And so another phase is complete, and the long cocooning begins. Til now, I've had cause to leave my bed each morning, some exigent reason prompting me to rise in my normal hurried pace to pay for a few minutes ill-gotten sleep with more stress and rush is due. I've had cause to don the vestments of my genetic predisposition, to cast myself as the unnatural in natural, put the lie to the world's apathetic gaze. My days have been full, my nights akin to wonder, and although it is not the ideal, it was at least something more than the upcoming oblivion.
For now that my final class is done, my superfluous degree as good as inevitable, I have to turn to the more abstract tasks, the ones sans structure, sans rules, sans anything but a distant deadline that I only wish would speed this way. When teaching, I learned of the desire for structure; individuals desperately wish to know what to do and how to do it; creativity and self-control are the bane of easy action. And although I resented this pull then, I can see it now. I can see it in my inability to rise from bed, in my days of ensuing isolation, in my gross uncertainty that cakes the resolutions of my new triad of narratives. And what are these three arcs that I am hoping to complete before a year has passed?
1. Transition. Go "full time" and pass in public. Establish a wardrobe that can maintain me through weeks and seasons. Establish a speaking voice that shall not reveal the incongruity I so seek to hide. Establish an internal and writing voice that forces out the gravelly reverberations of the male and leaves me authentic in my thoughts and words. Change my name, socially and legally. Change my pronouns internally and externally. Own my femininity. Be female. Be it in my mind, in the minds of others. Assume it from the moment I rise to the moment I sleep, and let no one be the wiser that I am the butt of a cosmic joke. In short, maintain congruence with the internal self and external expression of that self. And then take the damn thing out for a spin.
2. Graduate school. The GRE has been vanquished, leaving me with the less definite tasks to go. Establish a list of schools with professors, deadlines, requirements, and everything in between. Research professors' areas of study and, in so doing, determine my own preferences; then match. Construct a resume that belies my lack of any employment paying over minimum wage. Write a personal statement that at least compels admissions to move me to the interview stage. Solicit letters of recommendation and then thank ever so profusely. Assemble all the required materials and submit by the beginning of December (or other suitable deadlines). Wait and worry and hope. Hopefully get invited to interviews. Hopefully do as well as I have in the past interviews. Hopefully get accepted. Hopefully find assistantships to pay for the damned thing. Then go for six years!
3. Love. Yet again, by what I hope is coincidence and not some proclivity towards the depraved, I find myself in a relationship that defies convention. I suppose, to an extent, that all of my relationships will take on this quality as a result of my transition, but I think even I'm overachieving on this one. If it didn't have the trappings of the divine, the sheer illogicality and improbability of it (not to mention the rather tenuous ethicality) would force me to deny whatever sundry desires manifest and resign myself back to isolation. But if I am taking to heart this rejection of absolute logic, this embrace of the intuitively, narratively felt in complementation to the previously unchallenged primacy of "reason," then I owe it to us both to see this through. I have never felt so drawn, never felt so implicitly understood, never felt a desire to be so close, to so share in such intensity each aspect of life in a way that is thoroughly and wholeheartedly reciprocated. If my metric is concrete, such abstractions are the ravings of a rationalizing madperson. But I am in a different plane, a place of intuition and self-direction, a place that explores and tries instead of fears and stays safe in the petty superficiality of expectation. Part of me still wants to label this insanity. But the rest is completely enamored, magnetized and electrified. She makes me feel scintillatingly alive, a conflagration instead of a candle in the dark. So, this year, I'll love her, write her, talk to her each night in an ocean of more. And again I find myself waiting, a year instead of weekly. But I'll love, in all the ways I can, throughout this year. Then I'll see where my love and our damned inexplicable dynamic lead.
So, three disparate goals, distinct in their implementations and results but common in their discoveries and elaboration. On the path to those, there are a variety of intermediate goals: Learning how to be properly domestic (cooking and cleaning) not because it's feminine but because I need to know how to do it damnit; reading everything I said I'd read when I got the chance; establishing an exercise routine and somehow acquiring a non-flabby stomach; getting through some of the hordes of video games I've purchased during Steam Sales but never played; writing at least one letter a week; etc. I'll probably develop those as I go along. August's goals: Figure out insurance and don't sleep more than 8 hours a night. I think that's manageable.
