And we were trying different things
And we were smoking funny things
For many of us who are trans, we have fought it all our lives and we tried many ways to get it out of our systems. For many it was alcohol or drugs. During my undergraduate years (1969 - 1974, I tried, uppers, downer, hallucinogenic. It was also the era of the hippies, where drugs were a way of life on the college campuses around the country. I’m not proud of it, but I won’t hide that part of my life.
I do not know if I did drugs because of being transgender, but I think it was one of the factors that contributed to my using them. It was also part of the culture and when I hear Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” it brings back memories of my late teenage and early twenty years. Sitting around the “rock cut” or at keg parties watching the sun rise after staying up all night tripping… “and trying different things and smoking funny things.”
My brother use to be blamed all the time for being the “wild one” while I was the quite one. While in reality I was down in a friend’s basement with the blacklight posters and a hazy of smoke that wasn’t from cigarettes, listening to Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Jimmy Hendricks and Jefferson Airplane.
Then we grew up. We became engineers, mechanics, machinists and draftsmen. Some went on to become parents and yelled at their kids for using drugs. I sometimes joke that I want a tee-shirt that says, “I survived the sixties”
But at the same time I was struggling with my gender identity. It the privacy of home, I hid with the shame of being what at the time all the books and news media said was a perversion which laid a guilt trip on me that in some ways still last today. Drugs were a way of avoiding the reality of being different. Once I got out of college I stopped all the hard stuff and just smoked marijuana at night after work and on weekends. I never was much of a drinker, and in college we were divided into two groups the druggies and the alkies. One time the alkies threw a vending machine over the balcony and us druggies watched it fall and went … Wow, far out! Back in ’99 when I developed a heart condition my doctor said to lay off the pot and when I went on hormones in ’04, my endo said to lay of alcohol. He said that I have a choice alcohol or hormones, that my liver could only stand one or the other but not both. When I stopped pot cold turkey, there were no side effects. But what I missed most was sitting out on the deck at night just before I went to bed and smoking one last bowl listening to the Dark Side of the Moon. So now I sometimes sit out on the deck with my mp3 player and have a glass of milk… but somehow it not quit the same.
And we were smoking funny things
For many of us who are trans, we have fought it all our lives and we tried many ways to get it out of our systems. For many it was alcohol or drugs. During my undergraduate years (1969 - 1974, I tried, uppers, downer, hallucinogenic. It was also the era of the hippies, where drugs were a way of life on the college campuses around the country. I’m not proud of it, but I won’t hide that part of my life.
I do not know if I did drugs because of being transgender, but I think it was one of the factors that contributed to my using them. It was also part of the culture and when I hear Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” it brings back memories of my late teenage and early twenty years. Sitting around the “rock cut” or at keg parties watching the sun rise after staying up all night tripping… “and trying different things and smoking funny things.”
My brother use to be blamed all the time for being the “wild one” while I was the quite one. While in reality I was down in a friend’s basement with the blacklight posters and a hazy of smoke that wasn’t from cigarettes, listening to Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Jimmy Hendricks and Jefferson Airplane.
Then we grew up. We became engineers, mechanics, machinists and draftsmen. Some went on to become parents and yelled at their kids for using drugs. I sometimes joke that I want a tee-shirt that says, “I survived the sixties”
But at the same time I was struggling with my gender identity. It the privacy of home, I hid with the shame of being what at the time all the books and news media said was a perversion which laid a guilt trip on me that in some ways still last today. Drugs were a way of avoiding the reality of being different. Once I got out of college I stopped all the hard stuff and just smoked marijuana at night after work and on weekends. I never was much of a drinker, and in college we were divided into two groups the druggies and the alkies. One time the alkies threw a vending machine over the balcony and us druggies watched it fall and went … Wow, far out! Back in ’99 when I developed a heart condition my doctor said to lay off the pot and when I went on hormones in ’04, my endo said to lay of alcohol. He said that I have a choice alcohol or hormones, that my liver could only stand one or the other but not both. When I stopped pot cold turkey, there were no side effects. But what I missed most was sitting out on the deck at night just before I went to bed and smoking one last bowl listening to the Dark Side of the Moon. So now I sometimes sit out on the deck with my mp3 player and have a glass of milk… but somehow it not quit the same.
Nope. Never got high drinking a glass of milk! lol
ReplyDeleteSimilar stories throughout the tperson world. How we survived, now thats a mystery. All the while keeping it the big secret. Never letting it out, does anyone suspect. Why am I different, does anyone suspect? Am I acting normal? What a mind f^ck. Still a tperson unfriendly world, BUT it is getting better.
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