Rethinking Direction

https://link.medium.com/0jPGz1Dx1eb

One of the things that I need to acknowledge in transitioning is that I am not the only one transitioning.  There is a huge population of people who are actively trying to make themselves better through this process.  They, like I, have intentionally made the decision to push forward, to challenge their own boundaries and their own preconceptions of the world.  We all have found that changing our minds about gender, sexual identity, or something else is what is needed to chart a better course in life.

As you all well know though there are others that have been pulled on this journey along with the initiator.  Parents, siblings, friends... children, and life partners.  They all get involved whether or not they choose to be involved in transitioning.

This is not a new concept, events change all the time without people's permission.  Natural disasters happen and change the landscape of a town.  Accidents happen to permanently alter people's lives, or worse yet take their lives and leave the survivors having to figure out what happens next.

But with transition there is a *person* at the middle of all of this.  Whether or not that person wanted to be at the middle of all of this!  There's someone to focus on and someone to influence going forward.  And there's a source to come back to when things get tough in life.

Because when people around the person transition that forces them to take very hard looks at their own lives, even if superficially.  I now have seventy-five coworkers who have been ordered by my HR department to call me by my requested name.  I am sure that many may have their opinions of whether or not I should be doing this.  Some have shown amazing support already!  But others without any external signs may have misgivings, whether social, political, or spiritual.  My doing this has challenged them to examine their current way of thinking or else they wouldn't have misgivings.  My transition has forced them into a miniature transition of their own.

But for those closest to the person transitioning -- the parents or siblings of transitioning children, or the partners or children of transitioning adults -- this means that so many different aspects of their lives have to be looked at.

As I have been pondering this idea, it is as if they've been cast away onto a deserted island.  They have been given tools -- their relationships with other people, their current support structures, their relationship with the person transitioning, whether or not they're getting mental help.  With those tools they have to make it into the next morning, into the next week, and into the next year.

In the immediate short term they have to use those tools to find food and to build a shelter from the storm.  This is analogous to trying to understand the transitioning person and trying to figure out how to best serve their own needs and wants with that transitioning person in mind.  Do they want to spend time being around them to get more used to it?  Do they want to limit contact so that they have time to process?  Can they work with different names and pronouns if necessary?  In the short term how can they still be comfortable in their own lives?  It's almost as if they're trying to figure out how many coconunts and how many bananas to pick, what balance in their lives can they achieve?

In the long term they get to use those tools to go along two different paths.  They can choose to either build a structure to last on the island -- living in the brave new world of the transitioning person, being a part of their lives going forward, and learning to be comfortable or at least accepting with whatever new relationships and new characteristics go with this transitioning person.  This tropical island may be even better than where they used to be in the past with this person.  I have met many transgender people who are so much more comfortable with themselves, I would possibly be sad to have known them prior to this when they could not be open and honest.

The other path that they can go down is to build their liferaft off the island.  This would be to sail to a different relationship, a different paradigm, even if it is to not have the transgender person in their lives at all anymore.  Their own intelligence, their relationships, trusted professionals, all can help a person caught up in an unwilling transition to be able to understand what they do need and whether or not they need to leave this deserted island permanently.

These tools -- they help a person to find themselves.  Just like a saw can cut wood which is a far better way to obtain materials than, say, flotsam, a therapist can help a person come to a far better understanding of themselves to figure out what they need in life and how to go forward.  Familial relationships can give a safe space to explore yourself, just like an umbrella held over a fire may cook food better than having to eat raw.  

Just like there are no absolutes in life, I would encourage all participants in a transition to both build permanent structures as well as outfitting their life rafts.  It is okay to push down both the path of acceptance as well as the path of reanalysis/escape at the same time!  Life can absolutely change in a heartbeat and even if you found yourself on a deserted island, things on that island may change too.  No one person is absolute either.

What scares me though is the common denominator with all of the above.  A transition requires work.  A TRANSITION REQUIRES WORK.  And there are times that people have to transition and do not want to put in work.  The tools are there but they are completely useless unless they are utilized.  Effort must be expended and this is where people in general fall flat.  Especially when people are forced to work, there is oftentimes an undercurrent of resentment and unwillingness.

This is the biggest issue with people who are transitioning looking at the others in their lives.  I hope that you realize that just because you personally found that you needed change and started making those changes that you have also effectively forced the people around you to change too.  And sadly many people do not want to change, or they have a hard time with change.  The person transitioning -- you are a cross between a demanding work supervisor and a rah-rah inspirational TED talk.  The people in your life can choose to get with the program and to take your encouragement.... or not.

Transitioning people can see all of the many benefits of life change in their lives and wonder why others can't see the benefits.  It takes work and desire to get there.  We can only hope that the payoffs for everyone else are as great as the sacrifices that are being made.  For some, it's not -- partners especially who may see their sexuality being challenged, parents who had a vested interest in their child's identity and do NOT want to have the child make it much more difficult to get through life... these people really have to work very hard and it may seem that even in the short term they get so little results.  This can lead to their extreme disillusionment and disinterest in continuing to work.

