215) Just one year of love, is better than a lifetime alone

I have now had this experience — one year of love.  And let me tell you, it sure does contrast dramatically with the rest of my life.

It was one year ago now, that I came out to the world as a trans woman. This is something I literally did not know about myself for 50 years, because quite simply I didn’t have the cognitive tools, the intellectual understanding, of what it means to be trans.  I knew trans people existed, but I just never, once, considered the possibility that I was one of them.  I did know I didn’t fit, I was “not like other guys” (lol…), and that the models of masculinity and manhood that I had internalized while growing up, weren’t “me”.  But I had no idea what was.  

When you don’t know what you are, you end up just feeling “wrong”, like there’s something wrong with you; you’re broken somehow, and you don’t know why.  So, you try, and try, and try.  You do your best to be what you THINK you are, to fit society’s standards of, in my case, “being a man”.  But in all these secret ways you are too ashamed to ever tell anyone about, you know they don’t fit you.  Or, you do open up about something personal to a friend, and they simply don’t get it. Which of course, reinforces the feeling that “there is something wrong with you.”  And no matter how hard you try to convince yourself that some version of the cis-gender-narrative is “you”, it just isn’t.

The result?  You live a lifetime alone.  Not truly alone, like a hermit or something, but INTERNALLY alone, because you have no true relationship with YOURSELF.  Not knowing who or what you are, you instead role play a persona, because it’s all that you know.  And that persona gets validated by other people to a convincing enough degree that you feel, “well, I guess this is me”.  But you’re never satisfied with yourself; you’re never comfortable in your own skin; you’re never all that motivated to take your own personal future seriously, because it doesn’t feel real.  At the deepest level of self-awareness, NOTHING FEELS REAL.  Everything feels like an almost-perfect-but-still-lacking approximation to the real.  Like you’re in a simulation.

Because, you are in a simulation.  You’re not living real life.  You’re living a simulated, fake like, even to yourself.  (It’s no wonder that the movie, The Matrix, is literally an allegory of being trans.  I imagine most of the people who like the movie, have no idea that’s the actual sub-text, and certainly the misogynistic, toxic-masculinity “red pill” community, which uses Matrix analogies all the time, has no appreciation for the fact that their metaphors come from a movie written by two trans women, implicitly exploring their own identity struggle in discovering their trans-ness.  But yep, that’s what The Matrix was really about. That’s what “taking the red pill” really means.)

Falling in Love

So yes, one year ago, I fell in love.  Finally.  With myself.  Not in the “I’m the greatest person ever” kind of narcissistic way.  But softly, deeply, appreciatively, genuinely.  

Like, my hands.  I have always hated my hands.  They were just….wrong.  Like the rest of my body.  Like how I looked.  Like how I moved in the world.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  

But, my hands?  They are beautiful.  They have changed diapers and held babies.  They can drum.  They can shuffle a deck of cards.  They have climbed trees.  They have held the hands of my lover.  They have made love.  They have cooked many meals.  They have put up tents, built fires, clapped in rhythm to song.  They have been part of crowds of applause.  They’ve tied shoes, and fishing lines and…well, let’s not get into what I may have tied in my life…hehehe…  

Everything I have done in my life — my entire life — has been my hands, in some way or another.  And my eyes.  My mouth.  My feet.  My legs.  My tummy.  My back.  My ears.  My brain.  My smile.  My tears.  My whole life has been mediated through this body that is “me”.  And there is SO MUCH that I love in this world!!  I love my wonderful, brilliant, hilarious, genuine friends.  I love music.  I love animals.  I love nature.  I love the sky and stars and sunrises and sunsets and those cloudy days when the sky is a muted iridescence of silvery-grey.  I love poetry and stories.  I love to sing.  I love dancing.  I love food.  I love games and jokes and puns and campfires and bike riding and rollerblading and hiking and foraging.  I love mushrooms.  And chipmunks.  And deer.  And bears.  And squirrels.  And birdsong.  And the way sunlight filters through the canopy of a forest to dance like faerie-light on the forest floor.  I love so many things.  And ALL those things, are only REAL to me, because of my senses and my ability to interact with the world — i.e., my hands, eyes, mouth, ears, and all the rest of the body that is “me”.  

