know it. Then I went into explaining my Little as well.

One thing that I felt was important to share with her was that I was sharing everything with her because she asked. The only thing I was looking for at that moment was for her to listen and realize that nothing I shared would change anything. I had made the decision not to transition, and that decision was even stronger now due to all the trials life had thrown in our path. I couldn’t afford to lose a job and not find a new one. There was just too much more to lose now than there was back then. I was looking for understanding, and hopefully, one day, acceptance. I told her that validation was never a goal, although it was a hope; I knew she might never be able to validate me, and that was okay.

Yes, I know, I can hear you now. I’m still keeping myself in the cage. I’m letting myself remain hidden and unvalidated. I agree, it’s not an ideal choice, but it is a choice I make willingly and freely. The fact of the matter is, for the first time, Mary sees me as I am. I’m not hidden anymore, not entirely. That is something at least.

Where does Mary stand with all this now? Well, she is still trying to accept things. I have been wearing the pink diaper now once a week, something I was able to start after becoming visible. She did express interest in playing Barbies with me, but I can tell her mindset is two adults playing with dolls, when for me, regression is involved, and she doesn’t yet understand that. Her only experience was my so-called tantrums that had no name in the past. I know she’s not ready for that, so I’m being careful with it. Besides, my Little is still new to me as well, so I’m still trying to learn to regress safely on my own, before involving anyone else.

So now, here we are, September 11, 2025. I’ve been named for about a month now. Over the past two weeks, I’ve shared details about myself. Mary has now seen me. You have now seen me.

I am Jessica. I am Little. I am Furry. I am Asexual. I am Christian. I am Logical. I am Creative. I am Resilient.

I am Visible.

Greetings once more, friends.

We’ve navigated the tsunami and are emerging on the other side. While the worst of it is passing, the storms are still far from over.

As with the rest of the resilient posts, this is all that was going on with my shadow. I was still there, now becoming more visible through my Second Life avatar. The first proper lifeline to my true self.

Let’s see. I’ve referenced Mister Peabody and Sherman, Doctor Who, Bill and Ted, and Back to the Future. Then yesterday, I spoke of the sands of time. I’m running out of pop culture references here. So, today, we’ll go back to H.G. Wells’s classic “The Time Machine.” So, let’s sit in the brass saddle, pull the ivory levers, and return to 2010 to continue my story.

Mary spent about a month with her father before coming back home with a renewed determination. She talked to her psychiatrist about getting control of her bipolar disorder and starting rehab for her narcotics addiction. This wasn’t just lip service. She was committed to making the change, and she succeeded. She hasn’t struggled with the addiction since that time. She knew it wasn’t something she could have done on her own. She credited me for part of it, but most of it she credited to God giving her the strength when her own strength had failed.

Unfortunately, in 2011, even though she had started to get free from the narcotics, she got into an accident and totaled her car. The police thought she was driving under the influence, and I felt the same. The test results came back negative, so technically, she could have gotten her license back, but I made the difficult decision to say no. We couldn’t risk it. She was a danger to herself and to others with the health issues and medications she was on. Yes, she had started to be free of the narcotics, but there were still so many other prescriptions in her system that it wasn’t safe. That meant relying on me or Uber to take her places, such as doctor appointments, a responsibility that continues to this day.

Soon after the loss of her car and license, another loss hit us hard. It was my worst fear now being realized. I started working for Larry in 1998. I transitioned to the new company in 2003. In 2011, after thirteen years of faithful, underappreciated service, I was let go. I know it was because of Mary’s health. Although my job performance was never affected by it, I always met my deadlines. I bent over backward trying to do my job, and do it well. But, they found a legal reason to let me go, so they didn’t have to admit it was because of Mary. Their excuse: “We’re taking the CRM project from you and giving it to developers. You’re not a developer. You’re not good enough to be a developer. We don’t have a place for you here anymore.”

Cue the freefall.

No degree. I did have experience with Quality Assurance. I did have about three years working with the CRM. I had a chronically ill wife. Who would hire me?

