True, I've had more experiences than many of them. Now a transgender woman and one who grew up in the same hometown as Caitlin Jenner (Newtown, Connecticut), a former Olympic star athlete who later moved to California and became wealthy-unlike myself, I look at back at my life as the fucking mistake I was born. (More about this in The Diary of Cheryl Lynne Oropal-also on Blogspot.) Like many people, I had a large collection of photographs which were my memories; they were the memories of all the many places I had been while still living as a member of the other gender. Not only had I traveled the entire length Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. I did. This on a trip where I started at White Springs, Florida and drove all the way up through Jimmy Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia and into the mountains north of Atlanta. After four days of not taking a shower, I still remember swimming in the rapid Nantahala River and nearly getting swept away by the current. Believe me, I had more than enough photos of all these experiences.
At the time I was living with my parents in another place I hated besides Las Cruces, New Mexico; Orlando, Florida. A place where I got into plenty of trouble as my former self-under my former life's name. A name which I now refer to as "Frog" because that is when I felt like. I felt like a fucking toad! A horny fucking toad with course skin that was so ugly I could never find a mate. Back then, the only thing to ever come into my life was a woman I affectionately refer to as the "Eva Syndrome". A Half Italian/Irish-American fucking bitch whom I met at, of all places, a goddamn twelve-step meeting I went to called Emotions Anonymous. This back in 1989; she was living at the Ridgewood House-a halfway house for the chemically addicted and mentally ill on Ridgewood Street in Orlando, Florida located close to the east side of Eola Park in Downtown Orlando.
How I got involved with this fuck-up? The hell if I fucking know! Having finally achieved that all too important milestone for many born biologically "male" when I was almost 22 years old, the milestone of "Losing my virginity" (this in September 1984 when, for one semester only, I attended Norwalk State Technical College in Norwalk, Connecticut), this with an Irish woman named Kathy who was separated from her husband at the time and 24, once again, I was looking for that connection. That one person who was going to make me happy in this long otherwise miserable existence called life! Believe me, it sucked having that testosterone driven drive that made me feel as if I was missing out on something by not having a girlfriend; at the same time, I did not have the mentality to be what my late father, Albert Oropal, called "Steady Eddie". This being exactly what my fucking father told me after the "Eva Syndrome", as I now call her, blew out of my life as fast as she blew into it. True, this bitch Eva and I had one or two things in common. That being that she like to hike; I remember going hiking with her in one of few hiking areas to be found surrounding Orlando. Wekiwa Springs State Park in Apopka/Longwood, Florida.
I'll never forget what I said to this bitch at the picnic table by the lake: "I love your mustache!" LOL you could just imagine the reaction! Thinking back it was fucking funny-funny to the max! "Take me home! Take me home! You don't know how to treat a lady! Take me home right now!" To which I placed my backpack on my back and began walking down that hiking trail into the woods as fast as I could. Yelling, toward the pond "I didn't come here to put up with your fucking bullshit, Eva! You are a pain in the goddamn motherfucking ass! I can't deal with your bullshit any more-I came here to fucking hike! Not to put up with your cunty treat me like a lady bullshit!" Need I say who won this time around? Me, myself, and I. The three most important people in my life both now, and back then, and probably forever. Sure enough, the "Eva Syndrome" caught up with me and we went on a hike that day.
However, that would be not the first issue I had with this goddamn half Italian/half Irish-American Princess! Everything associated with Eva was impossible besides the kissing and holding hands part. True, compared to what she wanted me to be-a fucking "gentleman" based on my physical persona alone and little more than that, I was never going to be what the fuck she wanted me to be! I don't remember if it was before that, or maybe a week after? We only dated for three or four weeks at the most until I showed up at Ridgewood House and she broke the bad/good news to me. Telling me how wonderful Peter was. This fucking guy she met who was taking pilot lessons and had "Goals in life" unlike myself. This after an argument on the phone we had.
