"Life Has to be a Random Walk"
A friend today, related a story to me which brought me to my own thoughts of how I seem to deal with life. It's a bit of a story that I feel we all can relate to and, as naturally as we are all different and unique, how we handle the hand of cards that life deals unto us
In this story, (and it is a true story and it is NOT of me), we have two people we shall name A and B, both of whom are successful individuals so far as standards of what most would call "successful". Such attributes as a good job, the necessities of life, good relationships and family and a means to support oneself and others who depend upon them comfortably are the attributes generally of which I am speaking. In short, the phrase, "Having and Living the American Dream" comes to mind in a very general sense.
Now as it turns out in our story, A has been given a prognosis of a medical condition which could be potentially terminal. Interestingly, A has found and maintains an upbeat and positive attitude going forward into this potentiality of possible death. Person B, who also has a comfortable means of life does not. Although person B does not face a potential prognosis of death, they find themselves trapped in a realm which makes their daily existence a sentence they live and repeat each and every day of their life. It is, for them, the state in which they try to maintain the world they had and the world they know they belong in.
You see, person B is trapped between male and female, in a semi-transitioned state. They are attempting to live up to the expectations and the vows taken of the marriage they share with their spouse.....yet are tormented by the inability to live in the world, socialize in the world and play the part to the world that they were born into as biologically male. A person outside of this sphere who would not understand what quandary this is might call this pathetic.... that they should suck it all up.... that they had lived for this long as the person they were born as.....why not just finish the journey off as the same?
But no....Person B never was that person to begin with. They just played the part the way the part was expected to be played. For most who are not transgender, it is not a role, it is just who they are. For those who are transgender, it is an acting role that is assumed from an early age.... to play a part they never really fit into. Trust that a child will do whatever they need to in order to try to fit in. Unfortunately, this does not always align with the true nature of the person, but it is safe. And when the tower we build begins to see holes forming within, the structure weakens as we allow more and more of the true nature of who we are out...until one day.....one day there are just too many holes and the structure of the facade we lived as crumbles.......and it takes with it when it does our relationships and our lives as we knew them.
Friends, Family, Spouses....who cannot understand or deal with this seemingly, out of the blue, sudden change and shift. They often ask.... "Why are you doing this to me??? Why did you ruin the world we had? What will my friends think? How is it that you can allow yourself to do this to me????"
And it is not that we do because we wish to explore our true gender. It is not dress-up and play time. It is not to hurt others around us. It is because we have come to the end of our road and an end of the ability to pretend for the rest of what remains of our lives. It is the innate desire for a transgender person, just as it is for all people, to wish to be truthful and especially so to our own sense of being and in our lives. It is the need for each of us as human beings to be able to live our lives as we know who we are in our souls. And it is this that makes person B's seemingly comfortable and healthy life suddenly pale in comparison to Person A who has a settled life and family and friends and wealth and who is comfortable with their own sense of being but has been diagnosed with a potentially terminal disease. Yet Person B is the one who must live a lie each day in being transgender and in being unable to fulfill and realize who they are. There is a feeling in living life as a lie that is almost as difficult a torment as anything one could imagine.
The term, "Life has to be a random walk" was related and to me, it struck a chord.... perhaps one that does not just only resonate within me, but perhaps as well within many others who may be able to relate. I certainly like to hope that I am not alone in how I feel.... how I perceive life. Truly, I am very happy and very fortunate for all of the things I do have in my life and for what I have been able to make of it. But I think and feel that there is something much more to all of this, and to why I oft feel the way I do. This may be a bit difficult to explain, but I'll give it a try....
I can completely relate to the adage of "Life has to be a random walk". I've actually found my largest frustration personally to be in trying to create a plan in life and to follow it. Little known fact but I recall that in 5th grade I wrote up a list of everything I wanted to accomplish in life and to attain. Interestingly, and with only minor tweaks here and there, I got to that point of completing all the check boxes just shortly before I had a complete nervous breakdown. The breakdown was associable directly to my having completed all the checkboxes, house, car, stuff, savings, investments, marriage..... but.... realizing that not being ME was the underlying problem and likely a goodly part of the force which substantiated my drive to achieve in the hopes subliminally that it would all just work out. In the meantime, I was watching so much out of my control beginning to materialize around me with family getting sick and passing away. How is it that some can find happiness amongst a bed of thorns whilst I couldn't find happiness within the very expansive realms, relativistically speaking as compared to many? I think I've come to realize that there is a lot out of my control and that there are some things that may not be, at least as perceivable by my myopic vision perhaps.
My own largest culprit appears to be that I can't accept that which I seem to have little control of and that I can't make logical sense of some major aspects within my own life that others would not even consider to try to make sense of..... but for myself, I still continue to require that.
Sometimes, and maybe this extends outward to all those reading, that perhaps my own discomfort lies within the fact that I am all too sentient, too aware, of everything and everyone around me.....that I see the world in ways many do not, with a sort of semi-detached and seemingly omniscient perspective. It seems too that I need to have a sense of control over the direction in my life, even though I know deep down that it is foolhardy to think we have much of any. It is my own sense of inability to fully realize who I am without destroying so much around me. Truth be told that much life is found anew within the embers of a burned out forest, yet the loss is still there amongst the renewal. It is bittersweet to be certain.
I am aware that I have a IQ that is apparently very well above the median average. I certainly don't feel like I do, and in most times, I feel like I am running blind and well behind the curve of most. At the very least, I feel I am always thinking and planning and trying to solve everything in life rather than taking anything as rote and as verbatim and just simply accepting it. Truly, I find there is a quieting of the mind when I am out with friends enjoying a glass or two of wine....something that only distraction, a bit of alcoholic inebriation and an tangentially obtuse and obnoxious sense of humor and wit, which I oft employ a a tool, which seems to help me deal with and quiet an overactive, over-thinking, over-analyzing and oft too aware mind.
