More of the Same?

Once you make the decision to pursue transitioning, you have to reassess everything. The things that were stable in your life are now on shaky ground. And because of this, you try to go back. You let your mind go to a place where you can just stay a man--it'll be easier that way, after all. For little moments you grab onto that possibility...

And then, that moment quickly fades and you're left thinking how nothing has changed. You can decide to try to just be the man again but that man will still be heavy in the quiet moments, burdened even in joyful times, and someone unsatisfied with most details of daily life. I could stay the man but I wouldn't be happy. To think otherwise is wishful thinking. I haven't been happy in the past. Why would I be happy now?

If I stay him, everything stays the same, and that isn't what I want. More of the same would hurt me deeply. It would carve away more and more of my enjoyment until I enjoy nothing fully.

Many people, if they had a fly-on-the-wall view of my life, would say it's good and I've been blessed. And I truly have been blessed by God in abundance. They would tell me that I need to focus on the blessings. If I wasn't such a fractured person, if I could sit in silence and not think about my displacement and poor fitting skin, if I could be happy or even full enough as this man, I'd stay him. 

But what I am, without Vaela, is just a stack of pieces poorly glued together. I approach everything as someone who doesn't belong. I don't know how to be okay as him. I don't know how to function as him without her. 

I don't really think these feelings are doubt about moving forward with my transition but more fear. Fear of how I'll be accepted in my job and in my daily life. Fear that I know, despite not starting HRT yet, I've already started down a road I can't just come back from, because if I did turn back and put my plans on hold, I'd end up in the familiar, tired place I've already lived in for far too long.

I'm still new to this but I have to imagine I'm not alone in my experience. And that, at times, means the not-knowing of what's ahead makes us respond instinctively by trying to seek out the familiar again.

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