A furry friend from Second Life, Oscar, was also a software developer. I told him about my layoff, and he told me he’d get me in touch with his recruiters. He lived down where I used to live, so I went down to stay with my parents to meet with his recruiters. To try to find a job close to family again. Now, he only knew me by my online self, as a woman, but we were about to meet in person, in the real world. You want to talk about frightening. I obviously told him before we met, and he didn’t care, but still, I was terrified.

We met at a fast-food place. I was dressed as my shadow self, and even introduced myself to him by my dead name. We talked about my online self and how my wife related to that. The truth was, she didn’t know. There was so much going on in her life, I couldn’t tell her about my transgender leanings. If I did that, things would get even worse for both of us. She wouldn’t understand, and I needed to be strong to protect her. I don’t recall what he did or didn’t say in response, but he didn’t challenge my decision. He did share the contact information with his recruiters, and we did enjoy the lunch in the real world, outside of Second Life. While I was there as my shadow self, I was accepted as my online self, which meant I was there, and I was accepted, even though I didn’t have my name yet.

While I was still with my parents, struggling to find a job, Mary was still at home, so we would talk on the phone at night. Fortunately, there weren’t serious health issues at the same time, so I was able to be there and search for a job without having to worry too much about her.

God moved again. After what seemed like silence for so long, He showed once more that He had a future and a hope. He knew that I wouldn’t leave that job on my own. I was too scared. So, He allowed them to take it away so I could get out of His way. My Monster profile was viewed by a recruiter who specialized in Microsoft CRM placements. She informed me that my experience, even though it was only three years, would make me valuable. She set me up with a few interviews, and one of them actually turned into a job. A consulting company hired me, and I received a higher rate of pay, allowing me to start working from home.

I covered this rise through the technical ranks in my I am Logical entry so that I won’t go into more detail here. The important thing I will mention is that each new position that opened for me was a better position with a better rate of pay. Each time, Mary and I saw God moving and blessing us. We went through hell, and God continued to bring us through it and bless us. God wasn’t to blame for Mary’s health issues. We don’t know why she had to suffer through them, but God indeed blessed us despite those health issues.

Working from home made it easier for me to help Mary with her health issues. The stress of the long commute was gone now. My career was finally on an upward path. I was becoming the developer I was told I would never be. Mary was still staying away from the narcotics. Everything was looking up, and we praised God for it. But our return to church was still hampered by the health issues, so our faith remained grounded at home and isolated.

Now, let’s sit in the time machine and slowly push up on the ivory gears and watch time move ahead quickly, not tracking the dates.

Mary’s bipolar disorder started getting out of control again, but instead of spending, she became hypersexual. My asexuality was no help there, which caused more strain for us both. As a result, she would use Uber to go out, claiming to go to a doctor appointment, but really going to see another guy.

Ultimately, she told me what she was doing. On one hand, I knew in God’s eyes, this was wrong, it was a sin, and I was failing her. On the other hand, I saw her getting what she needed from someone else. Unfortunately, what she was doing was dangerous. So, instead, I told her if she was going to do that, to bring the guy to the house so I could keep her safe. Right or wrong, that was the decision that was made, and she agreed with it.

One time, the guy she brought home had asked her if I could join them. I was working from home, so I was there. She asked me, and I agreed. I did it because I wanted to please her. I had been failing, due to my asexuality, so maybe this was a way I could reach her. It was the first and only time I had done anything like that. She watched me kiss him, and he and I touched each other as well. My body reacted, of course, but there were no feelings of attraction there at all. It was an experiment that, like the wedding night, left me feeling hollow and empty.

After that, she also got that part of her bipolar disorder under control with her doctor’s help. She stopped bringing other men home, but the aftereffects of that lasted long beyond that time.

During this time, she also experimented with the newly legal medical marijuana as a way to manage the pain without narcotics. That didn’t go as planned. One time, she was so out of it that she stood in the middle of a room and just pooped right in front of me, completely unaware of what she was doing. We went to the hospital, and she didn’t know her name, what had happened, or that she didn’t recover until the drug was out of her system.