But for half a century, I lived disconnected from myself, loving the world, while hating my own self.  I engaged in frequent and excessive self-harm, for decades.  It’s hard to explain why, and not the point of this post (perhaps something to explore in the future), but yes, most of my life was spent in some form of self-destruction, while at the same time, trying to be a good person, trying to have a positive impact on the world, trying to enjoy my days, trying to “have a good life”.  

Living in such a state of never-ending dissonance, really takes a toll on a person.  And you lose vast swaths of life to being “checked out”, dissociated, stoned or drunk or both, absorbed in people-pleasing, or immersed in some activity simply in order to lose yourself.  

That is a life of being alone.  Even surrounded by people, you’re alone.  Even with family, you’re alone. And you constantly, constantly struggle to feel authentic and live an authentic life.  Surrounded even by blessings, you feel somehow that you’re not part of it all; you’re always that person on the street, looking through the restaurant window at the happy people who are TRULY living.  And you try to BE like them, but you just don’t know how.  

For me, this was 50 years of my life.  And then I discovered the utterly astonishing (to me!) fact that I’ve been living since birth as a boy, and in adulthood, as a man, and yet, I was never either of those things.  I was a girl who never got to grow up as a girl, and a woman who was never able to live as a woman.

When I realized that, EVERYTHING became clear.  I remember when it first hit me; I was in a stunned fog for about 3 solid weeks, my mind whirling at a million-miles-an-hour, with insights and epiphanies bombarding me even in my sleep as literally my entire life came into focus, and all the things that had confused me about myself, and made me feel like I would never belong in society, were clarified.  (Or, I guess you could say — Clarafied.)  

And miracle of miracles, I fell in love with the simple joy of my own existence, the simple beauty of my own mind and face and hands and body.  Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing nothing but flaws, I started being able to look in the mirror and see….beauty!  Not that I’m claiming to be beautiful, lol.  But there IS beauty in me.  Every person has their own charisma, their own attractiveness, their own qualities that draw other people to them, their own charm, and yes, their own beauty.  And I see mine now.   

Living in Love

And oh my god, everything has changed.  My friendships have deepened.  My motivation to live a healthy life has gone through the stratosphere.  My activism has softened and become more loving, but also more fearless, as I now utterly refuse to tolerate the narratives in our society that are simply lies.  My mornings are peaceful.  My sleep is deep and filled with dreams.  My constant need for stimulation and escapism, has simply disappeared.  Walking through the world, I feel so much more connected to the people around me; even the simple act of sitting on the subway is now peppered with so many little moments of human connection, smiles, eye contact and often, spontaneous conversations.  

My approach to games has lost an intensity of competitiveness and needing-to-win, and instead, I’m actually far more focused and gently competitive now, playing my best simply for the joy of the game, and truly not caring if I win or lose.  If I win, I feel great that I won, and if I lose, I feel great for the other person that they won.  It’s just so very simple when your ego isn’t needy.

Spirituality has stopped being some desperate search for meaning and “something more”, and instead, is gentle; it’s simple; there’s no striving anymore, or wanting to reach some place of enlightenment or whatever.  No, now it’s just…beautiful.  It’s like savouring each moment and whatever it contains. The phrase “God is love” now makes so much sense to me.  (Although not “God” in the standard religious sense; but “God” in the experiential sense of living moment-to-moment what Aldous Huxley called The Perennial Philosophy.   

I feel joy.  And it’s amazing!  I had no idea what “joy” was, before.  I knew fun, excitement, pleasure, and things like that.  But “joy”???  That always sounded like some idealistic impossibility, or religious promise that wasn’t actually true.  But joy is very real.  It’s right there, at the core of each person’s Being, because there is a simple joy in just being alive.  And I feel that now.  Not every single moment, of course.  But honestly?  Most of them.  

And “me”?  I like me.  I actually love me.  I like hanging out with myself.  I feel excited to share moments with loved ones.  I take pure delight in other people’s humour, and stories, and interests, and feelings.  It’s just so…beautiful!!…to connect authentically with another person.

