Jessica's Musings

Welcome back, friends.

I appreciate that you are taking the time to join me on this journey of identity. I realize that some of my entries might be viewed as controversial. Topics such as my Little and my faith are most likely at the top of that list. Despite that, they are still essential parts of who I am, the parts that make me whole and define me as Jessica. You can’t have one without the other.

Now, we continue the journey into the deepest, darkest depths of my identity. Trials and tribulations from both the past and present that will evoke raw, powerful emotions. Writing this won’t be easy, and I’m unsure how it will be received. Still, sharing this will give a clearer picture of what I have gone through and why a complete transition is not available.

Everything in this entry was experienced through the mask of my deadname. As I introduce people, if I remember their name, I will mention it here, but it won’t be their actual name. Despite all this, I want to remind you, and myself, of the underlying truth. I am Jessica.

Let’s enter the Wayback Machine and return to the 1970s. I was four or five years old, lying on my stomach on a friend’s skateboard. I thought it was a fun thing until the skateboard hit the bottom lip of the driveway and came to a stop. That’s when Newton’s First Law of Motion revealed itself to me. The skateboard may have stopped, but I didn’t. I continued forward, face-first into the bottom of the driveway, knocking out my two front teeth in the process. Yup, an object in motion remains in motion, and my teeth paid the price.

Now, you have a child who lisps due to a lack of two front teeth, wears thick glasses, and suffers from social awkwardness that makes it difficult to make friends. These are a recipe for disaster in a child’s life, and I was no exception. In first and second grade, I had to take the bus to school. At the bus stop, I was teased and bullied. I can’t recall exactly what happened, but I do remember running home in tears, crying about what had happened.

During those two grades, I don’t recall having many friends, but it was quite a long time ago. The vague shadows that pass through my mind don’t align with a child playing with friends. I would imagine my awkwardness kept the other kids away. Despite that, I do remember one girl at the time who was friendly to me. I even remember her name, Amber, so she must have been important to me in some way. I can only assume now that she might have been a friend.

It’s time now to set the Wayback Machine to the early 80s. A new elementary school opened close enough to home that I could walk to school. I attended this school from third through sixth grade, and the troubles followed me. I tried to make friends. I tried to be liked. Yet, these years were still filled with bullying and teasing. Many times, I would run home from school, crying, to get away from the bullies. I tried to be a class clown, to get more attention, but it only drew a bigger target on me. I tried to do things to be accepted, even if it was wrong, and wound up getting caught and punished. There was even an instance where a teacher in fifth grade slapped my face hard, and my parents had to go to the school to confront the administration about what happened.

Friends that I had during that time, from first through sixth grade, were sparse, to say the least. In first and second grade, there was a girl my age, Brenda, who lived at the end of the cul-de-sac, and she was my best friend until her family moved away. There was a boy named Craig who moved into a couple of houses down from me right before I entered third grade. He was Amber’s cousin and two years older than me. He would become my best friend for many years to come. At school, I met David, a boy my age, with whom I would play on the jungle gym. He was another close friend for several years. There were a couple of other friends over the years, not close, but mostly it was those who only wanted to pick on me for reasons that remain elusive.

Being bullied constantly, regularly living in fear, was no way to live. So, it wasn’t surprising that I clung to Craig and David as my best friends. I couldn’t lose them, since I had no one else who was kind to me. My family was, but that was different. These were my peers, other children, and I needed them as a counterbalance to all the bullying.

Now, as we direct the Wayback Machine to the mid-80s, I’m entering middle school. In fifth and sixth grade, I received speech therapy to learn how to stop lisping. Before entering seventh grade, my father told me that if I didn’t stop lisping, the teasing would get worse. Whether it was the speech therapy or my father scaring the lisp out of me, by the time I entered seventh grade, the lisp was gone. Despite that, however, the bullying continued to worsen. I remember seventh and eighth grades being times of torment. Sure, there were some good things in there as well, but it is the trials that overshadow these years.

Craig was older, so he was now in high school. We would still hang out after school frequently. David, though, began to distance himself while at school. He didn’t want to get caught associating with me, so he didn’t get bullied along with me. We’d still hang out sometimes after school, but during school, I was persona non grata. I made a new friend at this time, Eric, who was in the same grade, and we quickly bonded over AD&D. Beyond that, it was just more bullies and more teasing. There was no respite. Once, after physical education, a fight almost broke out, but it was stopped by a teacher. I was so shaken by the event that, as the other kids went into the locker room, I collapsed by the wall and wept.

• Craig – I only saw him after school, but I considered him one of my best friends.
• David – He avoided me at school so he wouldn’t be bullied, too, but we still spent time together after school. Despite this, I still considered him one of my best friends.
• Eric – He was kind of on the outside like me, and he quickly became my best friend.

I’m sure you’re starting to see a pattern here. Bullying and three friends who are referred to as best friends. One who is not available because he’s older. Another who’s unavailable because he intentionally separates himself from me at school. Finally, a third, whom I quickly classify as a best friend, placing him alongside the other two I called best friends in my mind and my heart. Meanwhile, the bullies continue to torment me, so I cling to the friends I have as my only anchors in the storms.

Stepping once more into the Wayback Machine, we arrive in the late 80s when I start high school. Craig was in 11th grade when I was in 9th grade, and we’d walk to and from the bus together, but we didn’t associate with each other at school. David continued to distance himself at school. Even my younger brother would keep his distance to avoid being associated with me. Only Eric remained consistent, and if we shared the same lunch period, he and I would spend it together.

