So, Here I Am.

I've gotten more than a few questions about this in a few different places, online and offline, and I figure I'm not going to have the guts to say it out loud for a little while longer ... so I'm writing it down.

What's up with the name?

Here's The TLDR Version courtesy of my online journal on Gaia Online.

I don't identify with myself as a woman. Standing up, working, moving, confined by a tight support for breasts that are small enough not to be noticed, but feel large enough that I sometimes lose my balance trying to keep them from moving around and chafing or becoming noticeable. I'm not comfortable in my own skin. I never have been.

But I've gotten really good at pretending I am. Dresses, high heels, makeup, styled hair, sexy clothing, revealing attitudes, and a mask so the world can't see how much I hate wrapping myself in girl trimmings, hate the way my skin itches and my face burns from the chemicals and layers of sickening, dirt-smelling powders and goo.

I've gotten good, too, at pretending I'm okay with this deception. There are days that are becoming increasingly less frequent where I feel okay about having breasts and buying new makeup and blushing as strange boys give me compliments and strange girls eye me enviously.

Not gonna lie here: I'm terrified.

I've done my research. I've seen the horror stories, the documentation of the legal battles, and I know that because this is The Internet and invariably, SOMEBODY will read it, somebody I know might find out. Only a few people know. My closest friends, the people of my generation who I trust to look at me as an entity, a person clear and whole, and not as a gender or a name, or a deviant in the eyes of God.

I can put on a brave face with my friends. Yeah, I know who I am. I'm a dude, but with lady parts for a little while longer. My friends can't see my fear. They see me, but only what I let them skim off the surface. The world is a stage and my life is a play with far too many costume changes between scenes.

The thing is, I've done so much pretending, so much hiding, and set aside so much of myself so that I can function like a real human being ... I think I've lost myself in the jumble.

The new name tag at the bottom of my posts (in THIS blog only) is my first step towards rediscovering myself. I have three things guiding me at this point:

[ 1 ] I am a writer, and nothing will ever change that.
[ 2 ] I am not meant to be a woman.
[ 3 ] God is still watching over me.

[ 3 ] is there because God is watching over me. I've struggled for a very long time with my beliefs and my faith. When I realized that I liked girls and came out of the closet, I had to stop going to church because of the hostility towards me. I sought out something new to believe in, a new power to have faith in, and eventually settled on Wicca -- I was quickly told by more than one person on an online Wiccan message board that I wasn't allowed to actually call myself a Wiccan because I wasn't a full-fledged member of one of the eight (or something) original covens started by Charles Gardner, the father of modern Wicca, in the 1950's.

But they were also quick to tell me that I was allowed to call myself whatever I wanted, it just wasn't going to be official. I decided that I was going to call myself hurt and recuse myself from the world of religion indefinitely. If anybody asked, I told them that I was a pagan, got myself a pentacle necklace and some books on witchcraft ... just to feel like I belonged.

I still don't feel like I belong, but I've finally pushed my boulder all the way to the top of the hill and I've realized that God doesn't make mistakes. If God had considered me a mistake, he wouldn't have let me survive that fall down the stairs when I was fourteen, just after I'd come out of the closet as a lesbian. He wouldn't have saved me then, he wouldn't have given me the strength and courage of conviction to rise above and beyond the bullies and homophobes populating my strange, isolated city of birth, and God certainly wouldn't continuously offer me reminders that Life doesn't suck completely.

God is all-knowing, ever-present, and all-powerful. God isn't a babysitter. I know that His purpose in my life is not to hold my hand and shield me from all of the pain and suffering that I am going to face in life. God put me on this earth to live and learn and create and exist and that's what I intend to do.

The name Isaiah, which is the name that I have discovered is my own (it just feels ... right to call myself Isaiah) is a Biblical name, Hebrew for salvation. The name fits me. There's no reason for it fitting me, or for me fitting it, it just ... it feels right.

Currently, the only time I am using the name Isaiah Moretti as my real name is on this blog as my signature. I sometimes submit my writing under the name Isaiah Moretti, but as I still have yet to have anything published, that is neither here nor there yet.

Eventually, once I feel confident enough in myself and my place in this world and seek out the required diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder in order to advance to the steps needed to facilitate gender reassignment surgery, I will legally change my name to Isaiah.

This isn't going to be easy on me or on anybody around me. Nothing important in life is ever easy. But God is walking beside me. Close enough that I can comfort myself with His presence, but not so close that I can use Him as a living shield. I have surrounded myself with people who love me and care for me and I know that no matter what I do or how long it takes me to do it, I'll be okay.

~Isaiah