A New Start – Ray’s Story

Recently, we were contacted by Ray. Ray is transgender and living in a small town.  He is reaching out in hopes of a little help to start a new life. Ray recently met a woman, but unfortunately she moved away to attend school.  He is looking to crowdfund some money to cover the costs of moving and to start over.

If you are moved by his story, here’s how you can help http://www.gofundme.com/10u85y0

A New Start  – Ray’s Story

Hi! If you’ve taken the time to check this out, then I should at least explain to you why you’re here! So, if you’ll give me a few minutes of your time, hopefully my story will inspire and move you.

My name’s Ray. I currently live in Ohio, in a small town called “Medina”… It’s, conservative, to say the least… I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve seen life, I’ve seen death, I’ve seen good and I’ve seen bad, right here in Medina. For the last 30 years, I’ve lived very sheltered here. Medina isn’t what I would call a very LGBT friendly community… So for most of my life, I hid in the “closet of gay shame” in the hopes to fit in. Sadly, living in that closet somehow numbed me to the world. I waited until I was 18 to come out as a lesbian… And waited until I was 28 to come out as Transgender… Living in Medina as a transguy… Is a struggle to say the least!

For the last two decades, my life has been one chaotic storm after another. I’ve been down more than I’ve ever been up. I became numb to most feelings and emotions because with my luck, everything that I had ever had an emotion to or for, was always taken from me. I witnessed my first dead body at the age of 6… And I witnessed my last one just shy of four days ago… I’ve had more loss than I could ever begin to explain. With all the loss I’ve had, I decided to refrain from loving anyone. I rarely said it, rarely felt it and often ran from it… And then in 2008 I fell ill… And for four years, I was in my room… Dying. Slowly, painfully and alone. Randomly going blind and being trapped in my room for hours before anyone found me. I threw up nearly 10 times a day for four years. I lived on my bathroom floor most days. I spent day after day in the ICU waiting to die… I had nothing to fight for… I felt alone. I felt weak. I felt… Nothing… And then I met her!

I wasn’t whole until I met her. There was always this place inside of me that needed something. Something to make me complete. Something that was missing. Though, I had no idea what. So, I searched for it. Through all the open doors and open windows that I claimed, through the ditches I drug myself through, through the guilt and shame I placed on myself, that hole got bigger and I started losing more pieces of me. I was trapped in my own mind and in my own body. I felt nothing, all the time. No emotions, no feelings, nothing… Until the day she stepped off that porch and into my life. She was late for our first date because she went in search of a sweater that didn’t have any cat hair on it… She worried that I would be allergic to her, I wasn’t. We then spent the next 6 hours sitting and insulting each other inside a chipotle. I was so nervous I couldn’t stop chewing on my cup lid. Every time she smiled at me, I felt it from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head… She filled me with things I hadn’t felt in a long time. She filled me with things I had never felt before. Being with her was like going to a place I had never gone before. Being around her felt like everything in my life led me to that moment. I was supposed to be right there, right then… And now I know… I fell in love with that women the moment I saw her. The first time we hugged, the first time she kissed me, the first time I fell asleep with her wrapped in my arms… Will be the greatest moments I will ever experience. When I met her, I wasn’t whole… When she fell in love with me, I felt the place inside of me that was empty, disappear. She loved me so wonderfully and so amazingly that she put together all the pieces that make me, me… She hugged me tight enough to put all my broken pieces back together… She was my missing piece. She came into my life like a hurricane. Destroying all the walls I had put around me to keep everyone out. She tore them down… But instead of leaving me vulnerable and weak, she stepped inside of my life and rebuilt the walls around us. She built them with her on the inside, with me. She rebuilt everything that I was… And there we stood… Together… Behind these new walls… She is my lieutenant. My world. My grace and my light. This is where I belong. She is where I belong. Being with her, feels like I’m finally home. She feels like home. She is my home. All that I was, all that I am, all that I ever will be… Is hers.

Sadly, I lost her too… Not to death… But to another city. She moved away last week to try and better her life with college and schooling… I support her choice, but I miss her. I support her choice, but I’m falling apart without her. I can’t handle losing anything else in my life. I can’t handle feeling useless in a world where she exists. I need to be near her. I need to be with her. After all the good I have put into this world, after all the loss I have endured, after all the sadness I spent nearly three decades feeling, I deserve her. I deserve us.

So, I’m swallowing every ounce of my pride… And I’m asking complete strangers to help me. I’m asking my friends to help me. I’m asking anyone who knows what real love is… To help me.

I am in need of moving money. Money to help me get to where she is. Money to help get me to her… Money to help me have a place to live, though at this point I’m not opposed to living in my car, and money to help me with essentials until I find a job…

I know that there are greater causes in the world. I know that there are greater needs in the world… But to me, loving her is the greatest cause in my life… I don’t exist without her… So I’m asking you, all of you, if you have ever loved anyone this much… Please do what you can to help me. Whether it be pass this along, or donate… Anything you can do to help… I will greatly appreciate it.

Thank you all for taking this time to read my story!! All my love to you guys!!

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