The Double Entendre
Boxes. Having to live a life in one is a personal dilemma. Having others exclude you from their world because you don't fit in theirs is yet another. That latter realm is not something I had even considered as I first started to explore who I was. To me, there was a great sense of freedom in being able to finally accept who I am and to begin to come to break down the barriers of my own personal box which I had confined myself to live my life within.
My own box was the life I created and lived for others. When you looked at my box, you saw a person who seemed, at first appearance visually, to be a man, but always had a little something odd about him that one couldn't put their finger on. Women found me to be a sensitive person and not like other men they had come to know. Gay males saw something in me that suggested I might be a potential catch, but alas, I am not interested in men in that way. Women tended, for the most part, to like me as a friend, but I didn't have the physique, the build, the attitudes and the social aspects of a man they would be attracted to in a relationship. I played the part as best I could, but not so convincingly that an eyebrow would not be raised by men and women alike as they came to know me. I was always just a little bit different. I was always considered just a bit off from the normative realm of being male.
I broke out of my box when I began to live at least a part of my life as female and realized that how I interacted with the world and socialized was as that of a woman. To accept that in myself took a long time as I continued to fight back inside. I reasoned that my presentation as a woman was just that.... a presentation and nothing more. I believed that the woman I manifested was but a creation and a caricature of a real woman and that, as a male, I was really the more comfortable and natural.
But I began to see how wrong I was. For, as I was able to get out more and express and live my life as a woman, I began to realize how natural it was in my being as one. I was out and interacting in the world with both men and with women who did not know or realize my past. They saw me as a woman and they treated me as such in the greater world In return, I found it natural on my part to simply just be myself without pretense or forced thought. And I began to realize more and more, in perspective from being so comfortable in that life, how much my entire life as male had been one created to satisfy others who wished me to be who they saw me as.
When I speak of satisfying others, I speak of my parents, my friends, my school mates and work mates and the whole life I built up playing who I was. It was always uncomfortable and no one ever saw the panic attacks. No one saw the nervousness I held within, or the tension or the lack of comfortability, because I played this role to their expectations and the audience was satisfied with my theater performance. They did not see the actor behind the stage; the actor whose life was an emotional train wreck. If they saw hints of my pain, they quickly shrugged it off as something else and I, myself, simply tried to hide it under the proverbial rug and to pretend that all in my life was alright. In reality, my life sucked. It was draining. It was, at times, suicidal, It became a task to achieve to make it through another day. It was those motions I went through every day to meet goals and achievements... putting everyone else ahead of myself and even then, "myself" was not even who I felt comfortable as.
That was MY box. The personal hell of a box I created and lived in and which others could not see into. They saw the wrapping on the box and the bow outside but they did not see the person inside. I hid that.
As I began to allow myself to be the person I am, I freed myself slowly from that box for others to truly see who I am. My spouse likes the person I truly am much more than the person I played. He was often very angry and upset with the world and insensitive to others because he was not happy with himself. For how can someone be positive towards others when they are not happy with themselves?
And as I freed myself from my box, I began to realize that I was being placed within other boxes not of my own, but by others. Having lived a huge portion of my life with others having known me as male meant that others who knew me as male either could not be a part of my life going forward. Their boxes had their own exclusionary reasons for me not being able to be a part of their world. Sometimes the reasons were personal and sometimes they were reasons beyond their own personal acceptance. There are those who could accept me so long as they never had to see me and could deal with a phone call but nothing more tangible.
My sister told me she could accept me for who I am. She had seen pictures of me and we spoke on the phone a lot as well. Before I came out to her, she had invited my spouse and I to stay with her at her home. After I came out, she changed that offer to one where she would be willing to put me up in a nice hotel downtown. She would say it would be nice to get together but then would come to the very town I was in and never once call to meet. My sister's nephew told me that she really did have a problem with me being transgender and even more so with the image of shame of having to explain to others and her friends and family that I was "different". I was excluded from her box.
My sister's nephew said he, however, was fine with who I was. We talked on the phone. I shared pictures. and promises to get together. A year later and we have still never gotten together. My sister later told me in a phone conversation, that he is really NOT OK with who I am and can't deal with me being transgender. My sister and my sister's nephew both claim to be fine with me but each points the finger at the other as being non-accepting. Another box I am excluded from.