Thinking that may have been a fluke, she tried another time. This time, she locked herself out of the house in the cold. I didn’t know she had done this, and apparently she had been out there for a couple of hours, not knowing who she was or how to get back in. When I found out, I brought her in and locked her in the bedroom until the drug wore off. I had to do it for her own safety. That was the last time she tried that drug.

Unfortunately, this was not the last time the drug affected us. The next time had to do with me. A neighbor, who shared the same driveway, smoked medical marijuana. I worked from home, and I had to leave my window open as we didn’t have air conditioning. The smoke would come up into the room, and I’d get hit with the secondhand smoke. One time, it caused paranoia so bad that I was convinced that he was trying to kill us. I told Mary that I had to get a knife and kill him before he killed us. It would be self-defense, and I’d get away with it. Thankfully, I never carried through with it, but that reaction still haunts me to this day. I had no control over what I was thinking, saying, or doing.

Mary had one more big health issue during this time, along with her numerous other health issues. Back in 2009, after returning from the hospital, she had a J-tube for feeding. There had been just too much damage to her intestines due to the numerous revision surgeries. Well, that tube caused many issues over the three years she had it. Finally, she went and spoke to yet another doctor about getting the hole in her intestines closed so she could live again. The doctor didn’t want to do the surgery and told Mary and me, “You’ve had so many surgeries, and if I were to attempt this, I could kill you on the table.” Mary’s response. “I’m not living right now. I’ll accept that risk.”

The original Whipple had a high risk of death, but even at that time, we weren’t told by the doctor, “I could kill you,” it was just in all the consent forms. This surgery was that much more serious, but the doctor ultimately agreed. Mary and I knew that God would get her through the surgery, and He did. The doctor couldn’t believe how well the surgery went, and that the surgery was able to close the hole without any further complications. Since that time, Mary has been able to eat and go to the bathroom usually.

Then came 2017, when we were finally able to move to a new city, now only about 90 miles from family and friends. We were able to be with family for the holidays again. The latest job was nearly double my salary and another clear sign for us that God was moving and blessing us. We still struggled with Mary’s health, and now I was working in an office about ten miles away. It was a good, yet high-stress, job where I was now working as a Senior Developer. We hadn’t really been able to return to church due to the health issues, but we still trusted Him and saw His blessings despite the continuation of all the health problems.

Toward the end of our time at this location, when I was working at a new consulting job in 2019, Mary brought another couple of guys home as she had before. Right or wrong, I permitted it, but didn’t join in at all. I was never asked, and I was glad I wasn’t. When we moved from there, that stopped, and Mary made a commitment that she would never do that again.

From 2009 to 2019, I transitioned from a job where I was denied advancement and told I would never be a developer to a role as a Senior Developer for Microsoft CRM. A job where my pay was below what I should have been receiving, to being paid a very high salary. I was still able to express myself through Second Life in various ways. While I wasn’t named, I was still visible. I even went to the furry convention, as I mentioned in the I am Furry entry, and was identified by my online name, even though I was there as my shadow.

I wish I could say Mary’s health improved during this time, but it was still one crisis after another. I didn’t cover every single situation: broken bones, neck fusions, asthma, blood clots, and so much more. Her health was, and still is, a never-ending battle. Yet, despite all that, we can clearly see God moving. He provides me with better and better jobs and opportunities. While he hasn’t healed Mary completely, He has healed her in some areas. There were many times she should have died on operating tables, but she is still alive today.

Now, our time machine is back to the present. Tomorrow, we will move on to the last part, which will add new blessings and new challenges. I appreciate your patience as I worked through this now seven-part series.

You can see more of my resilience here, and I can still proclaim that I am Jessica.

Thank you for being here once more, my friends.

I know this journey through my resilience has been a long one. I’ve shared lows. I’ve shared highs. I’ve shared triumphs. I’ve shared failures. Now, my shadow years enter their darkest moments. This is going to be hard for me to write, so if I sound a little more detached, it’s a coping mechanism to get through this period in my life.

There’s no TARDIS. No Delorian. Today, we’ll be looking directly through the dust clouds created by the sands of time.