To make matters worse, Craig came up with the idea of “bush games” on the way home from the bus. What that entailed was him shouting “bush games” and pushing me into the bushes as we walked, much to the amusement of others who were walking from the bus with us. I would laugh along, despite how much it hurt me. I couldn’t afford to lose my best friend, even if that meant letting him humiliate and hurt me.

Craig had graduated, and I moved on to the eleventh grade. We hung out after I was out of school, unless he had to work. David was even more distant, and we didn’t really see each other outside of school either. Eric, as before, was still the only constant among my so-called “best friends.” By this time, the bullying and teasing had largely subsided. My ninth-grade years were probably the last of it, except for Craig’s “bush games.” So, relatively speaking, eleventh grade was safe, despite the lack of friends.

Things really changed in my senior year. I went from having three that I referred to as best friends to a larger core group of friends. We were all what would generally be considered the outcasts, for one reason or another, but this group became the first group of reliable friends that I had. It was composed of males and females, and I even tried asking one of the girls to the senior prom. Of course, I was rejected, and that hurt. Despite that, we remained friends. Looking back, I can say with confidence that my senior year was the best year of my school years.

• Craig – I still called him one of my best friends, but we didn’t hang out as much anymore. I still called him my best friend.
• David – He avoided me at school. We didn’t hang out much after school. I still called him my best friend.
• Eric – Outcast group. D&D group. He and I had always remained close, and among my best friends, he was the one I viewed as being at the top.
• Faith – Outcast group. I tutored her in math after school. I asked her to the prom and was rejected. I still viewed her as one of my best friends.
• George – Outcast group. D&D group. He was a rebel type. Long hair. Leather jacket. Smoked. Yet he was still one of the best friends I could have.
• Heather – Outcast group. At this time, we only saw each other at school. I considered her one of my best friends.
• Isabel – Outcast group. Another girl in the group, whom I had only seen at school, was still considered one of my best friends.
• Jennifer – Outcast group. Yet another girl in our group, whom I considered to be a best friend, was only seen at school.

How could I have so many “best friends” with two of them (Craig and David) not really being good friends to begin with? What’s more, in my mind, I couldn’t bear to lose them. I’d been on the outside so long, with less than a handful of friends, that having multiple friends now was a blessing to me. My panromantic nature is clearly evident here. I loved my friends so deeply, I called each of them my best friend. It was to the point that if I lost them, I felt like I’d lose myself.

So, now we return the Wayback Machine to the present. There’s still more to share, but my school years already paint a depressing picture of abuse and dependency. Not abuse from family, who were always a stable force in my life, but from peers, including those I called best friends. I became a loner out of necessity, to avoid the barrage of teasing and bullying. I refused to let go of my anchors, even when those anchors weren’t grounded.

While my choices may not have been the best, I didn’t give up, and my resilience began to show. I was still incredibly unstable, but at least I was moving as well as I could. For now, I need to close this entry. Tomorrow, I will enter the next phase of my development, where new trials and tribulations will shape my life.

Thank you for bearing with me through these tales, friends. Until tomorrow, remember. I am Jessica.

Hail and well met, my fine companions! It is I, Jessica, the mistress of musings. I’ve returned once more to weave together words as threads of a tale. Take up your mugs, let the firelight dance upon your faces, and lend me your ears! Tonight I shall spin a tapestry of myself, a tale wrought from my truth. Together we shall wander through the corridors of identity, where every jest and whisper tells a piece of who I am!

Ok, that was a bit over the top, but it certainly was enjoyable to write. Yes, as the title says, I am creative. You probably didn’t need that bardic proclamation at the start of this entry to realize that. I believe that my previous entries demonstrated sufficient creativity to show that I am a creative woman.

But wait! My last post was all about being logical. How can logic and creativity coexist in the same person? Wouldn’t one cancel out the other? I admit that it has been something I’ve wondered about countless times over the years, but in reality, at least for me, they coexist in equal measure. Sometimes, the logic side might be stronger; other times, it might be the creative side. In the end, both are core parts of my reality, just as much as every other aspect I’ve shared over the past several days.

As mentioned previously, I started reading at a very young age. My parents got me different books to read. It was a mail-order club, if I recall correctly, and I couldn’t wait to receive the new children’s books when they arrived. Richard Scarry, The Berenstain Bears, and Dr. Seuss, to name a few. They were the first things to unlock my imagination and send my mind into the realms of fantasy. I still have the Sam Books from my kindergarten years. I’m not sure what happened to the other books; if my parents still have them, if they got rid of them, or if they gave them to my niece. Little Jessica would love to reread them. I can feel her excitement bubbling forth at the memory.

My reading did not end there. My imagination was fueled by reading again in high school and beyond, particularly in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers. I even read Steven King’s The Stand. That was an intense and lengthy read. Despite the variety, my preferred genre to read then, as it is today, has always been high fantasy. Surprisingly, though, I never actually made it through The Lord of the Rings, not even halfway through the first book.

My imagination and interest in fantasy continued to grow over the years. Early video games I played, like Zork, were text-based adventures, where I imagined the worlds being described. It was through playing Zork that my lifelong passion for programming was sparked, as mentioned in my previous entry. In computers, my imagination was expressed through ideas that I developed into rudimentary applications. There were many unfinished ideas over the years, from my first programs in the 80s through today. Without the imagination that inspired me to write code and learn what was possible, I would not have a career in programming today.