I have friends as well who are transgender. In many cases, they are not out about themselves to their family and friends. Although my transgender friends accept me for who I am, they oft cannot allow me into certain realms of their lives because if their friends or family saw me, it could cause suspicion for them as others ask why they are hanging out with me. As a result, it could t out them in the process and it becomes for me, by proxy another box in life I am excluded from.
I don't really concern myself these days as to who wants me to be in their lives or not or in what aspects they are willing or are able to share. If there are conditions, then so be it. I will respect their wishes and realize that being who I am comes with both direct and indirect stigmas attached. In the cases of my friends and others, I understand that they may be alright with who I am but that they may be worried that through association with me, others might realize or perceive something in them which they are not ready or able to handle within themselves. Fear of their own friends, family and acquaintances reactions and the possible losses they may endure as a possible effect of knowing me becomes, itself, a chain effect...... and so I am excluded. So be it. I have learned however, to be proud of who I am and to not take it personally any longer..
It is a testament to their own weaknesses, prejudices or fears of what my acquaintance with them would have for their public image would do to their world. To me, that is still a conditional which is enabled through shame fear, prejudice or in some other condition which makes me only a person who can be an isolated part of another's life. These are relationships built upon the self-preservation and not an acceptance in sum of the whole of who I am. If I am not someone who is worth being loved and being seen with for who I am as a person because of the image perceived either by them or by others, then I am not someone who wishes to be a part of their life either. I do not wish to play my life as a game where others set the rules of who I am. I do not wish to be excluded simply because others do not have the fortitude to take a stand and to say...."This is my friend; this is my brother, now sister; This is my uncle, now aunt..... and I am PROUD that they are strong enough to be who they wish to be in life and I love the person simply for who he or she is".
A double entendre is defined as "An ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation". Likewise, I do not wish to live my life with such ambiguity that I am perceived in a way different from who I am inside. I do not wish to any longer live a life which is, in itself, a double entendre....
There is something to be said to dropping out of this world as my former self and re-emerging as a woman somewhere else. A woman with all her records changed and simply living life without any of the baggage which being transgender brings about. It is something I would do if my spouse wished to have a full time Christen, but it is not in the cards for now. My spouse's happiness is realized in the sum total of the two aspects of the whole of the person I am and not in either the male or the female singularly. And it is for her that I maintain this delicate balance. In the process, however of my attempts to maintain this precious and precarious balance, I live a life in two worlds and..... there are many who cannot love and accept me as the whole of the person I am for it.
In conclusion, it doesn't matter in the end, as they who would not accept me are not the reason I wake up every morning to face a new day. That pleasure is mine to behold in the smile on the face of my spouse each morning for the gift I give in this way to her - of being the sum total of the person I am. For everyone else who does not wish to allow me to be a part of their lives, it is their loss and not mine. I will move on and I will live my life. There ARE those for who my life on this planet makes a positive difference in their own, and it is solely for them, the ones I call my friends, who join me in celebrating who I am and what I do to make this world just a little bit better for us all.
I am fortunate to know so many who accept me for who I am, who allow me unconditionally to be a part of their lives, and to you who are.... I am so very blessed! Hugs to you all who are, and thank you!
My own box was the life I created and lived for others. When you looked at my box, you saw a person who seemed, at first appearance visually, to be a man, but always had a little something odd about him that one couldn't put their finger on. Women found me to be a sensitive person and not like other men they had come to know. Gay males saw something in me that suggested I might be a potential catch, but alas, I am not interested in men in that way. Women tended, for the most part, to like me as a friend, but I didn't have the physique, the build, the attitudes and the social aspects of a man they would be attracted to in a relationship. I played the part as best I could, but not so convincingly that an eyebrow would not be raised by men and women alike as they came to know me. I was always just a little bit different. I was always considered just a bit off from the normative realm of being male.
I broke out of my box when I began to live at least a part of my life as female and realized that how I interacted with the world and socialized was as that of a woman. To accept that in myself took a long time as I continued to fight back inside. I reasoned that my presentation as a woman was just that.... a presentation and nothing more. I believed that the woman I manifested was but a creation and a caricature of a real woman and that, as a male, I was really the more comfortable and natural.