I’ll resume the story just before the move in late 2003. We had returned from our rededication and third honeymoon and were continuing to adapt to married life. I found a new comic book series I enjoyed. I hadn’t read comics since the early 1990s, and the premise of an interconnected universe through the different titles was intriguing to me. And since it was a completely new series, I didn’t have to worry about over sixty years of character development and canon to worry about.

Well, that comic company had a public forum that I joined. The forums included a section for play-by-post role-playing. Basically, what it boiled down to was collaborative storytelling. It was a new community of people with whom I was able to connect and express my creativity and connect over shared interests. My main character was an exaggerated version of my shadow, but that was simply one of many characters, male and female, that I wrote for over the next several years. Two of my favorite characters were both female. One was essentially an evil female counterpart to my main character, which was fun only because she was ruthless and her quest for power drove every decision she made. She was the complete opposite of my shadow in every way, and even opposite of me in all the ways that mattered.

The other character that was a favorite of mine was a woman who started with amnesia. Yes, that age-old cliche. But it was fun. Working with the other writers, she became the reluctant Empress of the world and a force for peace. When I created her, I wrote an entry of her getting dressed as the Empress for the first time. I was told by the female writers on the site that I wrote it so well, they thought a woman wrote it. Hearing that made me proud. I, Jessica, was being seen beneath the shadows. Unlike with the weretiger, where I didn’t know the connection, I absolutely did see the connection here and rejoiced quietly in it.

The move came at the end of 2003, and we moved around 400 miles away. This forum became my new anchor, having lost everyone else due to distance. And when the comic company went bankrupt, the shutdown of the site was imminent. I created my own forum and invited everyone over. The community rallied behind me, backing up all their stories from the old forums before it closed, and resuming our stories there. I became the anchor for my lifeline.

The storm clouds are gathering as we move into 2004. Mary and I were trying to find our footing in several areas. Married life. A new city. A new church. Lack of old connections. It was already a lot to handle. Yet in 2004, we started dealing with Mary’s health in new ways.

The first thing that happened was that she was officially diagnosed with PTSD from her previous marriage. There were many things in our marriage where I inadvertently triggered her in some way, which was always a challenge. In addition, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. These two diagnoses qualified her for Social Security disability. As a result, just over a year into our marriage, I was put into a position to be the sole breadwinner for us. Not a terrible thing, but it wasn’t what either of us was expecting.

I wish I could say that was the only thing in 2004 related to health. As the storm clouds became darker, the sands of time became even more tumultuous. We were told that Mary had a tumor in her pancreas, and they couldn’t know if it was cancerous or not. We were just thirty-one years old. How could she have cancer?

Because the tests were inconclusive for cancer, they had to treat it as cancer. Even if it weren’t, they still would need to do the surgery to remove it to prevent it from turning cancerous in the future. The mortality rate for surviving pancreatic cancer is not good at all. Surviving the surgery was equally abysmal.

The surgery, known as a Whipple, was in July 2004. My parents came up to the area to offer us prayer and support. Mary thought she was going to die on the table, and she wrote letters to everyone that she told me to distribute if she didn’t survive. For me, though, there was a peace that she didn’t have. I knew she would survive. God wasn’t done with either of us. He didn’t have us get married, move us 400 miles away, to have her die. There was a plan, but we didn’t know what it was yet.

The surgery lasted more than eight hours. My parents sat with me the entire time. They took me out for lunch and for dinner. When the surgery was done, the doctor told us that they still didn’t know if it was cancer and would send the mass off to be analyzed. She would be taken to the ICU for recovery.

She spent the entire month in the hospital, most of it in the ICU, recovering from the surgery. Then came learning how to eat again. She had part of her stomach removed, her gallbladder, the head of her pancreas, a portion of her large intestines, and was basically stitched back together.

The storm in 2004 wasn’t yet over. Just before Thanksgiving, she was told she had thyroid cancer. She had barely recovered from the first surgery, and she was going under the knife once more. Unlike with the pancreatic tumor, this was confirmed to be cancer, so they had to take out her thyroid and start her on radiation after she recovered from the second surgery.