Programming wasn’t the only interest that was born from my love of computers. When I joined Second Life, a whole new area of creativity opened up to me. First, I was a virtual Barbie doll that I could dress up. I would learn how to modify my avatar’s shape, buy hairstyles, purchase clothing, and put it all together to reflect the woman I am. Granted, it was an exaggerated fantasy version, but it was the way I could express my identity before Jessica was finally given a name. Aside from dress-up, I would buy items to decorate my homes. I would learn to build homes of my own. I learned Blender to create mesh objects and bring them into Second Life to use or sell. A branch of programming, utilizing the scripting language known as the Linden Scripting Language (LSL), was used to create scripts that perform actions in the virtual world. My most popular item is a calendar system that I created and scripted, allowing people to give away or sell their own custom calendars in Second Life. There was also photography, where I would set up pose stands to pose the avatar or avatars as I wanted and take pictures, which would then be brought into GIMP for post-processing.

Then there was the website design. I would create full web pages for myself and others. I would manage to create my own images to enhance the look. I even made themes for my WordPress and phpBB installations. Nothing was ever considered professional-grade, but it was something I started in the late 90s, and I still manage to do today.

Outside of the digital ones and zeroes, I expressed my creativity in many other ways. In my school years, I used to take Thomas Guide maps and trace my fingers along the highways and streets. I would pretend I was a freedom fighter, and Orange County and San Bernardino counties were at war with Riverside County and Los Angeles County. Because I lived in San Bernardino County, I was a hero, and I had to find ways to get to Orange County to bring news that would save the people and bring an end to the war. Looking back, that was a pretty in-depth level of creativity for someone still in grade school and middle school. Because of this map knowledge, my parents also came to rely on me as a navigator, as I could read maps so easily.

Expanding upon that idea in middle school and high school, I would take all my board games and place the boards together between my room and my brother’s room. These boards became a new world, and each game board represented a different part of that world. I would use action figures and move them between the different boards in the world. Each board had its own series of traps that I invented, and I had to get the action figures from the first game board to the last to escape safely.

Playing with Barbie alongside my cousin and engaging in action figure play at home were other frequent sources of imagination, as is common for many children. More important to me than the action figures, though, were my stuffed animals, and I had many of them. My favorite was a monkey puppet that I would often talk to and play with. Looking back, I think the monkey was one of the first outlets of Little Jessica, where the monkey was speaking with her voice, and I was playing back with her that way. Ok, ok. Yeah, it could have been just a child playing. I’ll grant you that. But in my heart, as I get to understand Little Jessica more, I believe it was her coming out to play.

Legos. Legos. Legos. Oh, how I loved the Legos. I spent days in my room or on the patio in the backyard playing with Legos. I didn’t follow the directions to build the Lego model as intended. No. It was all a product of my imagination and creativity. I built entire cities. Small space ships. I would build anything my mind could dream up and play with it. Only to tear it all apart at the end of the day and put it away to see what my imagination would bring the next time I brought the Legos out.

Along comes the pièce de résistance. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). I remember being with my parents inside a Toys-R-Us, you know, the place where a kid can be a kid. We were browsing a game aisle when I was around eight years old, and I saw a game called Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), featuring a man fighting a dragon on the cover. I just had to have the game, so I begged my parents to get it, even though it was meant for ages ten and up. Well, it proved to be too complicated for my parents, and I never really got to experience it at that time. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that someone from school introduced me to the game and taught me how to play. Armed with a little knowledge, I retrieved the game from my parents and began learning how to play, allowing my imagination to run wild. It was shortly after that when another friend told me the real game was called AD&D, and I wasn’t considered a real participant in the game until I played that version. So, of course, I had to learn that one instead of D&D.

It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I became heavily involved in AD&D, running campaigns with a core group of friends. From 1990 through 1995, I was heavily involved in creating worlds, adventures, and characters. My imagination was running wild. My favorite character, as mentioned in an earlier entry, was a female weretiger. She was a hunter from a tribe similar to the Amazons. Through the course of her adventuring, she was taken from her homeworld to another fantasy world, and the remaining time of her adventures was spent struggling for survival in a new world and trying to find a way back home. She was a warrior, a thief, and a sorceress. She was a force to be reckoned with and a dangerous foe when crossed. She wasn’t evil. She helped people. However, her main concern was gaining power so she could return home. I identified with her on many levels, which years later I linked to both my female identity and my furry identity.

The final piece of creativity to touch on here is my writing. If it wasn’t already obvious, I love to write. My entries here can be quite verbose. Offline, I tend to be quiet and reserved. I’ll speak when spoken to and respond politely, but I prefer my solitude. Writing, however, allows me to stretch my creative and imaginative muscles in ways that inspire me and, I hope, others. While I may not always feel comfortable in a group setting, I can relate better one-on-one. Additionally, I can express myself more effectively in writing.

I remember writing something in sixth grade that I was pretty proud of. All I remember about it now is that it was some kind of science fiction. I think I named it ‘Space: The Final Frontier,’ unaware that I had taken that from Star Trek. Then in the eighth grade, I took an art class and a creative writing class. I didn’t excel in art, but I excelled in creative writing. Irony was, I didn’t even want to be in the class. I thought I hated the writing. When I was placed in Advanced Placement (AP) English in ninth grade, I was surprised. I didn’t think I was that good in English. In that class, I had to write poetry, and again did very well at it, but I hated every moment of it.

Everything changed in the tenth grade. I had a teacher in my AP English class who inspired me in my writing. She would create these small scenarios, such as “have a tragic event happen to your character,” and the students would create the scene that matched the event. Initially, I attempted to write a modern-day detective story. That turned out to be a disaster on an epic scale. I hated every moment of it, and it became increasingly difficult to write with each new scenario that was presented. I never read detective stories; I read fantasy. How could I write modern stories when my head wanted to wrap itself around magic? So, when the tragic event scenario was given, I decided to write a nuclear holocaust that turned the story from modern into post-apocalyptic fantasy. Upon finishing that scene, I realized I had gone from terrible to abysmally bad.