I brought this miserable piece of shit, Eva, home to visit my parents house where I was living at the time. This at 10766 Wilderness Court in Orlando, Florida-close to Disney World and about a half a mile east of Sea World of Florida; in a development called Williamsburg. My father liked her and thought she was a real charmer. The total Italian Princess who discussed how she once was a hairdresser and wanted to get back into it, but was in a halfway house when we met at the Emotions Anonymous meeting. If anyone has ever seen the Spike Lee Joint: Jungle Fever, particularly the part with the Italian girls in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York-then you already have an idea of what Eva was like. Growing up in Pennsylvania with her sisters on a farm, ironically, she lived in Bensonhurst Brooklyn before coming to Florida with her mother, who had died recently (at the time). It was her mother's death that drove her over the edge. She tried to kill herself; something which I did plenty of times but was never successful at. Like many women, she took an overdose of sleeping pills prescribed to her by a psychiatrist. However, mom thought she was a floozy! Mom was probably right, too! Mom asked where the hell I even met her; when I told her we met at an Emotions Anonymous group, need I say my mother was not surprised?
Eva was a fucking idiot! However, perhaps she did have some points. The time she insisted we go to Florida Mall on South Orange Blossom Trail in South Orlando. This despite the fact that I hated fucking malls at the time and still pretty much do (despite having transitioned and become a transgender woman-I'm not a Caitlin Jenner type and really could give a shit less about Los Angeles fashion!). Anyway, not only did she nag me because I refuse to drop her off at the fucking curb like, in her own words, "Gentlemen are supposed to do to their ladies". (She pointed out all the Puerto Rican men in their fancy, gangsta looking cars all souped up, reminding me that they were "Gentlemen", unlike myself at the time.) After we got into the mall and I walked into the record shop, buying myself a Rolling Stones T-shirt I wanted, the "Eva Syndrome" did her best to remind me of how "Selfish" I was! Again comparing me to what I was supposed to be-a fucking "Gentleman". Something which, in all honesty, I must admit I never felt I was inside. Back then, one of the reasons I went to that particular Emotions Anonymous meeting was this. They had a unisex room for a bathroom off the kitchen where the meeting was held (as well as all the AA and NA meetings also held there-meetings I also attended at the time, thinking I was an alcoholic and realizing I was a pothead who did not want to stop smoking pot!).
Anyway, my short-lived experience with the "Eva Syndrome" ended rather abruptly. At which time I went over my friends house, Doug Mattson (who, at the time, lived with a guy we called "Cackalacky" because he was from Wilson, North Carolina), bitchin and moaning to Doug about how I hated women. How all women were nothing but a bunch of "Bitches, whores, and cunts". To which Doug told me, after reminding me that he was pretty good at knowing who people really were inside themselves-at knowing their gentleman personalities despite what the outside presented, "You always call women bitches, whores, and cunts. However, I don't know why you say this? If anything, you should have a lot in common with them! You sure as hell don't act like most men do! You're not gonna believe this but I will tell you anyway! You are nothing more than a woman trapped inside the wrong body! Believe me, I know people better than they know themselves, many times." Doug continued, "Men talk about cars, pretty women in beer commercials, sports--like my NASCAR, and about how they hate their wives even though they're still in love with them! The only time they bitch and moan to other men is when they had a bad day at work and are sitting at the bar trying to forget about it! That's it! Women need to talk about their problems. Something which they do with other women because the men don't want to listen to their bullshit. Men talk about what I just said they do, sports, women in those beer commercials like the ones for my Coors Silver Bullets, and maybe badmouth the boss while sitting at the bar knocking back a few beers. That's it! Men don't want to seem like they are weak and talking about their problems makes them look that way! I hope this helps you in your future life."
Doug really had a point. In fact he was the first one I admitted to about this "fetish" I thought I had; one that drove me to using unisex restrooms so I could sit down to pee like a woman. While he didn't call it transgender, he otherwise hit the nail on the head. However, another 13 years would go by before I would realize that yes, Doug was right.
Anyway, back to the part about photographs versus memories. Back in 2009 came the inevitable truth. That I would finally have to move out on my own and try to support myself on that miserly Social Security Disability plus Supplemental Security Income monthly allowance I get from the United States government for being unable to hold a job for very long. Something which, going back to the days of both the Eva Syndrome and Doug, I began getting that very same year-1989. This after being arrested and convicted on two felony charges (under the former name): Hit-and-run with injuries; and yes, Resisting arrest with violence. The latter for throwing a temper tantrum and trying to commit suicide by cop after taking off and driving through the streets of Daytona Beach, Florida-wasted, on 38 Phenobarbitals and a sixpack of Mickey's Malt Liquor. The phenobarbital's which I bought at an AA meeting from one of the Golden slippers I knew who slipped in and out of the program all the time, and like me at the time, basically went to meetings to "Dump his shit", and yes, to "Work his 13th step". The 13th step meaning to find somebody to fall in love with and rescue you from the pits of loneliness! Again, if anyone has ever seen the movie titled Clean and Sober, they would know what I'm talking about here!