This was only the crest of the oncoming tsunami. The full weight had yet to bear down on us, but it was coming, and it was coming quickly.

Complications arose as a result of the first surgery. Scar tissue obstructs the bowels, causing pain, nausea, and difficulty eating. In 2005, she underwent her first revision surgery. Our lives were starting to become a routine of me working, then spending time at the hospital. Church became an on-and-off thing as our lives became a matter of simply surviving. The online community was there for me; it was my fantasy escape, and I shared with them what was going on with Mary.

Even though we didn’t go to church, we both still clung to our faith. Our faith was the only thing carrying us. Our family and friends were 400 miles away. My new friends were online. The surgeries and medical issues continued to grow year after year.

And I’ll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I’ve cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

Praise You in This Storm
Casting Crowns

The song Praise You in This Storm still brings tears to my eyes today. We didn’t know why this was happening. We felt alone. We felt overwhelmed. We cried. Through it all, God was there. We trusted in Him, and I did my best to remain strong for her, despite the tsunami that had caught us in the first crash.

The lower pay, the exorbitant medical bills, Mary’s bipolar shopping addiction, and the purchase of a timeshare that should never have been done caused us to declare bankruptcy in 2007. The shopping addiction and bankruptcy forced me to remove Mary from all accounts and become the gatekeeper for all of our finances. It was a role I didn’t want, but it was necessary for our protection.

Then came the housing market collapse in 2008 and, once again, our world was turned upside down.

The local office I worked out of had to be shut down, and I was then forced to commute to the corporate office, which was 70 miles away. This adjustment did not include a pay increase, nor did it compensate me for mileage. Not only was I dealing with Mary’s continuing health issues, but I also effectively got a pay cut and spent even more time away from home. To save money, I even tried taking the bus, so I was up at 5 am only to get home at 8 pm and go to bed. I couldn’t try to find another job either. I had no degree, and I had an ill wife. I was trapped, and all I could do was survive and be strong for her.

To make matters worse, all the surgeries had caused Mary to become addicted to the narcotic pain medications. It was true, she was in constant pain from the surgeries, so it was almost impossible to tell if the trips to the ER were necessary, or just drug seeking. Doctors would stop giving her pain meds, seeing the drug-seeking behavior. One time, leaving an ER after getting a “no” answer from the doctors, Mary jumped out of the car, and I was forced to drive slowly next to her while I was on the phone with 911. She was threatening to kill herself. When the police came, they took her in the back of a squad car to the hospital on a psychiatric hold. She told me she hated me and would never forgive me, and the look she gave from the back of the police car was one of pure hatred, a look that I never forgot. I was in tears, knowing that I had no choice in order to save the woman I loved from killing herself.

By 2009, my forum was slowly losing its members as life pulled people away. It was even hard for me to be there, due to my long hours and dealing with Mary’s continual health issues. That year, she needed yet another surgery. She’d been having one to two surgeries each year. This one sent her to a city that was another 90 miles past my work, putting her about 160 miles from home. Additionally, she was there for several months. Due to distance and finances, I was lucky if I could go see her once a week, which made it even harder for both of us.

It was at this time that I found Second Life. I first discovered it in 2006, but didn’t understand it, so I didn’t return. But in 2009, I went through a welcome area and really understood what Second Life could be. Even more important for me, I discovered that I could be a female in Second Life. I have already written an entry about all of this, but as a brief summary, this became my new lifeline, and more importantly, it allowed me to be seen as a woman for the first time.

Mary’s father, Neil, came to live with us for a year. Having him there was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it reduced the stress for me, having my long commute and long work days. On the other hand, he was enabling her seeking of narcotics with ER visits and being critical of things I was doing or wasn’t doing, due to the many balls I was juggling just to survive. Mary would internalize them, then reflect them back at me, even though she knew the reasons that Neil didn’t understand.