My next solution wasn’t driven by the enjoyment of writing, but rather to revisit the early scenarios and start over. I was going to stick with what I knew, fantasy, and write a new story from each scenario. It wasn’t because I liked to write, but because what I had previously written was so utterly, irrevocably, and terribly bad that I needed a clean slate. As I wrote within the scenarios, though, I discovered it was too constraining for me. The exercise of writing about the scenarios, while annoying to me, turned out to be the key to unlocking my passion for writing. Upon realizing how constraining it was, I went to the teacher and asked about writing without the constraints. She encouraged it, and encouraged me. So, I started my first fantasy story, not because it was an assigned project, but because I felt a passion within that I hadn’t felt before —a passion that still burns bright today.

My writing passion may have started in the tenth grade, but as mentioned, it didn’t end there. When I became heavily involved in AD&D a little over a year later, it came with it a substantial amount of writing. Character backstories, new worlds for adventures, locations, and so much more. Then there was a play-by-post role-playing forum that started from a comic book website. There, I would create more characters, more scenarios, and work collaboratively to build in-depth, constantly evolving stories. In Second Life, although the world was a three-dimensional, highly visible virtual environment, writing and imagination were still required to emote scenes and create backstories for a community that I co-created and co-owned.

Today, my love of writing continues as I’m writing my first series of books to be published. For all my previous writing, which began when my passion was sparked in tenth grade, nothing was ever finished. I would start and write myself into a corner, or I’d spend days world-building and never get a story off the ground. But four months ago, I did something I had never done before. I had completed a storyboard that provided a comprehensive narrative, from start to finish, with a solid ending. I spoke with a publisher who assisted with self-publishing, and we determined that the number of scenes I had equated to well over 200,000 words (by rough estimates), which, for a fantasy story, wasn’t uncommon, but it was decided to be too long for a single book, so we decided to split it into four books. As I searched for my logical splitting points, I determined I needed to split into five books and add a few more scenes to make the individual books roughly the same length.

As of today, I have 150 scene storyboards, which equate to 150 chapters. Book one has a first draft completely written. Then I went back and created a polished draft of each chapter, which I’ve been providing, one at a time, to my editor. Currently, my editor is about 1/3 of the way through my first book, while I’m almost 1/4 of the way through the first draft of book two. I’m excited, and I’m finding a way to balance writing with work. I’m hoping that my writing will be successful enough to become my sole source of income, but I realize that few writers actually achieve that level. So, whether my book is a best seller or just one of many in a sea of fantasy books, I’m looking forward to where my creativity takes me.

And thus, I conclude the tale for today.  Through the tangled web of time, the weaving of words brought forth a colorful tapestry of creativity. See now this new aspect of me, with more tales to be told. Until the morrow, my dear companions.

I am logical. I am creative. I am Jessica.

Fascinating.

I’m back to share more about myself with my friends here. You’ve survived this far, and you’re still coming back for more, so welcome back!

Ok, I just had a completely random thought that I thought I’d share now. Why? Because it is illogical, of course.

Captain Kirk: What is that big ring? It’s made of some unknown material. Our scanners picked it up while we were in orbit.

Dr. Jackson: It’s called a Stargate, and we can use it to create wormholes to travel between distant worlds instantaneously.

Spock: Fascinating.

Tael’c: Indeed.

Spock and Teal’c go so well together, don’t they? *giggles*

So, with that little deviation out of the way, let’s get to the core of this journal entry. I am logical. I know, the way I started this entry was anything but logical, but it was fun, and hopefully good for a small laugh.

When I say that I’m logical, what am I talking about? I’m certainly no Vulcan, not even half Vulcan. It just means that I tend to think more logically at times. Logic and reasoning are essential, especially when working with computers. It’s also beneficial when trying to piece together things that are difficult to understand. One such example is how I used logic and reasoning to understand how my faith aligns with my identity, as I wrote about in my previous entry.

Are logic and intelligence tied together? I’m not sure how closely they are linked, but there appears to be some correlation between them. In my case, there seems to be some indication of that. No, this is not any attempt at boasting. I’m simply trying to share what I see in myself, not to imply that I’m better than anyone else or to think I’m superior in any way. It’s just more about me, drawn from past experiences, that have shaped me into the woman I am today.

I started reading before I was four years old. My brother, three years younger than me, used to sit with me while I read to him from my children’s books. Friends of my parents found it hard to believe, and when they visited, they would give me things to read, which I would then read. I doubt I read it well, but it was certainly well enough to impress them.

Starting in grade school, my grandfather would give me puzzle books. I loved the mazes and the logic puzzles. I would spend hours going through them, eager for more. Even the games like Mastermind, where you had to guess the pattern, were fun excursions into logic games and puzzles.

In third grade, my best friend taught me how to play chess. Despite my logical mind, my strategic mind wasn’t quite as skilled. I could play the game on a logical level, but when it came to strategy, thinking ahead, and outthinking my opponent, that was a little beyond my ability. There would be no four-dimensional chess matches against Kirk or Spock in my future.

In the video game arena, I was more inclined toward role-playing games, which had little to do with logic. However, I did enjoy strategy games like Civilization or SimCity, even though I was terrible at them.

The real test of my logic and reasoning came when I got my first computer, a Commodore 64, in the early 80s. While I did play games on it, my greater interest was in learning to program. I started learning BASIC programming at that time.

10 PRINT "Hello World!"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

I wanted to learn how to program so I could make computer games one day. Computer games were fun. I liked playing computer games. If I like playing computer games, logically, other kids would also like playing computer games. So, if I could make computer games, I could logically make other kids happy.