My mother's Southbury, Connecticut condominium being sold, finally, on July 30, 2009, I placed all my stuff in storage. This at a storage facility my mother had been paying for in Monroe, Connecticut-about 15 miles away from where I lived at the time in Southbury. I had dreams. I had hopes of making it somewhere out west; it actually be able to find a place I could afford to live on less than $700 a month! Something which, little had I realized when I set out-using the $4000 my brother set aside for me in the trust fund he set up after selling my 2000 Honda Civic, would enable me to follow the back roads from Southbury, Connecticut; to Surf Beach, California. Passing through, along the way, the towns of many famous people I always wanted to see. That and the town of one famous groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil! Besides Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, I got to see the hometowns of John "Cougar" Mellencamp (Seymour, Indiana); country music star Gretchen Wilson (Pocahontas, Illinois); Melissa Etheridge-a lesbian rocker who's been living in California for years (Leavenworth, Kansas). That and the former hometown associated with the Columbine High School Massacre of April 20, 1999; Littleton, Colorado. Also, along the way, I got to see Las Vegas and travel, along many rough dirt highways, through three different Native American reservations. The Navajo, the Hopi, and what are which I forgot-all three which were in Arizona. Also, I camped out on the east side of Grand Canyon National Park; this at Desert View Campground for 12 days. That and camp out for three days in California's Sequoia National Forest; hiking to the Needles Fire Tower. Needless to say, by the time I got to California the money had ran out. Desperately, I called my stupid sister. Asking her for money so I could continue on my journey toward the California coast, then up California Route One toward Oregon and/or "Rural, affordable Northern California". I was undecided where I wanted to settle, yet knew I wanted to be in a small town away from cities filled with people I fucking hated!
Nevertheless, those photographs along the way having been taken with both digital camera and cell phone camera-those I still have saved (but have yet to download into my computer and/or save on to a USB drive). I am still working on two different books associated with the 19 different notebook size journals I had kept. The first two associated with that trip west; the rest of them associated with the next 2 1/2 years I would spend homeless and traveling around the United States for a place to rent-someplace/somewhere. Nobody wanted to rent to me. Part of the reason being that I was now a transgender and did not fit their expectations of what I should be in life; but mostly because of my limited monthly income and lack of rental history! I could not even get a section 8 place anywhere in this fucking country! I ended up going from shelter to shelter and living in my car. All the way to California and Oregon; back to Connecticut only to be disappointed when I was told, by the woman at the Waterbury Department of Social Services, that even though I didn't want to live in Waterbury or "In any city in the ghetto", I would have to. And so, it was off to Southern Illinois down around Carbondale area, then off to St. Louis, all the way through Kansas, through Denver, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and back to Chico, California. Only to return to Connecticut and then go to rural Western New York State to the towns of Wellsville and Bath before once again, heading out west to Denver, Colorado. For a month, I finally found a place in Kiowa, Colorado. However, it wouldn't be long before that didn't work out. My roommate and I'm not getting along after the first week! Sadly, after applying for another place-a room for rent in a gay couples condominium in Littleton, Colorado and not getting it, due to something that showed up on a background check they paid for, I returned to the east. Back to that same God damn shelter system in Danbury, Connecticut. A place for my life would become a living hell; not only did I get harassed every fucking night by the men stated that shelter, and one of the women staying there as well. I also was arrested for being the victim after that woman assaulted me. Reason being this. I took the fucking tour of her, and her buddies, after they all began photographing me with their smart phone and call me "Horse face". From there, it was eight months the horrible shelter in Brooklyn, New York. After which time, finally sick of waiting for this fucking housing package my asshole case worker at that shelter kept promising me, I left for New Mexico. Ending up here in Las Cruces after traveling around southern New Mexico; this after giving up on Albuquerque. Remember, I did not want to be in a big city anymore; even though, I must admit, living in New York City did have its advantages. Those being culture, an excellent mass transit system, an excellent library system-including the Mid-Manhattan Library where they had a featured author every night Monday through Thursday, and yes, a substantial LGBT community with all the resources I needed and an LGBT Center at 208 W. 13th St. in Manhattan.