But I began to see how wrong I was. For, as I was able to get out more and express and live my life as a woman, I began to realize how natural it was in my being as one. I was out and interacting in the world with both men and with women who did not know or realize my past. They saw me as a woman and they treated me as such in the greater world In return, I found it natural on my part to simply just be myself without pretense or forced thought. And I began to realize more and more, in perspective from being so comfortable in that life, how much my entire life as male had been one created to satisfy others who wished me to be who they saw me as.
When I speak of satisfying others, I speak of my parents, my friends, my school mates and work mates and the whole life I built up playing who I was. It was always uncomfortable and no one ever saw the panic attacks. No one saw the nervousness I held within, or the tension or the lack of comfortability, because I played this role to their expectations and the audience was satisfied with my theater performance. They did not see the actor behind the stage; the actor whose life was an emotional train wreck. If they saw hints of my pain, they quickly shrugged it off as something else and I, myself, simply tried to hide it under the proverbial rug and to pretend that all in my life was alright. In reality, my life sucked. It was draining. It was, at times, suicidal, It became a task to achieve to make it through another day. It was those motions I went through every day to meet goals and achievements... putting everyone else ahead of myself and even then, "myself" was not even who I felt comfortable as.
That was MY box. The personal hell of a box I created and lived in and which others could not see into. They saw the wrapping on the box and the bow outside but they did not see the person inside. I hid that.
As I began to allow myself to be the person I am, I freed myself slowly from that box for others to truly see who I am. My spouse likes the person I truly am much more than the person I played. He was often very angry and upset with the world and insensitive to others because he was not happy with himself. For how can someone be positive towards others when they are not happy with themselves?
And as I freed myself from my box, I began to realize that I was being placed within other boxes not of my own, but by others. Having lived a huge portion of my life with others having known me as male meant that others who knew me as male either could not be a part of my life going forward. Their boxes had their own exclusionary reasons for me not being able to be a part of their world. Sometimes the reasons were personal and sometimes they were reasons beyond their own personal acceptance. There are those who could accept me so long as they never had to see me and could deal with a phone call but nothing more tangible.
My sister told me she could accept me for who I am. She had seen pictures of me and we spoke on the phone a lot as well. Before I came out to her, she had invited my spouse and I to stay with her at her home. After I came out, she changed that offer to one where she would be willing to put me up in a nice hotel downtown. She would say it would be nice to get together but then would come to the very town I was in and never once call to meet. My sister's nephew told me that she really did have a problem with me being transgender and even more so with the image of shame of having to explain to others and her friends and family that I was "different". I was excluded from her box.
My sister's nephew said he, however, was fine with who I was. We talked on the phone. I shared pictures. and promises to get together. A year later and we have still never gotten together. My sister later told me in a phone conversation, that he is really NOT OK with who I am and can't deal with me being transgender. My sister and my sister's nephew both claim to be fine with me but each points the finger at the other as being non-accepting. Another box I am excluded from.
I have friends as well who are transgender. In many cases, they are not out about themselves to their family and friends. Although my transgender friends accept me for who I am, they oft cannot allow me into certain realms of their lives because if their friends or family saw me, it could cause suspicion for them as others ask why they are hanging out with me. As a result, it could t out them in the process and it becomes for me, by proxy another box in life I am excluded from.
I don't really concern myself these days as to who wants me to be in their lives or not or in what aspects they are willing or are able to share. If there are conditions, then so be it. I will respect their wishes and realize that being who I am comes with both direct and indirect stigmas attached. In the cases of my friends and others, I understand that they may be alright with who I am but that they may be worried that through association with me, others might realize or perceive something in them which they are not ready or able to handle within themselves. Fear of their own friends, family and acquaintances reactions and the possible losses they may endure as a possible effect of knowing me becomes, itself, a chain effect...... and so I am excluded. So be it. I have learned however, to be proud of who I am and to not take it personally any longer..
It is a testament to their own weaknesses, prejudices or fears of what my acquaintance with them would have for their public image would do to their world. To me, that is still a conditional which is enabled through shame fear, prejudice or in some other condition which makes me only a person who can be an isolated part of another's life. These are relationships built upon the self-preservation and not an acceptance in sum of the whole of who I am. If I am not someone who is worth being loved and being seen with for who I am as a person because of the image perceived either by them or by others, then I am not someone who wishes to be a part of their life either. I do not wish to play my life as a game where others set the rules of who I am. I do not wish to be excluded simply because others do not have the fortitude to take a stand and to say...."This is my friend; this is my brother, now sister; This is my uncle, now aunt..... and I am PROUD that they are strong enough to be who they wish to be in life and I love the person simply for who he or she is".