The simplistic logic of a child, but still logic. Aside from that, though, learning programming entirely on my own significantly advanced my logical thinking.

Of all the activities in my life, programming was one area that I can trace back to the logic puzzles I enjoyed in the 1970s. It has been a constant companion up until the present time.

From the days of the Commodore 64, Apple IIc, and original Apple Macintosh computers, where I learned BASIC programming, I soon transitioned to an IBM-compatible PC with MS-DOS 3.3, where I began learning how to write batch files. There was even the evolution to QBasic (QuickBASIC light) at that time. In community college, I took a class for Visual Basic 3, but didn’t follow through with it. It wasn’t due to a lack of wanting to learn, but other challenges that may be shared at another time, but are irrelevant for now.

In the 90s, the Internet was really starting to take off. I quickly hopped on the web and started learning HTML and JavaScript. My experience helped me secure a job with a friend, where I was responsible for maintaining his computer network and designing websites for him. He even sent me to extension classes to learn how to design web pages using ASP, which, in turn, also allowed me to learn Visual Basic 6.0. From there, additional extension classes allowed me to transition to ASP.NET version 1 using VB.NET.

The doors to programming continued to open for me. Most of those doors, though, I had to open myself. When the .NET Framework was at version 3.3, I made the switch from VB.NET to C#. I did attend an extension class for it, but most of what I was learning in that class I was already learning on my own. I would work on my own projects or tasks to help me perform my job more efficiently. While I didn’t become a game designer as I had thought when I was a child, I was writing and excelling in programming through my own determination.

At one point, I was told by a senior developer at the company I worked for that I would never become a developer. I didn’t have the necessary skills. Hearing that hurt deeply, because I knew I could do the job; I had already been writing programs with the same company.

Today, I’m a senior developer, technical lead, and solution architect with Microsoft certifications. My role is in high demand and continues to challenge me. I arrived here without a formal education, relying solely on determination, self-motivation, and a generous dose of logic. This is also one of many areas I mentioned in my previous entry, where I saw clear indications of God working in me and through me to bring me to where I am today.

So, let’s add yet another layer to my identity. I am logical. I am a programmer.

I am Jessica.

Whoa! Are my friends still here? Or was this the level of crazy that finally drove you all away?

Well, if you’re still here, friends, welcome back to the insane asylum. It’s now time to look deeper into the void.

Yes, it’s true. I’m a Christian, and have been my entire life. You might be wondering how that aligns with being an asexual transgender furry little. Aren’t all those an anathema to the Christian faith? Short answer. It’s complicated.

I was born into a Roman Catholic family. I was raised and loved by strong Christian parents who taught me right from wrong and what unconditional love truly looked like. My father and his brother married sisters, so our two sides were very close growing up. I had one younger brother and two cousins who were the same ages as my brother and me, and were like sisters to us. The four of us were raised in love and in faith. More than that, I saw it lived truthfully in my parents’ lived actions. There was never any hypocrisy.

In my mid-20s, I rededicated my life to Jesus and started attending a conservative Christian church. I can see the eyerolls now. Yes, THAT type of conservative Christian. Like so many other misunderstood things, that is another area that is frequently misunderstood. That misunderstanding isn’t helped by those from within the conservative Christian community who continually and habitually reinforce those misunderstandings, only to have their underlying hypocracies outed on local, national, or even international media.

When the global pandemic hit and America began to get more divided in politics than ever before, I left that church because they moved from being misunderstood to fully embracing the hypocrisy and straying from the Bible. I started attending a Christian Reformed congregation that still taught and followed the Truth. My heart is torn open seeing the fall of the evangelical community. People once named as friends have embraced the lies and are making Jesus hated among the people. For the first time, I can relate to the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept.” The ache I feel for my brothers and sisters in Christ cuts deeper than a sword piercing my heart.

Well, if you’re still here and haven’t written me off as a complete religious nutjob, thank you. Even if you do think I’m bonkers, but are still here, thank you. At least you haven’t written me off… yet.

So, I am Jessica. You’ve read my previous entries. You know who I am. How does that fly with me also saying I’m a Christian? Am I being a hypocrite? Some may say that, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I could write entire reflections and share the depths of my views here, and there may be some in the future that touch on this, but for this reflection, I’m keeping it light. This reflection is about what I believe and why, rather than trying to convince anyone of my beliefs.

Here it is in a nutshell. I believe the Bible is the literal Truth. I believe every single person is a sinner, and as sinners, we cannot enter into the presence of God. I believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. Is there more to it than that? Yes and no. For salvation, that’s all there is to it, but salvation is also demonstrated as we live through a changed life. Only God knows who has truly accepted Him or not, and that alone is for God to judge. We can only see what people do, and that is what we should look at.

So many Christians use that to the point of twisting it to “hate the sin and love the sinner,” which is just a way to justify their own sins. While the underlying statement has truth to it, it isn’t applied correctly, and the world sees the misapplication even more clearly today, which drowns the Truth in the darkness of the ocean depths.

From a Biblical perspective. Sex is intended to be between a man and a woman in the bonds of marriage. Any type of sex outside of that is seen as a sin. This includes premarital sex, extramarital sex, and yes, even homosexual sex. You can lower the torches and pitchforks now. I see your anger and understand it completely. Christians use that very argument to call out those in the very communities I identify with. They do so while failing to apply that same passion to address the infidelity in their own lives, thereby reinforcing the hypocrisy. I’m not here to do that, and it is one of the things that bothers me deeply as well.

You can’t stand on both sides of the fence!

Yeah, yeah. I hear you. You would tell me that, regardless of which community you are a part of. From my perspective, that comes from a fundamental misunderstanding on all sides. I don’t claim to be an expert on this matter, and I may even be wrong in some of my assumptions, but God will be the ultimate judge of my actions in the end.

