Still the same person but… only better…
Around a year ago I accepted the reality that I was indeed trans. It was the end and it was the beginning. It was the end of denial, it was the end of pretending to be something I wasn’t, it was the end of so many little things, some expected some not expected and some that blindsided and nearly did me in.
I am still the same person, though in my view, only better. I mean how can one not be better than they were when they are living a life that is in line with who they are; for the first time ever. And so it was the beginning of so many things, the beginning of a new kind of hyper vigilance — as a trauma survivor hypervigilence has been with me for much of my life, the beginning of embarrassing moments for people when they see or hear your kids refer to you as Dad, or accidentally misgender you, the beginning of a new life in a sense but really a forking in the road of the same life a fork that leads to a new authenticity. One that you’ve never known before.
New discoveries of self, discoveries of how wonderful one can feel as they put on a new frock, discovering or was it just admitting to pretending to like beer for ones whole adult life when in reality you find it utterly disgusting. So many new things, so many continuing things.
The same person, but better. Still the parent, those children are still my children that doesn’t change, and of course, I will never cease to be that person who is the parent to those children. Sure, I look somewhat different, I act different, I sure as hell dress different and yet the fact remains I remain that same person, just better, or true, more me than I’ve ever been able to be.
To describe this year as a roller coaster ride can only be an understatement of mammoth proportions. The one constant has in effect been changes and transitions. Not just in terms of claiming my true gender and learning how that fits on me as a person, but in so many ways. From being a part of a marriage relationship to separated, to seeing my children every day to seeing them just some days, to waking up to the sounds and smiles each day of those children to missing that dreadfully. From being seemingly unemployable to holding down a full time professional position in a corporate entity. From angry at the world person to calm happy embracing all life has to offer with as much enthusiasm as possible.
So many changes. So many of them terribly difficult and yet, so many of them terribly wonderful. The pain of loss tempered with the joy of being able to embrace myself as I never had been in the past. It seems like a contradiction an impossibility, but, I guess, it just is what it is.
Transitioning for me was something I couldn’t not do. It was like opening pandoras box and it couldn’t be shut. I couldn’t unknow what I had finally known with a certainty and self knowledge that I had never experienced so clearly before. Ever. In some respects, I was in a rush, but, it was a rush to get started, not a rush to have everything done and dusted. It wasn’t as if I had some idea that I could flick a switch and all was complete. But I was, I admit in a rush to get started. I was in a hurry to start what I knew was going to be a long journey. A journey that I am far from completing, and yet, I feel I am well on the way.
Last Saturday I stood before a sizeable group of people and shared some of my story. Some of how I got to where I am. As I prepared to make that presentation, I was struck that the key, the thing that made such a difference was authenticity. Whether it came to my being autistic, or being trans, or what I bring to the table in any situation, if that thing that I bring, that you bring, that you allow others to bring is authenticity then we are all the better for it.
Transition is a big part of why and how I am a happier, healthier, more resilient, self-aware, productive, lighter, or in short better person than I was, but it’s almost as though transition for all it entails has been the lit path to the true key and that’s authenticity. It is in a sense a what comes first dilemna, like the chicken or the egg. The authenticity has depended on transition to be truly authentic, and at the same time it was only in accepting and stepping into my authentic true self that authenticity could be discovered.
So as I sit here typing words as a 47 year old autistic trans woman it’s almost impossible to wonder and think how things could have been different, how if only I had discovered my true self, or more correctly been allowed to be my true self rather than repressing it as a child what might have been. And that’s all well and good, but it’s not reality. The reality is the reality I live, not the reality I wished for. It’s in accepting that little nugget of truth that I am enabled to actually be authentic, to be the better be I believe I am now than I was a year ago, and the better me I believe I will be in another year ago.
That wished for, dreamed of, imagined reality is anything but reality. In a sense it’s better that way. I can’t imagine the loss of never having been able to be a parent to my three beautiful daughters, the imagination of a reality where those three wonderful humans never came to be, that is in itself perhaps the most dreadful nightmare of a reality that could ever be imagined.
What is, is what is, in order to be the better me, to keep being the better me, I must continue to accept what is, journey within that reality, discover myself in that reality and live that reality as the most me that me can be.
There is a key to life, and I believe that key is authenticity, or in other words simply being the truest me that I can be.
Embrace authenticity and be the better version of you.