Another benefit? I got to see my mother in the last days of her life. This despite the fact that, due to my car battery failing, I missed going to her eulogy at Queen Mary of the Universe Roman Catholic Church in Roosevelt, New York; I made it in time for the dinner afterwards, however. This after my uncle Sal, 82 years old at the time, picked me up after I called my stupid sister, Linda. A sister who did nothing but blame me for all of my mother's problems. Both before she died, and still to this day! You can imagine the cold feeling I got from her while riding in my uncle's car back to fucking Roosevelt and that church.
On the good side, coming out here to this pathetic dustbowl called Las Cruces was beneficial in the sense that I managed to almost finish getting my Associates Degree. Not that I have any clue of what I will do with that; I don't see myself as job material. My asshole Republican sister, Linda, telling me that I should get a job at Burger King or some other bullshit place. That I should go off of disability and/or supplement my check by working part-time so as to pay taxes and contribute to society; contribute to a society with half a million "pigs" to write me a speeding ticket should I ever be in a hurry to get to work on time. That or to arrest me should I ever feel the need to drink and drive after getting drunk after a hard day at some job that was too demanding for me; I've been through this already, Linda. You don't even know who the fuck I am! You never fucking did, you bitch.
And so, essentially feeling that I've been wasting my time at this fucking New Mexico State University branch called Doña Ana Community College, wasting my time getting the useless Associates of Arts general degree (but getting free housing, thanks to the student loans I have no idea of how I'm gonna pay back some day!), Last summer, I set off for the East Coast again. Planning on going to one of the two schools and New York State had accepted me into their creative writing degree programs. The State University of New York at Potsdam; and Tompkins Cortland Community College. At Potsdam, I would've been in the Creative Writing BA program. At Tompkins Cortland? The AA program the same, which would've been transferable to Potsdam, or any other State University of New York school.
However, despite traveling all the way back east, disappointment would once again set in. There was no way I was going to be able to afford to go to either school; the total cost of everything being $31,500 for Potsdam; about $26,000 to go to Tompkins Cortland Community College-including living expenses and student fees. And so, crying, I ended up headed toward Connecticut once again. This time to stay with my friend Warren for a week at the most as I decided what I would do next. My sister paying for that storage unit, this to the tune of $54 a month, earlier that year she informed me that, were I to come back east, I would have to throw away everything in that unit.
That's where the sadness began. Bad enough I came back to this fucking piece of shit Las Cruces, New Mexico place-a place that's filled with far too many conservative Mexican-American Catholic sons of bitches and fucking rednecks for me to even like. Not to mention the horrible heat in summer, and yes, the constant dust storms which have sickened my lungs to the point that I wheeze constantly and have asthma, severe asthma or something similar clogging my right lung! Last night, as I walked back shortly before a thunderstorm blew in, the dust was hell on my lungs. Not to mention the feeling of sand blasting against my legs at speeds of over 50 miles per hour!
Working on my book, Chasing Rainbows: A Queer Woman's Adventure through Rural, Back Roads America-one based upon that first trip headed west, the thought of having to throw away all those photographs I had saved into boxes has been devastating me lately. After all, those were my memories; but no, I listened to my goddamn motherfucking sister-the "Get a job, JOB, JOB…." Sister who feels that she go to work at fucking Burger Dogshit or McGarbage or some fucking shithole that I never was capable of working at years ago (because I was never fast, nor obedient enough to put up with the pressures of some asshole breathing down my fucking back all fucking day!). Throwing out those photographs as well as everything else, almost. Believe me, that was all I had in this long worthless death sentence called life! To think I also listened to my friend Warren who told me: "Well if they were of people, I can understand. But they were just scenery?" Most motherfuckers do not understand-for me in my fucking life, both before transition and still to this goddamn motherfucking day, people never held any significance in my life and never will. I like my two friends back in Connecticut, Warren, and yes, James-the latter of whom is also a writer. However, speaking for myself, those photographs were memories of a far better time in my life. Despite the fact that they were of a time before I had come out of the closet as a transgender woman. For Caitlin Jenner, life may be wonderful. She's got more money than fucking God and the whole goddamn motherfucking Vatican, almost! Just a saying, I know. The point I'm making is this. Those photos were memories. What the fuck do I have now? I have nothing. I never will have anything in life. My body is starting to get old and sick; my brain still hasn't caught up with the maturity level of many 24-year-olds here at New Mexico State University. I had hoped to save those for something, either for a photographic book discussing all the places I had been, or maybe for that elusive relationship I will probably never see before my death! Life sucks. It truly does. I feel like life is meaningless; "Millions, billions, and mega trillions of fucking years of fucking nothing! Nothing but living in shitholes I fucking hate around people I fucking will grow to hate. I look around me and I say to myself: "I want no part of these people! I cannot relate to these fucking simpleton morons who live their lives to work at some fast food shithole, or retail shithole like the wal fucking mart. I am not Gloria. A woman who I am friends with in the loose sense of the word "friends", but whose lifestyle I will never understand. A life that revolves around growing up in Las Cruces all your fucking life and working hard all your life at some shit job. Nothing against that, really. For some people, for many people in fact, that is what brings happiness; family and friends whom one has known for years. However, speaking for myself, that is something that never came true for me and probably never will.