Being transgender is never once mentioned in the Bible. It has existed since the dawn of time, but the only thing mentioned is that God created humans, both male and female. That is true, and when he did that, he created them to be perfect. After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they were no longer perfect. Since that time, every one of us has been imperfect beings. There have been people born blind, deaf, intersexed, and so on. Proof that after the fall, we are no longer perfect creations. No, I am not saying being transgender is a birth defect; I’m saying the birth defects are examples of why there are differences beyond just male and female today. Granted, this view may not be popular in any of the communities, but it makes sense. It also reaffirms that being transgender is NOT a sin. Even those who choose to transition are not committing a sin. Even if they are from a Christian perspective, they should have the same rights as anyone else to live their lives in peace equally without persecution.

Furry, Little, Asexuality. Those other aspects that would be looked down on from a Christian perspective are also not sins. A popular Christian children’s program utilizes anthropomorphic vegetables to retell biblical stories. Christians play with children at the level of the child, returning temporarily to their own childlike states, whether they think so or not. Older Christians may find comfort in wearing diapers. A lack of sexual desire? The Bible even speaks of eunuchs for the Lord. So, again, how are any of these things sins? Why do Christians rail so strongly against them?

If you’re still here and not ready to drop a nuclear bomb on my head, you might be asking why I still call myself a Christian with all those issues I just mentioned. I have a very simple answer for that. I don’t just believe it to be true; I know it to be true. For me, it is as true as the fact that I am Jessica. I am Furry. I am Little. I am Asexual. It goes beyond simple belief to the very core of my being. I know it because I have actually seen Jesus and God moving throughout my life. Where I am today is nothing short of a miracle of God. Some might call it a series of lucky breaks, but I don’t believe in luck. Maybe I’ll go into details on these things in future reflections, but suffice to say for now, this is as non-negotiable as every other aspect of myself.

Yes, it is true, part of the reason I still live under my deadname is related to my faith. I don’t want to be alienated from the community that shares my faith. I don’t want to be alienated from family. That isn’t the only thing holding me back, but it is one of the reasons. If I were to do away with my deadname completely and fully embrace Jessica, I don’t believe that would be a sin, but at the same time, I personally don’t want to risk it. When it comes down to it, I can’t share any of these aspects of myself with other Christians, but they are not hidden from God. I stand firm in knowing that, despite what others might say:

I am Jessica. I am Little. I am Furry. I am Asexual. I am Christian. I am Saved.

Oh, hello again. So nice of you to stop by.

I bet the title of I am Asexual came as a bit of a surprise. Considering my previous posts, you all probably thought I was some sort of sexual deviant. So many confuse being Little with being a child predator. WRONG!  Then there are the people who think being Furry means you want to have sex as an animal, or are into bestiality. WRONG! Even trans women will get accused of predatory behavior when they simply wish to use the bathroom.

In the ABDL community, aspects of it can be sexualized, but it is between two consenting adults. Absolutely no children are involved. Now, the furry community does have a deviant subculture, but again, it involves two consenting adults. Sure, some will fetishize diapers, and others will fetishize furries, and some would even fetishize diapered furries. Then again, there are people who fetishize just about anything, so singling out one community for deviant behavior is wrong. Every community has its share of deviants.

So, what is my deviation? It’s asexuality. What that means is that I don’t get erotically aroused by men, women, or anything for that matter. I can look at men and women and correctly identify what makes them attractive or beautiful. I might even get interested in someone, male or female, based on those qualities. But my interest isn’t sexual in nature. Any attraction I might feel isn’t accompanied by any sexual desire. My body, however, does respond appropriately to certain stimuli, but that is just a natural part of human nature and biology. It doesn’t change the underlying asexuality.

Now, on the romantic side, I can fall deeply and quickly. I need and desire that type of connection. That romantic side forms deep and bonding friendships without any sexual elements. It could be of any gender, as it isn’t always manifested as a romantic relationship in the typical sense. The ending of such a friendship, which is on a romantic level, always brings with it the same pain as if a so-called “traditional” relationship were ended. Some might say that means I’m really bisexual or perhaps even pansexual. Not at all. There’s no sexuality here, and from the eyes of others, there’s no real romantic relationship either. It is just a signal of how quickly and deeply I bond with others. When I say I love my friends, that is no exaggeration, nor a word chosen flippantly. I truly do love, and love deeply.

Unlike my other entries, I’m not going down the path of how I learned this, or what other things that means. Some might argue that a medical issue is at work. All I can say is this isn’t medical. It has been a lifelong challenge, much like the previously described aspects of my identity. It is something I’ve learned to live with, mostly because I don’t know any different. It has caused some issues in relationships as well, as, like everything else about my identity, it is completely misunderstood.

So here it is, my shortest reflection to date. I am a woman. I am a Little. I am a Furry. I am asexual. All labels aside, I am Jessica.

Greetings and salutations once more, friends!

So, three posts in and I’m addressing you all as friends, even though we may never meet. Well, a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. So, instead of greeting you as strangers, I welcome you as friends.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know. Not all strangers are safe. Stranger danger and all that. Don’t worry, I still see the difference, and protect myself accordingly from the negative types. I still like to believe there are a lot more friendly strangers than stranger danger. I’m hopeful, not naive.

Over the past couple of days, you’ve met me, then you met my little self, and now you get to meet my furry self. I know what you might be thinking. How much stranger can this chick be? Well, pull up a chair and join me at the Mad Hatter’s tea party and see for yourself.