At the same time, this is when I was told by the manager of the development team that I’d never be a developer. But they allowed me to do development on the Microsoft CRM while remaining in the Quality Assurance department. It was at least a small move forward, even though it didn’t come with any pay increases.

Not long after Neil returned home, Mary’s addictions, both for narcotics and spending, increased. I would no longer take her to the ER. I was traumatized, and am still traumatized by it. I was in control of the finances, but I had a bonus check arrive in the mail. She somehow managed to claim it was half of what it was and spent the other half. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I sent her down to live with her father and told her that she could return when she agreed to get into rehab and get her bipolar disorder back on track. I loved her deeply, but I couldn’t deal with it anymore, so this was a last-ditch attempt to get her to realize she had to change.

The sands of time are now squarely in 2010. The full weight of the tsunami has washed over us over the course of these seven years. I had hoped to get further down this road, but there’s still so much more to cover. But this is a good point to let things rest. While the struggles are not gone yet, things will start to change and improve once more. This was more than enough emotional weight for one night.

Thank you all for sticking with me through these trials. While it was my shadow going through them, I was still there. I am Jessica, and these events do not define me.

I am resilient.

Hello friends.

Yes, we’re continuing down the path of resilience. Faith, as you can see, has become part of it. I hope this path isn’t sending anyone running for the hills, and thank those who do remain for their persistence.

We’ve traveled in the Wayback Machine, the TARDIS, and a time-traveling phone booth. Now, it’s time to ride in style in our very own Delorian.

Let’s set the time circuits to the turn of the millennium to see what the past had established.

After partying like it was 1999, I moved into 2000 with hope. Well, ok, I’ve never been a partier, but still, the song reference had to happen. Just remember, this journey is from the shadows of my dead name. Despite that, my truth was still there, and I am reclaiming that truth to the best of my ability now. I am Jessica, and this is my story, still shrouded by my shadow.

Faith, along with my involvement in church and church activities, was a cornerstone of my life. Work continued to go well. I was making a good income, taking extension courses at college, and expanding my skills in web design and technical areas. I had moved out of my parents’ house and was renting a room in a house around the corner from the church. I saw God’s blessings in my life everywhere I looked.

Despite all the good, there were still confusing aspects of my life that I didn’t fully understand. I had given up AD&D and my favorite character in 1996. I completely cut that out of my life, cut her out of my life, and I still reflected on that. I was happy, but there was still something missing.

I stumbled upon a movie that had been released the previous year called Boys Don’t Cry. It was the true life story of a trans man and the struggles he faced leading up to his actual murder. I don’t know how I discovered it or why I was interested in watching it. It was the first time that I recall hearing about transgender people and seeing their real-life issues. Even though it was the story of a trans man, there was something about it that caught my attention. It made me want to do additional research into transgender issues.

I found several transgender websites online and read through them. What struck me most as I read through the sites is how much it sounded like what I had been going through. I never felt like I belonged in my body. My connection to the female character. It all pointed to the fact that I was transgender as well.

Cue the lightbulb above my head.

Here I was, a twenty-seven-year-old transfeminine individual living in the shadows all my life, just now discovering the truth. What did it mean, though? Who was I? What was I? What should I do?

I was torn and confused. I didn’t know what to think. I looked into transitioning. I saw the graphic pictures of gender reassignment surgeries. I read accounts of those who felt validated by living their lives as their true selves. I wanted that, but could I have it? I didn’t know anyone else like me. I could only read about them and their experiences from afar. It all felt so alien to me.

I’d grown up bullied and teased. It had left me scarred. I was afraid to open myself to that again. The movie, and even the transgender accounts I read online, confirmed that if I went down that path, there was a risk of being bullied, rejected, assaulted, or even killed.

Taking hormones to change my body meant taking medication. I was never good at following through with medication regimens. I had been diagnosed in the early 90s with an overactive thyroid, and my doctor would get on my case for not being consistent enough. There was a part of me that was frightened to take medication, even if it was prescribed.

Gender reassignment surgery, even just breast augmentation, seemed frightening and painful to me. My nerves are ultra sensitive to the point where things like novacaine don’t work all that well for me. Going in for an elective surgery, which wouldn’t feel all that optional to me, was terrifying.