And so, constantly thinking about getting rid of all those photographs-photographs of the many places up and down the states along the East Coast I had either lived, or simply visited-including Ontario, Canada that before one needed a passport to leave the United States and get back in and/or cross into Canada (going into Mexico they don't give a shit, really; coming back is another thing entirely!), I get depressed. More often than not, I think of how wonderful it would be to just put it got into the side of my fucking head and blow my fucking brains to pieces! How much easier things would be for me what I no longer here to have to suffer for what seems to be eternity! Call it simplifying my life, because that's how I look at it. Life is worthless; that is, unless you're Caitlin Jenner with all her fucking money and fame! Plenty of money to transition, to get the sex change operation and all the facial surgery to boot. Plenty of money to live in a big house in Beverly Hills, California. For her, the memories would be those six CHIPS episodes in which she, as the former Olympic star she once was, substituted for Eric Estrada. The Mexican American man who played Poncho-that California Highway Patrol officer in the former police series known as Chips. Caitlin Jenner has it all. I don't have a goddamn motherfucking thing. All I have a disgusting, left over and damaged part down there making my life a living fucking at best. All I have is a 21-year-old, emotionally speaking brain; one that definitely cannot relate to some "Old bitch" lesbian who long since became an adult in the sense of Erickson's "Generativity versus Stagnation" and "Intimacy versus Isolation" psychological theories. Psychological theories associated with what is expected for one's particular age group at different stages throughout their lives.
No, I have nothing left is the way I often feel. Nothing at all. Where Ryan that African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina-I would have gladly submitted to getting my brains blown the fuck out by that racist motherfucker! Many days, I keep hoping that the time will come that I will finally get killed in an automobile accident. Something which, the way I feel, should have happened a long time ago. Back when the "Eva Syndrome" passed through my fucking life; much the same as every other goddamn bitch I fucking knew! This I say both then, and still to this day. Having blown almost hundred dollars for a six-month membership on Compatible Partners.com, I can see that I'm still the loser I always was! Looking at these prissy packaged corporate bitches, often, I feel as if I have nothing in common with any of them. They travel, they wine and dine, they go on cruises. All the while killing themselves working Monday through Friday, either at some job they hate, or running their own businesses. They have family and friends; I cannot say that I have shit.
And so, those photographs that I unfortunately through in the dumpster outside that storage unit last August-constantly, they come back to haunt me. I feel so bad, I really do. Unfortunately, I couldn't carry them with me. I had already had a car filled with stuff that was packed. However, I wish that I had taken them to my late brother's partner's house, Karen in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Who knows? Maybe I could've used them to make a collage for a photographic book tracing all the places I have been. After all, all I have in life is memories of those places. I don't have shit else worth living for; well, besides the hopes of seeing Bernie Sanders as president, which, more likely than not, may never happen. I hate fucking Republicans! I don't even see my sister is anything but a distant blood relative-blood and that's it. I can't talk to her about anything. I cannot understand, emotionally, where the fuck she is coming from in life. So, she worked 43 years; 43 years at NYNEX, Telcordia, and later was a high school mathematics teacher for the city of New York. One thing I will never understand here: why the fuck she remains a Republican? Apparently, unlike me-for whom that never was going to be a part of my life, she still believes in the bullshit mantra of "Work hard and play by the rules!" A mantra that no longer holds true in a country where the political system, mostly on the Republican side but also on the Democratic side-to some extent, has long been bought out by big corporations and Big Bad Bank, NA of Wall Street and Charlotte, North Carolina! That and by the Koch brothers. Two crusty old Caucasian men in their 70s who have more money than 50% of all Americans; they own Koch Industries. A huge petroleum company that owns over 200 subsidiaries here in the United States and throughout the world.
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