I am NOT saying to people transitioning to slow down, to think of others, to stop, to revert.  I am saying though that you need to keep in mind all of the people around you too and as a fellow human being you can be as much harsh work supervisor or inspirational TED talk as you want to be.  The patience that others work to build for you, I hope that you've also built that reserve of patience and grace for them as well.

It has been more than six months since I’ve come out to myself, just shy of my 40th birthday.  I kicked off this process almost five years ago though.  At that time though I was not in the right spot to have that conversation with myself.  Five years ago I was still lost and not knowing at all what I could do about the lost feeling.  All I had was the same path to keep going along with the vague promise that at some point all would become clear and make sense.

However, at that time I made a decision that made me feel at least a little bit better.  I didn't even know why I made the decision.  It seemed both inconsequential yet profound at the same time.  It ended up lodging in my mind but was completely unseen to all of the others around me.  One decision led to another.  And then a third.  Each decision taken by themselves would have been important and probably decided in a different way by others who are more comfortable in their assigned gender at birth... but they were considered, decided, and very much acted upon.

You see, when one droplet of water falls from the sky onto a head it barely makes a difference to the person walking outside.  One little decision for one day is much the same thing.  It doesn't make a dent in anyone's future plans.  But when the decisions are decided in one specific direction over and over, like huge raindrops falling from the sky -- it is very much a clear signal that you are soaked and need to make different plans.

Such as it was for my personal experience.  Even if it is the same decision over-and-over, the fact that it is not only considered but being made in one direction, consistently, without fail, is the best evidence I could have needed in order to truly find my self, to find my soul.  Decisions collected like a deluge of rain.  As the rain fell, it absolutely forced me to change my perspective.  Honestly I probably stood outside for too long a time just thinking that it was liquid sunshine.

So if the conflict within the aspect of a soul can be symbolized by a storm of raindrops, clouds that pour out decision upon decision that demand to be paid attention to until finally addressed -- what happens after the storm?

Some storms bring all sorts of messy cleanup -- branches, leaves, garbage strewn everywhere that need to be dealt with.  All of this can be the aspects of a life previously lived one way but after the storm, these barely-organized aspects are disorganized and sometimes even destroyed.  Sometimes it is as violent as a tornado and the supports of your structures (read - family, friends, work) are completely gutted and unsafe.  

I've also been involved in my share of storms that clear out the humidity and bring cool pleasantness.  There may be a mess to deal with -- but after the violence of upheaval, there is time to pick up the pieces.  Every life has rain fall for a multitude of reasons.  And I won't ever pretend that just because a storm comes through things automatically get better.  They don't, these events can truly be traumatic and disturbing.

Lastly, for many people these storms just happen randomly but keep happening too.  The number of people who walk this earth dealing with their souls being out-of-step with their minds (or bodies) are just astronomical.  A storm of decisions or tears comes through, the aftermath arrives... and they go back to the status quo.  Being transgender, it could be when you may have purged a drawer and doubled down on your assigned gender.  If you are elsewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum it could be when you recommitted to an identity that others gently pressed upon you.  It could be going back to an ex, standing yet again for abuse, dealing with the fourth night in a row late at work.

These rainstorms do happen for a reason.  They need to be paid attention to.  They are a necessary way for a person to pay attention to what may not be correct in their lives, to give them an opportunity to realize what decisions are being made and whether or not they are fine with these decisions.

Many months ago I came out to myself as transgender.  This meant that I had finally acknowledged something that had created a huge geological fault-line in my own psyche for many years.

I use the imagery of a fault-line for a couple different reasons.  The first is that there have been many earthquakes in my life because of this fault-line.  In this case the metaphor I am speaking of is mental health.  These earthquakes, just like real ones, were never ones that could be predicted either for when they happened or their severity.  They just happen and you need to figure out a safe space to try to ride out the effects.  Working through huge bouts of anxiety, depression, ennui -- this happened so many more times than I would like to acknowledge.

Other people may be able to build structures in their minds.  Structures that allow themselves to find fulfillment, happiness -- social structures, hobbies, achievements, career, other things.  In my own mind and especially because things had never "fit" together correctly, building structures seemed to be both impossible and therefore useless.  Why try to put something together if you are unable to sustain it mentally?

This also led to the idea of effectively at least two concepts of "me".  Perhaps this is a form of disassociation, but it very much was an idea that the part of me that was transgender could not possibly coexist with the me that was going to have any shot of having a successful life.  And therefore the fault line became a necessity so as to "trap" this part of me and put up a barrier in order for at least some small part of me to function.  This also meant metaphorically trying to ground structures on only one side of the fault-line too -- acknowledging and carrying out some piece of me in the world outside myself.

I had long since become used to such an existence.  I knew that it was a price I'd have to pay in order to just be accepted.  In what may end up being a consistent refrain in my writings, acknowledging being transgender especially in older generations is not a path for comfort or success.  Because I relied on others' happiness to be able to find my own for a long time, I needed to do things to ensure their happiness. And trying to fix this fault line was not one of those activities.