Church and the church community had become my anchors in life. I needed the community that understood my faith. They would see this as a sin. They would reject me. I would lose them. My ministries would be gone. I wouldn’t be teaching the four-year-olds or working with the junior high kids. I would be an outcast, and I couldn’t bear to be seen as an outcast.

Larry, my friend from church whom I’ve known for three years and worked for for two years, would probably let me go, and I’d be back to nothing, like I was before everything changed in 1996.

My family, whom I love more than anything, would be disappointed in me, or worse, disown me. While the latter didn’t seem likely, the disappointment would undoubtedly be there. They would still love me; their love was unconditional. However, what I would be doing would be seen as wrong, and the fear of disappointing them was bigger than any other reason I gave myself.

Did I think being transgender was a sin? No. Not necessarily. I knew others would see it that way, though. Honestly, I didn’t know what to think of it. It was a newly discovered truth about myself that I didn’t know how to process or what to believe.

So, I made the difficult, and yes, even heartbreaking, decision not to pursue a transition. No magic wand could change my biology to be entirely female, with full reproductive capabilities. No spell could make it so that my shadow never existed, and I had always been my true self. Instead, I could only gently touch my identity by reading webcomics about transgender women or related in some way to gender swapping, wishing that could be me as well.

One of the drawbacks of the research was that the search results also pulled up pornography. I’d never searched for it before, but here it was, easy to access. It never even occurred to me to look. Yes, I was a twenty-seven-year-old adult who had never seen or looked for adult entertainment. I’d heard about it and was curious, so I explored it. What excited others did nothing for me. I found it boring. I watched videos of straight, lesbian, gay, transgender, and even groups, seeing if any of them would appear even remotely interesting. Nothing excited me, nothing interested me, so my journey there ended pretty quickly. I hadn’t yet equated it to my asexual nature, as I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

Now, I continued forward as I had been all along, with my true self pushed down by the shadow. Moving forward didn’t hurt, as would have been expected considering I said it was a painful decision. Things were going well in my life, and I found joy and happiness in it. Yes, the secret longing for more was there, especially now that I had a partial name, but it didn’t weigh me down the way it may weigh down others in a similar situation. Right or wrong, I had accepted my decision, even if underneath it all, I didn’t like the decision.

That same year was important for another reason: it was the year that I met Mary. She also worked with children at church, singing and acting on stage for them. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she had been watching me with the children for a while. One night, she approached me while I was sitting with one of the four-year-olds in my lap, waiting for the show to begin. She suddenly decided to ask me out for coffee after service. I was shocked, and apparently she was too. I agreed, and we met and talked for hours.

Mary was coming out of a very dysfunctional marriage. Her ex-husband was an abusive drug user, and her divorce had been recently finalized. My nature, of course, saw someone who was interested in me, and I became attached very quickly. Likewise, she also became swiftly attached, so we were already in the same boat, for better or for worse.

I still didn’t know about my asexuality. I didn’t realize it was a thing. My romantic attractions, which were so strong for me, became confused with erotic attraction. The teaching of the church, and the desire of my parents, was that I should marry a woman and raise Christian children. Although the role of a eunuch is mentioned in the Bible, it is overshadowed by the teachings of marriage. Because of this, we both pursued a relationship toward a goal of marriage.

Now, let’s get back into our Delorian and set the time circuits for the year 2002. My faith and service continued as they had been. My job was still going well. I still occasionally felt the longing for my true, hidden identity, which was only lightly brushed upon through the webcomics. Mary and I grew closer and became engaged.

I knew she was coming into the future marriage from a broken and dysfunctional previous marriage. For me, I had no experience with even the engagement side of a relationship, and was going into the upcoming marriage almost blind. Because of the intensity of the romantic side, there appeared to be an erotic spark for both of us, and we thought that was more confirmation for us to be married.

Early in that year, Mary had lost her job. I was still renting the room in the house, and Mary was renting a room at her sister’s house. To help her as she struggled to find another job, I would pay her rent, without question or hesitation.

