Decrying Gravity

I have two posts halfway written, and even more I need to write.  But I think time is one thing I'm about to get an abundance of; my apologies for the disjointed nature of the next few days.  It's quite the transition.

Speaking of transition, I thought of Laura earlier.  I haven't talked to her since Valentine's Day, and I don't really anticipate that changing (save from random happenstance) anytime soon.  But, although she's not an active player in my drama, she' still very much a presence, and I think that bears attention.

Laura broke me.  That might be harsh, but I say that with the knowledge that she also, in many ways, put me together.  I was hers to break.  Before Laura, I was suicidal, self-loathing, perpetually depressed, often suicidal. I'd been that way, with brief exceptions, for three and a half years.  And then, in one swift week, I made progress in group therapy about my dad and, one afternoon, Laura came to my dorm, climbed into my loft bed, and kissed me.  It was never simple.  It was rarely easy.  But from then on, I had what I'd always thought I wanted: someone who loved me.

There's no doubt that Laura loved me.  Or, she loved a construction of me.  Whether of my making or her own (or, of course, both) is hard to say.  It wasn't even delusion; it was an authentic part of me.  But it was a part.  She never understood my depression, never understood my dysphoria, never understood the depths of despair I was capable of reaching.  But she loved what she understood.  And when the rest started becoming overwhelming, for myself and her, she found me different from the person she loved.  So, as people do, she stopped.

When she stopped, I broke.  For two and a half years, she had been my linchpin.  I looked forward to seeing her like I'd never anticipated anything before.  Just seeing her name appear on my Caller ID was worthy of flutters.  Her laughs, her drollness, her enthusiastic cuteness.  I do disservices to people with my descriptions. But even towards the end, she was the brightest force in my life.

Of course, part of the reason I'd always been so desperate for such a person, such a love was that I was incapable of fostering such positivity in and of myself.  I was a non-entity:  I didn't identify with my body and my mind was a twisted weapon of self-abuse.  I hated myself, found minimal pleasure in life, and, when left to my own devices, crumbled.  But with Laura, I could feel vicariously.  I could like myself, vicariously.  Hell, I could enjoy life vicariously.  And it was lovely, since I'd never done it before.  But it was still second hand.  And it was unfair, to her, to use her as a vessel for my fulfillment.

But she was also all I had.  All I had in the face of an increasingly bleak career-setting, a place of daily terror and inadequacy.  And when she left, when I no longer had any joy in my life, when I no longer had even vicarious hope, I broke.

It's hard to say how things might have been if she hadn't.  Impossible, really.  She's said that she couldn't handle my transition.  Maybe I wouldn't have taken so many risks.  I certainly wouldn't have leaned so heavily on so many people.  I wouldn't have flailed and floundered and felt so miserable for so long.  And I'd already started exploring the dysphoria before she left, so it's not as if she was the impetus.

But even if her departure was not the impetus, I can't help but think that it was the catalyst.  Finding myself in utter misery, lost and abandoned with seemingly no salvation in sight, I had to fundamentally shift my worldview.  Up til then, I had always opted for the "safe" choice.  I did not take risks, I did not rely on feelings, I did what was best for the greatest number of people, what was easiest (in the sense of nonconfrontation) for them to handle and for me to sustain.  I'll talk more about teaching, but, suffice it to say, it was the safe choice.  UT was the safe choice.  Ignoring my gender dysphoria was the safe choice.  Settling for possible contentment instead of taking a risk on happiness was the safe choice.  And all of these safe choices, all of these decisions made to minimize risk and chaos had led me to where I most feared: hating myself, hating my job, having no hope, and suffering it all alone.  Safety betrayed me.  Safety, ironically enough, was practically guaranteed to do myself harm.  And when Laura broke me, it was the culmination of years spent being safe only to find that I had been deluding myself all along.

So I was broken.  And where Laura had once built me, I had no one to do it for me now.  I had to rebuild myself.  And through a lot of counseling, introspection, thought, and feeling, I've been doing just that.  From that moment when I was broken, I was on a path to becoming a new person in so, so many ways.  Not the person I thought I should be but the person I was finding I needed to be, wanted to be, had to be to be happy.  And where once I needed another for acceptance and joy, I hope to be able to foster both within myself as I move forward.

Laura broke me.  But I'm not angry at her.  She reminds me of what I had and now lack, certainly.  But I think I needed to be broken.  I feel like I've been through a forge, steeled, hammered, molded into something more powerful, more durable than before.  I have hit the bottom, as I see it, and, in my privileged way, cannot easily fathom going lower.  Before me are seas of risk.  Tomorrow, I'm getting my hair cut.  And, if things go as planned, I'll look, at the very least, obviously androgynous if not feminine.  I'll start laser treatment, a "point of no return" which, coupled with the hormones, represent permanent alternations to my body in somewhat intimidating but so very freeing ways.

Before being broken, I would have been really scared about tomorrow.  Going into get my hair cut and telling a stranger I wanted to look like a girl.  Going into the laser hair removal place and, as a male, saying I wanted to permanently remove my facial hair.  In our culture, that's practically like castration.  In our culture, such things entail a great deal of risk.  But they're also both potentially quite rewarding.  And even if I'm rejected, those rejections simply cannot be worse than when I was broken.

I am forged anew.  I have a confidence, a stoicism, hell, an optimism that I've not had before.  I have a cadre of friends (and quite the diverse bunch, too) who have supported me throughout.  I don't want to say it will get easier from here.  Changing one's gender is not exactly an easy thing to do (the state of Tennessee says it's legally impossible, bee-tee-dubs).  But I have been through daily agony for so long, have seen the myriad hidden costs of so-called-safety, have experienced the void left by keeping one's self not one's self, and I can't help but think that this time, this time I'm building something that's worth the risk.  That won't need to be broken again.