But it starts with connecting authentically with yourself.  And I truly don’t believe that’s something you need to struggle to achieve.  “Authenticity” isn’t about a vision board or list of goals or “working on wellness”.  It’s simply knowing WHO you are, and then EMBRACING that whole-heartedly.  And for a trans person who doesn’t know they’re a trans person, authenticity is basically impossible.  But when you realize who you really are, authenticity is instantaneous.  And it’s the loveliest experience of my life.  

So yes, just one year of love IS better than a lifetime alone.

Being Trans in a Trans-hating world

There are all sorts of unhealthy, judgemental, fearful narratives in society about trans people.  But all I can tell you, from this trans woman’s perspective, is that being yourself is a deeply freeing and beautiful experience.  I know a happiness that I never knew before.  I have fun now, in ways that are child-like in their exuberance and simplicity.  Being trans isn’t some perversion or brain-washing or whatever.  It is, for a trans person, an awakening. 

The difficulties and suffering and mental health struggles that typically come with being trans are not, at all, about “being trans”.  They are, 100%, about living in a society of people who don’t accept you, who stigmatize and judge you, who threaten your basic rights, who fetishize you and want to get off to you or fuck you, but simultaneously hate you and want you to not exist.  It’s about finding out some of the people who you’ve loved your entire life, like your parents, fundamentally don’t accept you and want nothing to do with you. It’s about your family devolving into conflict because of your presence.  THAT SHIT is hard.  But that’s not about “being trans”.  That’s about living in an unhealthy culture.

Ironically, despite the fear-mongering of the right-wing activists and influencers who insist there’s a diabolical “gender narrative” brainwashing the youth of today, the ACTUAL “gender narrative” that exists in society is simply that there are two genders, and anyone who feels otherwise is mentally unwell.  THAT is the “gender narrative”, and it’s wildly untrue and horribly harmful.  The real truth is that people, left to explore freely who they are, can be many different shades and combos of “gender”.  And as they discover the truth about themselves, it’s incredibly liberating. 

“Being trans”?  It’s as easy for a trans person as “being cis” is for everyone else.  It’s just “being yourself”.  And if the world would simply accept trans people as genuine and leave them alone to live their lives like anyone else, then “being trans” would be so simple.  The suffering that comes hand-in-hand with “being trans” is ENTIRELY the result of society’s intolerance and lack of acceptance.  It’s as simple as that.  

So I’ve now had one year of “being trans” in the sense of knowing that that is who I am.  And, setting aside the shittiness of the more regressive elements of society, the rest of the experience has been truly joyful, and I am happier, in the most holistic and pure way, than I have ever been in my life.

THIS is the “trans narrative” I would like to see propagated in society.  Being trans is simply being authentic.  Getting gender-affirming therapy, and surgery if that’s your path, is FANTASTICALLY HEALTHY.  What it does, fundamentally, is liberate you to inhabit the body that fits you, and in every way other than society’s reactions, it elevates your life.

If we had trans-friendly therapists and an openness to gender exploration when I was a kid, I would’ve grown up as a girl from a very early age, long before puberty.  And that would have been the best thing for me.  I would have avoided four decades of dissociation and self-harm and never having true confidence in myself.  And hey, I would’ve had boobs and a clitoris for a lot longer!  And those things, I’ve gotta say, are pretty damn awesome. 

If you’re trans, you’re trans, and trying to pretend otherwise, or having society force you to pretend otherwise, doesn’t do anyone any good.  All it does is cause suffering, cause people to hate themselves, and hide themselves, and never blossom into their full potential.  It’s a fucking tragedy, you might even say it’s Evil, to deprive people of the freedom to simply discover and be who they are.

So just let trans people be trans!  There’s nothing scary about it at all.  It doesn’t hurt anybody, but in fact, does the exact opposite. For a trans person, “being trans” is simply finding out who you really are, and embracing that. And the result? Loving yourself, possibly for the first time in your life.

That’s been my year, anyway.  And I am so deeply grateful to have been able to live this year.  However many more years I get in life, I am so grateful for them.  I feel, finally, alive.  

Much love to you; I hope you have found your own authenticity, and you love yourself wholeheartedly.