A double entendre is defined as "An ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation". Likewise, I do not wish to live my life with such ambiguity that I am perceived in a way different from who I am inside. I do not wish to any longer live a life which is, in itself, a double entendre....
There is something to be said to dropping out of this world as my former self and re-emerging as a woman somewhere else. A woman with all her records changed and simply living life without any of the baggage which being transgender brings about. It is something I would do if my spouse wished to have a full time Christen, but it is not in the cards for now. My spouse's happiness is realized in the sum total of the two aspects of the whole of the person I am and not in either the male or the female singularly. And it is for her that I maintain this delicate balance. In the process, however of my attempts to maintain this precious and precarious balance, I live a life in two worlds and..... there are many who cannot love and accept me as the whole of the person I am for it.
In conclusion, it doesn't matter in the end, as they who would not accept me are not the reason I wake up every morning to face a new day. That pleasure is mine to behold in the smile on the face of my spouse each morning for the gift I give in this way to her - of being the sum total of the person I am. For everyone else who does not wish to allow me to be a part of their lives, it is their loss and not mine. I will move on and I will live my life. There ARE those for who my life on this planet makes a positive difference in their own, and it is solely for them, the ones I call my friends, who join me in celebrating who I am and what I do to make this world just a little bit better for us all.
I am fortunate to know so many who accept me for who I am, who allow me unconditionally to be a part of their lives, and to you who are.... I am so very blessed! Hugs to you all who are, and thank you!
You wrote:" When you looked at my box, you saw a person who seemed, at first appearance visually, to be a man, but always had a little something odd about him that one couldn't put their finger on. Women found me to be a sensitive person and not like other men they had come to know. Gay males saw something in me that suggested I might be a potential catch, but alas, I am not interested in men in that way. Women tended, for the most part, to like me as a friend, but I didn't have the physique, the build, the attitudes and the social aspects of a man they would be attracted to in a relationship. I played the part as best I could, but not so convincingly that an eyebrow would not be raised by men and women alike as they came to know me. I was always just a little bit different. I was always considered just a bit off from the normative realm of being male."
ReplyDeleteYou just described my entire dating life absolutely perfectly.
Funny that.
Another brilliant piece!
The second you break out of one box you fall straight into another yet more criticized one. Minus well choose one that's nice and cozy.
ReplyDelete"My own box was the life I created and lived for others. "
ReplyDeleteI used to describe my old life as a prison cell. As I lay there on my bunk the internal conflict and pain was ever increasing. Finally one day, when I couldn't stand it any longer, I stood up to rattle the cell door and scream for justice. When I did so I found the door unlocked. That is the day I realized it was my own fear that kept me imprisoned. I have never looked back since. The lesson learned is never be afraid to be who you are.
Breaking out of the boxes we create for ourselves ( which we do for all the reasons you mention and more), and fighting against being put in the boxes others would create for us, is an tiring and often long-term task. Some weaken in the process, and strengthen, and weaken again.
ReplyDeleteI found that my own struggle is very exhausting at times. I have also found friends and family who, in moments when I am weak, lift and strengthen me. And this is not the reason I love them, because this works in reverse. It is *because* I love them and they love me, that they can strengthen me.
Here's to the elimination of all boxes! <3
i often say that the prison bars we create ourselves are much harder than any real brick and mortar prison to get out of.
ReplyDeletei had an aunt that passed on at 93 but had given up on life at 89 and created her own prison with in one room in her house. it to took 3 years of convincing to get her to even consider sleeping in a bed and not in the same chair she spent most of her time in. this was her choice and when i truly realized what i said in the beginning about creating our own mental prisons.
as far as being transgendered ... in the words of a dear GG friend " you are who you are with in being transgendered doesn't make one nice and it doesn't make one mean we are who we are"
i have found as i have come out to my family , neighbors and almost all my friends no one seems to care.
so i can say i have been truly blessed and lucky to live within this group of people and in this area on the planet to have this much acceptance.
but maybe it is also the era. in the last 5 years it has become more socially acceptable to just "be one's self"