Like most kids, I grew up loving cartoons. Many cartoons used anthropomorphic animals. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, anyone? So, nothing really shocking there. Even into adulthood, I continued enjoying animation. Even some of the video games I played featured playable anthropomorphic characters. Still, they were often portrayed as new races to distance themselves from that stigma. Just take a look at the Ronso from Final Fantasy X (FFX). Even more recently, shows like RWBY, which feature characters with animalistic traits, Zootopia, where the characters are clearly anthropomorphic animals, and My Little Pony, where the characters are talking ponies.

When I played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, my favorite character was a female weretiger. I identified with that character deeply, so when I gave up AD&D completely in 1996 and threw everything away, throwing out her character was like ripping a part of me away. I threw away other characters as well, but it was only this one that I had a special bond with. Looking back now, I see she served two purposes for me that I wasn’t aware of at the time. First was my female identity, which was, at that time, unknown and repressed. Second, it was my furry identity that I never even knew existed.

Then came Second Life. This is where I first began to embrace the woman inside. After almost a year and a few bad experiences, I wanted to start over. I could have created a new avatar, but I had already connected and found my identity. I couldn’t afford to leave her behind, so instead of starting over, I decided to change my appearance. I remembered my weretiger character that was so special to me, and wondered if I could bring her into Second Life. So, that’s what I did. I found an anthropomorphic tiger avatar and started looking for places that identified as furry hangouts in Second Life.

I’d never heard of furry or the furry community before this time, so this was all new to me. I met new friends who shared their own experiences in the furry community. My avatar’s appearance changed over time as I searched for what the furry community referred to as a fursona. The fursona, in simple terms, is the animal representation of my persona. I started with the tiger, switched to the fox, then to the civet, ocelot, and finally landed on the snow leopard. To add another layer of whimsy, I even added cybernetics to my fursona. Today, when I refer to my fursona, I’m referring to a shapeshifting, cybernetic snow leopardess. While that doesn’t exist in the real world, OBVIOUSLY, my Second Life identity reflects it. It’s one of the reasons I said she’s just an exaggeration of who I am.

My first, and only, attempt to bring my fursona into the real world was attending a furry convention in 2012. When I registered, I used the name of my fursona, which is my identity in Second Life, to register and attend. My appearance didn’t change, so I was still there under the appearance of my deadname. I only used the online name. I met a few others from Second Life at the event as well. One was a friend from that world who knew my offline identity, and he introduced me to others. I was welcomed and accepted, both as a woman and as a furry, even though I didn’t look like either.

So, now you see how I am Furry, as the title suggests. It isn’t really all that strange, is it? Like I said yesterday, I’m mostly harmless. I am a woman. I am a Little. I am a Furry. These are labels that just show me through a fogged window, though. As you read this, you will get to know me better and see more about who I truly am.

I am Jessica.

Hiya friends! Jessica here again!

I thought it would be interesting to share a little bit more about myself. I took a big step yesterday by introducing myself to the world. I am Jessica, and I am a woman. That isn’t all that I am, though. I am Jessica, and I am a Little girl.

Uh oh. I can hear the alarms going off. My dear readers may wonder what I mean, especially since I have already indicated that I’m in my early fifties. Don’t worry, as immortalized in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I’m mostly harmless.

So, what do I mean when I say that I am a Little girl? I truly believe that every single one of us has a child within us to some extent. Like the scene in The Santa Clause 2, when Scott Calvin, a.k.a. Santa Claus, gave gifts to the teachers, unlocking their inner child and allowing them to play. That is what it is for me: unlocking the little girl inside, getting away from the pressures of adult life, and playing as a little girl.

See what I mean? I’m mostly harmless. Yet, I’m writing a journal reflection about it, so there has to be more to it than that, right? Of course there is. So, grab your towel and stick out your thumb to hear about my journey to discover Little Jessica.

There are years of memories to rummage through, but key details seen in the rear-view mirror have shown me that Little Jessica has always been part of me, even though I didn’t realize it until years later. The first such memory is when I was a child, not much older than Little Jessica. I had a cousin who was the same age as I was, and we were close. She was like a sister to me. I can clearly remember being at her house and playing with her Barbies. We would dress them up and play together. It was sweet and innocent, and it was a memory that remained etched in the recesses of my memories.

Ok, so two children were playing with Barbies. Big deal. Many children do that and remember it years later. This isn’t some earth-shattering news. True, but for me, it was important. It was important then, and it is still important now. Yet there’s still more in my past. Small things that, like playing with Barbies, have no real meaning on their own, so I’ll just move past list-dumping onto something a little more substantial, some might even say bordering on crazy.

As far back as my teens, I would talk to myself. I know, a lot of people do that. In my case, though, I would actually talk back. I would respond in what was usually a childish voice. Full conversations and even arguments. It was always done when I was alone. If anyone were to witness it, they might wonder if I were crazy. There were times I even wondered that as well, as the second voice would often become completely hyper and chaotic. This continued well into adulthood and wasn’t always completely private. As an adult, there were times when it was reduced to whispers to avoid drawing attention to myself, yet the hyper intensity of the other voice remained.

Talking to myself was, once again, mostly harmless. There was, however, another aspect that was anything but harmless. No, it didn’t hurt me or others, but it certainly didn’t reflect well upon me.

I have lived a very stressful life, which is beyond the scope of this entry. Needless to say, I’ve managed to swim upstream and remain relatively in control, no matter how exhausting it became. I had to hold tightly onto control in order to survive the currents and avoid being swept over the waterfall downstream. So, when that second voice asserted itself and threw a temper tantrum when things didn’t go exactly as planned, I didn’t understand it. I was on the outside, watching myself whining like a petulant child. I was embarrassed and powerless to stop it. When I was later in control again and asked why I had behaved the way I had, my humiliation drove me to pretend I had no idea what they were talking about. I’m not proud of lying, but I didn’t have an answer, and I was too scared to admit it.