Our wedding wasn’t planned until May of 2003, but having spent most of the year paying Mary’s rent and still living apart, we decided, with the blessing of our pastor, to move our wedding up to December. Shortly before Christmas, we went to Las Vegas with a small group of friends and family and were married. We spent a couple of days after in Vegas as our first honeymoon, then went home to celebrate Christmas. The day after, we flew to Hawaii on a fully paid company trip. There was only a short company meeting I had to attend, but the rest of the trip was a vacation, and in our case, we called it a second honeymoon.

After returning home, I moved into Mary’s sister’s house, the room Mary rented, as a temporary home until we could find an apartment. We were only there a month before we moved out to our first small apartment. Then, in May, we had our whole wedding ceremony as planned. It was now considered a rededication, and it was attended by many more friends and family. We even had a week in San Diego that we counted as a third honeymoon.

Through both weddings and all three honeymoons, there was one common thread we saw through it all. We saw this as God blessing us for our obedience and faith in Him. I didn’t go into details here, but many things, including costs, aligned for all these events, which, like my career path in the previous entry, could only be attributed to God, as coincidence or luck wouldn’t suffice.

Despite these blessings that we saw, some cracks were beginning to show.

The first crack appeared on our wedding night. Mary approached it and saw it against the backdrop of her previous failed marriage. I approached it with all the words of others who told me that this would be the most wonderful and blessed experience I could ever imagine, one that is best experienced within marriage. Unfortunately, after the climax, I was left feeling empty and hollow. Was it my asexuality that still hadn’t been known or named? Was it my gender dysphoria that I still kept hidden? I didn’t know, but when Mary asked how I liked it, I answered honestly, saying I felt hollow. I thought we’d talk about it, to try to understand it, but it didn’t quite work out that way, and it created the first fragment in our marriage.

The next crack appeared as we neared the second wedding. Mary had injured her knee before the ceremony and had to be taken to the hospital. She was put into a knee brace that she had to wear under her gown at the ceremony. We joked that we would be getting married “in sickness and in sickness.” She had asthma, a couple of severe food allergies, and knee issues. Nothing we couldn’t handle, but it was still setting up some new obstacles for us.

Yet another crack showed a couple of months later, when finances kept us from purchasing a birthday gift for her best friend. It would be the first year she couldn’t get her best friend something, and she became so upset with me that she cursed at me. The shock of it made us both laugh, but again, it was another minor crack in our foundation.

The first earthquake would hit toward the end of 2003. Not a literal earthquake, but a tremor that would be felt through both of our lives. Larry worked as an independent sales rep for another company. It was their software that we sold out of Larry’s home. Well, the company decided to do away with their independent sales rep and pull everything in-house with a sales department that would exist in Texas. The employees of the reps, of which I was one, would be brought into the company as an acquisition. Larry fought for me to become a developer on the transition, but instead, I was offered a job in quality assurance.

What did this new position mean? First, it was a cut in pay. Not a drastic one, but enough that it was going to be felt. Second, it was moving us north to a city about 400 miles away from our church, our friends, and our family. It was a gut punch to both of us. We were losing our support groups. I remained strong. I knew God had a plan. They could have sent us to Texas, even further away, to join the sales team. They could have let me go, and I’d be where I was eight years ago. Instead, I was given this role with the possibility of becoming a developer in the future.

I didn’t know why this was happening, but we both knew God was in control, and we trusted Him. He never let us down before, and we knew He wouldn’t let us down now.

So, the end of 2003 saw us move and leave everything behind. This earthquake, though, was only just beginning. This quake would trigger tsunamis that would crash down upon us without mercy, and I’ll share more about that starting tomorrow as we continue this journey into my resilience.

Let’s get back into our Delorians and set the time circuits back to the present. I appreciate your patience and willingness to listen to me share these trials and tribulations alongside my faith. There’s already been a lot of struggle and a lot of reward, but the struggles ahead are going to be even more taxing and reveal my resilience even more.

Despite this time spent underneath the shadow, I am Jessica, and I am resilient.