That's where I'm at, in all its banality. I can feel the depression and the guilt looming, and I imagine it'll only get worse as we move towards winter. But I'm also coming to terms with my hiatus. And, thanks to goal 3, I really feel... ok. Like I'll still be important and matter and be loved even if I fail. And it helps to be loved. It truly does.
For now that my final class is done, my superfluous degree as good as inevitable, I have to turn to the more abstract tasks, the ones sans structure, sans rules, sans anything but a distant deadline that I only wish would speed this way. When teaching, I learned of the desire for structure; individuals desperately wish to know what to do and how to do it; creativity and self-control are the bane of easy action. And although I resented this pull then, I can see it now. I can see it in my inability to rise from bed, in my days of ensuing isolation, in my gross uncertainty that cakes the resolutions of my new triad of narratives. And what are these three arcs that I am hoping to complete before a year has passed?
1. Transition. Go "full time" and pass in public. Establish a wardrobe that can maintain me through weeks and seasons. Establish a speaking voice that shall not reveal the incongruity I so seek to hide. Establish an internal and writing voice that forces out the gravelly reverberations of the male and leaves me authentic in my thoughts and words. Change my name, socially and legally. Change my pronouns internally and externally. Own my femininity. Be female. Be it in my mind, in the minds of others. Assume it from the moment I rise to the moment I sleep, and let no one be the wiser that I am the butt of a cosmic joke. In short, maintain congruence with the internal self and external expression of that self. And then take the damn thing out for a spin.
2. Graduate school. The GRE has been vanquished, leaving me with the less definite tasks to go. Establish a list of schools with professors, deadlines, requirements, and everything in between. Research professors' areas of study and, in so doing, determine my own preferences; then match. Construct a resume that belies my lack of any employment paying over minimum wage. Write a personal statement that at least compels admissions to move me to the interview stage. Solicit letters of recommendation and then thank ever so profusely. Assemble all the required materials and submit by the beginning of December (or other suitable deadlines). Wait and worry and hope. Hopefully get invited to interviews. Hopefully do as well as I have in the past interviews. Hopefully get accepted. Hopefully find assistantships to pay for the damned thing. Then go for six years!
3. Love. Yet again, by what I hope is coincidence and not some proclivity towards the depraved, I find myself in a relationship that defies convention. I suppose, to an extent, that all of my relationships will take on this quality as a result of my transition, but I think even I'm overachieving on this one. If it didn't have the trappings of the divine, the sheer illogicality and improbability of it (not to mention the rather tenuous ethicality) would force me to deny whatever sundry desires manifest and resign myself back to isolation. But if I am taking to heart this rejection of absolute logic, this embrace of the intuitively, narratively felt in complementation to the previously unchallenged primacy of "reason," then I owe it to us both to see this through. I have never felt so drawn, never felt so implicitly understood, never felt a desire to be so close, to so share in such intensity each aspect of life in a way that is thoroughly and wholeheartedly reciprocated. If my metric is concrete, such abstractions are the ravings of a rationalizing madperson. But I am in a different plane, a place of intuition and self-direction, a place that explores and tries instead of fears and stays safe in the petty superficiality of expectation. Part of me still wants to label this insanity. But the rest is completely enamored, magnetized and electrified. She makes me feel scintillatingly alive, a conflagration instead of a candle in the dark. So, this year, I'll love her, write her, talk to her each night in an ocean of more. And again I find myself waiting, a year instead of weekly. But I'll love, in all the ways I can, throughout this year. Then I'll see where my love and our damned inexplicable dynamic lead.
So, three disparate goals, distinct in their implementations and results but common in their discoveries and elaboration. On the path to those, there are a variety of intermediate goals: Learning how to be properly domestic (cooking and cleaning) not because it's feminine but because I need to know how to do it damnit; reading everything I said I'd read when I got the chance; establishing an exercise routine and somehow acquiring a non-flabby stomach; getting through some of the hordes of video games I've purchased during Steam Sales but never played; writing at least one letter a week; etc. I'll probably develop those as I go along. August's goals: Figure out insurance and don't sleep more than 8 hours a night. I think that's manageable.
That's where I'm at, in all its banality. I can feel the depression and the guilt looming, and I imagine it'll only get worse as we move towards winter. But I'm also coming to terms with my hiatus. And, thanks to goal 3, I really feel... ok. Like I'll still be important and matter and be loved even if I fail. And it helps to be loved. It truly does.
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