If you say I’m crazy, I will respond with this: We’re all mad here.

Now the clock ticks closer to the present day. In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, I suffered a stroke, which landed me in the hospital. Obviously, I survived and even recovered from it. Even with the recovery, I still have some minor issues to deal with now. One of those issues was that I would sometimes urinate in my pants after going to the bathroom, having thought I had finished. To protect myself from that, I started wearing adult pull-up diapers. It was nerve-wracking going into the local retail pharmacy to buy my first pack of diapers. Wearing them, though, filled me with a sense of comfort that I couldn’t really explain.

Around the same time in Second Life, I met a friend who discussed wearing diapers. It was the first time I was made aware of the Adult Baby Diaper Lover (ABDL) community. I learned more from her, and I researched it online myself. At home, I made the decision to wear the pull-ups, whether I needed to or not, because I liked the comfort they offered. In Second Life, I sometimes wore full pink diapers to bring that comfort into the virtual world as well. I met the description of a Diaper Lover, but I certainly didn’t relate to the Adult Baby.

As time progressed, I transitioned to pink in Second Life. Pink hair. Pink eyes. Pink outfits. Before that time, my hair was black with red highlights, and my clothes were a variety of colors, but I often favored black and red. Switching to pink was a drastic step for me, but I didn’t really think much of it at the time. It was another woman in Second Life who noticed something different about me, something I didn’t know about myself. Through her, I learned that I was a baby girl. It was a general term that could indicate any type of younger girl, from a teen down to a baby, but I knew I wasn’t an adult baby, and I didn’t really think too much of it, other than doing a little more playful things like a girl would do.

Then, in 2023, something frightening happened. That little girl in me suddenly and unexpectedly emerged. It was like the temper tantrums I experienced previously, but magnified. I wasn’t acting like a petulant child this time. I was literally acting like a little girl, talking like a little girl, playing like a little girl. For all intents and purposes, for that time, my mind was that of a little girl. And while all this happened, I was watching from the sidelines, unable to regain control.

After extensive exploration and discussion, I discovered that I was a Little in the ABDL community, and it appeared that my Little was probably around four years old. This was initially frightening to me. How could I be an adult and have the mind of a four-year-old girl sometimes? It put every one of my past experiences in perspective. The Barbies. The second voice, which was my Little. The temper tantrums that burst out, the Little making herself heard. And when she finally came out, she didn’t want to go back, having been suppressed for so long. It all made sense, and once it made sense, it was no longer scary.

Today, I still wear pull-ups daily. The medical condition I needed it for had stopped a long time ago, but I still wear them for comfort. Last week, I even started wearing full diapers on Saturdays. Oh, and guess what? Today is Saturday, so I wore them for the second time today. I spend time watching shows like My Little Pony. I even found my stuffed animals and am cuddling with them again. I have a lot of stuffies! They’re so FLUFFY!

Oh, and I know what you’re thinking. You want to know if I use the diapers for the intended purpose. My answer is: To a point. I will not defecate in them if I can help it. Urination, though, when I’m wearing the full diapers, yes. For the pull-ups, I might, but not often. If I used them all the time, it would cause me to become dependent upon them, and the bills related to them would skyrocket. So, yes, they are used in moderation.

So, there you have it. I am Jessica, and I am a Little. Maybe we’ll watch My Little Pony or play with Barbies together sometime. It would be fun.

Hello World!

I’ve decided to start a new journal. In the past, I tried journaling, but I never stayed with it. This time, I want to keep things simple. The point is not perfection, but to write.

With that in mind, what exactly am I writing here? A journal? A diary? The labels don’t matter as much as the practice itself, but names still matter to me. After sitting with it, I realized what I need is a reflective journal. It may borrow from a diary now and then, but the focus won’t be on listing events. Instead, it will be about how I feel, what I notice, and what those experiences mean to me.

Therefore, my reflective journal has been named Jessica’s Musings. As the post title states proudly, I am Jessica. Why did I title this entry I am Jessica when the journal already bears my name? Because that is the heart of this writing. I am reflecting on who I am deep inside, a woman who has often been unseen and unheard, yet who needs space to breathe.

As a youth, I felt different. I didn’t have a name for it at the time, but I did find myself wondering what it would be like to be a girl. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I started learning more about being transgender. At the time, though, I made the painful decision not to transition. The risks, which might be discussed another time, were just too great for me. Then came marriage, and my truth was buried further. It was in my thirties when I discovered Second Life. There, I began to truly express myself. My truth was no longer buried; there was finally an outlet.

Soon, my entire online identity was defined by my Second Life persona, my truth. Now, in my early fifties, I’m realizing that my online identity was exaggerated, a kind of fantasy in many ways. There is nothing wrong with that, but the person who is truly me is Jessica. A woman who could live and function in the real world, even though life circumstances prevent that at the moment.

It’s only been a week since I realized that my true name is Jessica. It’s Jessica that I’ve been suppressing all these years. It’s time to give her a voice. To let her speak. Right or wrong, I still have to live life under my dead name. Second Life remains a lifeline for me, and her name is still valid; my entire online identity will still reflect that, although some may start using Jessica.

So, once more. Hello World! I am Jessica. It is an honor and a pleasure to finally meet you. Even if it is only through these musings, it feels real, and I can already feel the freedom in it. At times, I may reference events associated with my dead name or my Second Life name, but I will never give their names a voice. If they appear here, it will only be as shadows of a story already past. I am Jessica, and the ghosts will not live here.