So!  I'm transgender and this fixes the fault-line, right?

No.  Sadly it does not.  The fault line still exists between mind and body, between sense of self and how I am perceived.  This fault line is likely never to be "fixed".  Coming out means that you get to look at who you are and what you present and for many transgender persons what they would like to be will never come to fruition.

What does this mean though?

It means that you've just updated your metaphorical building code.  Previously building structures on one side of your psyche, creating a life where you are cisgender and trying to hide the rest of you, means that if the earthquake is strong enough it can wipe out much if not all of what has been built.

Building structures within your life with the idea that you are utilizing your whole self, your whole being, and you don't have to hide or suppress a portion of yourself means that you can weather the earthquakes better.  The social circle you build will know the challenges you face and can better support you.  The hobbies or activities you acquire are chosen in tandem with your whole self so you don't have to feel pressured to like certain things based on gendered code.  Your achievements may mean more to you if you are able to do them *as you* rather than as someone who actively fought against themself for such a long time.

Right now I am in the process of updating my own metaphorical building code too.  This means that going in to all activities it is necessary to understand all of me and take all of this into account as I start to build the foundations.  This is a very new and complex process -- almost like someone having to measure the perfect amount of water and cement mix to finally get the mixture correct.  I have to measure out the perfect amount of all of my faculties, one of them being my character, one being my personality, one unquestionably being my *self* and now that is finally including my sense of gender.

This also means looking at all of the existing structures that managed to make it this far.  Relationship, family, everything else.  Is the structure unsafe for future earthquakes?  Have all the repairs I've had to continually make to it through the years been able to result in something that will hold out?  Or were the foundations rotten to begin with and I have to now destroy in order to rebuild?

My first written post.  I am still semi-anonymous in the context of Tumblr, though some people I know may see this.  I wanted to get my thoughts down on paper and figured that this may be a good way to do this.

I had a long conversation with a loved one recently about my life and my happiness.  As someone who is transitioning gender later in life and facing all sorts of questions about why, why now, how come it took so long, etc. I wanted to at least plumb my depths for a while and perhaps find out if it resonates.

My life has been full of happy moments.  No lie.  I hope that everyone is in a place where their life has that potential too.

In the context of happiness though, all of those moments seem to be tied to someone or something.  I have happiness about my marriage but it’s tied to someone else.  I have happiness that my kids were born but that’s tied to someone else.  I have happiness about life events like jobs and moves, but that’s tied to something else.

However, that happiness has always seemed to be absent for me specifically when it comes to thinking about and being alone with myself.

It’s been so apparent for so many years looking back but in the moment though, it’s very deceptive.  Because happiness is there, right?  I’ve felt it!  It’s not as if I spent three decades or so just crossing my arms in front of my chest, pissed at the world.  That would have made things easy.

Trying to figure out why I couldn’t be happy outside of other people has been such a challenge to me.  Because there is no other real reference point to know internally.  I would equate this to other people mirroring moods because they just can’t understand how to feel.

I came out of the closet as transgender to myself many months ago and have been coming out to my loved ones one-by-one in recent weeks.  This process is not one that screams “happiness” in many ways.  Between the anxiousness of wondering how it will be received, the repressed emotions of so many years being released, still wanting to make sure that I am helping others find their happiness in the context of me searching for mine.  After all, is it fair that they can’t find their happiness as I look for happiness?

Not to mention the idea of transitioning later in life, after aging and stress has taken a toll on my body.  I am no one’s idea of a specimen of beauty as either gender.  And now that I am trying to move towards a more feminine appearance I acutely feel the myriad imperfections of both genders, much less the one I am transitioning to.  Happiness is not this.

Why then?

Why then attempt to search for happiness after breaking down so many things?  Destruction is happiness only for those that find beauty in destruction and I am not one of those people.

Because I have tried.

I have failed to find this in so many places.  And it’s not the fault of those around me.  They are to some extent the innocent victims of my inability to find peace, happiness, a sense of self-worth.  They had no idea that I could hide this conflict within myself so completely through so many years of practice.  Though this period also coincided with much gender presentation experimentation as well.

After an exceptionally trying and troubling period in my life I sought help.  The help was what I needed to take the final steps to understanding what was missing in my life.  And what that had to do with myself as a person and what I had been doing for those multiple years of experimentation.

All of these difficult talks with others.  All of the stressing about me as a person.  All of the incompleteness that I feel about myself.  These are investments in my future.  A future where I hope to be able to be alone with myself knowing that my mind and my body seem to finally be in some sort of congruence.

A future where I don’t have to keep myself bottled so that others can be happy, and so that I can then sponge off of the happiness that they are experiencing.

Transitioning takes a lot of time and a lot of patience.  It takes a lot of mental strength and a lot of support.  I pray that I am not too late to do this, to take the time to make myself a better person and a better human.  Someone who can freely give her happiness to the world because of an overabundance.