I’m not yet myself
In my upcoming show, I stage something along the lines of the dialogue from this post:
I don’t do it as often anymore, but I used to have conversations in my head between myself and Rebecca, who was not yet “myself.”
My conversations would usually start when I was feeling particularly stupid, or sad, or masculine. She’d start, this Rebecca that I imagined myself as in some alternate universe, speaking to me across the barrier which separated our realities: “You’re never going to be happy if you keep on like this.”
The section was well-received at the work-in-progress showing, but I realized that the audience was watching a very different scene than I thought I was portraying. The response I got from the friends who were at the showing was, “There’s a great dramatic irony to that scene, because obviously Rebecca ‘wins.’ You did transition, and you’re no longer who you were.”
But my emotional connection with the scene is very different.
I can’t get over the feeling that the scene is exactly the same as it was ten years ago, except I’m playing opposite to myself at 15. (Instead of, at 15, playing opposite to my fantasy version of myself/Rebecca.) That is, the audience assumed the scene was taking dramatic license and that I don’t really feel like my 15 year old self was a coward. Except I do still feel that way.
I need to grieve, according to my therapist. To feel legitimate sadness and loss over the life I didn’t have, the experiences I missed, before I’ll be able to fully be happy with and embrace myself as Rebecca. But I can’t get over this anger at the unfairness of it all. Anger at myself, for not coming out sooner, insisting on transitioning sooner.
With something like my parents getting divorced, I can actually believe that I couldn’t have done anything about it. It’s not like, had I sat down at 16 and said “Don’t split up,” they would have turned to me and said “Oh, OK. We didn’t see it that way. We’ll stay together now.”
But had I sat down and said “I want to transition. Lets go see a gender specialist and do this thing,” they almost certainly would have agreed.
I definitely believe that I didn’t have a choice about transitioning; that it was something I needed and need to do. Yet, doesn’t the flip side of that mean that not transitioning is a choice? A delay? And that choice was mine.
I fee like I can’t take strength from my decision to start the transition without hating myself for waiting so long.
Themocracy
“So long” is relative. We do these things when we are ready. For some it’s sooner than for others. If you had made different choices, perhaps you would not be the person you are now. Do you like that person, this life you have? If so, would you risk changing anything that has led to being this you in this life? I can play that what if game too. I waited longer. Do I regret it? Not now, because it was the right choice in hindsight. Not at the time. At the time it was the wrong choice, I should not have hidden so long. But now, looking back from the vantage point of being content, of liking myself and my life, it was the right thing, because I am content, I am happy, and I like me. I wouldn’t want to risk that with what ifs. I see no problem with it being both the right and wrong thing to have done. Nothing is truely so binary. I both regret my choices and feel I made the right ones. It just depends which place I stand to look at them from. I can forgive my past decisions because I did take the one that I needed to, in the end. I did find a happy ending. The only person who can give you permission to do that is yourself. Not your past self, your now self. You owe your past self nothing. It is to you, now, that you are responsible. I think I am rambling now. I hope this helps. I spent some time working out how to forgive my own self for waiting 20ish years from when I knew what I should have done. It isn’t perfect, regrets are part of getting older I suspect
I need to internalize that. Because you’re obviously right – I’m transitioning younger than many, even if it’s not as young as I might fantasize about.
That’s what I’m fighting with, and trying to move past. Right now, when I’m particularly down, I don’t like the person I am, the life I have, because I can only see how it might have been better. I can’t see how it might have been worse, or how good it is in so many ways. (To be clear, I can see those things intellectually, but I’m having trouble convincing myself to believe them.)
That really hit me, and I think I need to keep repeating it to myself. I have such trouble focusing on the now. Not helped by working on a very introspective and retrospective show… But, when it’s done in a few weeks, I’m looking forward to focusing on the moment and not getting caught up in the past or the future. Hopefully, anyway.
Thanks for your comment, Mattie. I needed to hear it, to be reminded that I can wallow, but I really shouldn’t.
We all do it sometimes, Rebecca
Much strength to you.
[...] keeps stemming back to this issue, of recalling how I felt about gender and my own identity growing up and in comparison to now. I [...]