Perhaps, one day I may find that peace of mind even still within the turbulent and chaotic sea of life. Maybe I never will. But one thing is most assuredly certain..... I have seen this world, I have interacted within this world, I have been accepted in this world without question.... as a woman.... and in years prior seen as a man. I have perspectives and stories which men could never see without living as a woman, and I have perspectives and enlightenment as only someone who has lived in the male world could have playing the part of a male. But in all of this, I still truly know now, as I have felt since the day I could first remember as a very, very young child, that I have a place in the universe as the woman I always have been inside. it is something withing my heart and forever within my soul. while there exists this urgency and the necessity to live my life truly as who I am, and until that day can come, there can be no "random walk" for me, and ultimately no rest for my soul.
From the 1956 sci-fi movie, "Forbidden Planet", Morbius faces his subconscious self coming for him as it melts through steel to reach him. A famous line, one word modified makes the caption below pertinent in my own life's journey....
In this story, (and it is a true story and it is NOT of me), we have two people we shall name A and B, both of whom are successful individuals so far as standards of what most would call "successful". Such attributes as a good job, the necessities of life, good relationships and family and a means to support oneself and others who depend upon them comfortably are the attributes generally of which I am speaking. In short, the phrase, "Having and Living the American Dream" comes to mind in a very general sense.
Now as it turns out in our story, A has been given a prognosis of a medical condition which could be potentially terminal. Interestingly, A has found and maintains an upbeat and positive attitude going forward into this potentiality of possible death. Person B, who also has a comfortable means of life does not. Although person B does not face a potential prognosis of death, they find themselves trapped in a realm which makes their daily existence a sentence they live and repeat each and every day of their life. It is, for them, the state in which they try to maintain the world they had and the world they know they belong in.
You see, person B is trapped between male and female, in a semi-transitioned state. They are attempting to live up to the expectations and the vows taken of the marriage they share with their spouse.....yet are tormented by the inability to live in the world, socialize in the world and play the part to the world that they were born into as biologically male. A person outside of this sphere who would not understand what quandary this is might call this pathetic.... that they should suck it all up.... that they had lived for this long as the person they were born as.....why not just finish the journey off as the same?
But no....Person B never was that person to begin with. They just played the part the way the part was expected to be played. For most who are not transgender, it is not a role, it is just who they are. For those who are transgender, it is an acting role that is assumed from an early age.... to play a part they never really fit into. Trust that a child will do whatever they need to in order to try to fit in. Unfortunately, this does not always align with the true nature of the person, but it is safe. And when the tower we build begins to see holes forming within, the structure weakens as we allow more and more of the true nature of who we are out...until one day.....one day there are just too many holes and the structure of the facade we lived as crumbles.......and it takes with it when it does our relationships and our lives as we knew them.
Friends, Family, Spouses....who cannot understand or deal with this seemingly, out of the blue, sudden change and shift. They often ask.... "Why are you doing this to me??? Why did you ruin the world we had? What will my friends think? How is it that you can allow yourself to do this to me????"
And it is not that we do because we wish to explore our true gender. It is not dress-up and play time. It is not to hurt others around us. It is because we have come to the end of our road and an end of the ability to pretend for the rest of what remains of our lives. It is the innate desire for a transgender person, just as it is for all people, to wish to be truthful and especially so to our own sense of being and in our lives. It is the need for each of us as human beings to be able to live our lives as we know who we are in our souls. And it is this that makes person B's seemingly comfortable and healthy life suddenly pale in comparison to Person A who has a settled life and family and friends and wealth and who is comfortable with their own sense of being but has been diagnosed with a potentially terminal disease. Yet Person B is the one who must live a lie each day in being transgender and in being unable to fulfill and realize who they are. There is a feeling in living life as a lie that is almost as difficult a torment as anything one could imagine.
The term, "Life has to be a random walk" was related and to me, it struck a chord.... perhaps one that does not just only resonate within me, but perhaps as well within many others who may be able to relate. I certainly like to hope that I am not alone in how I feel.... how I perceive life. Truly, I am very happy and very fortunate for all of the things I do have in my life and for what I have been able to make of it. But I think and feel that there is something much more to all of this, and to why I oft feel the way I do. This may be a bit difficult to explain, but I'll give it a try....
I can completely relate to the adage of "Life has to be a random walk". I've actually found my largest frustration personally to be in trying to create a plan in life and to follow it. Little known fact but I recall that in 5th grade I wrote up a list of everything I wanted to accomplish in life and to attain. Interestingly, and with only minor tweaks here and there, I got to that point of completing all the check boxes just shortly before I had a complete nervous breakdown. The breakdown was associable directly to my having completed all the checkboxes, house, car, stuff, savings, investments, marriage..... but.... realizing that not being ME was the underlying problem and likely a goodly part of the force which substantiated my drive to achieve in the hopes subliminally that it would all just work out. In the meantime, I was watching so much out of my control beginning to materialize around me with family getting sick and passing away. How is it that some can find happiness amongst a bed of thorns whilst I couldn't find happiness within the very expansive realms, relativistically speaking as compared to many? I think I've come to realize that there is a lot out of my control and that there are some things that may not be, at least as perceivable by my myopic vision perhaps.
My own largest culprit appears to be that I can't accept that which I seem to have little control of and that I can't make logical sense of some major aspects within my own life that others would not even consider to try to make sense of..... but for myself, I still continue to require that.
Sometimes, and maybe this extends outward to all those reading, that perhaps my own discomfort lies within the fact that I am all too sentient, too aware, of everything and everyone around me.....that I see the world in ways many do not, with a sort of semi-detached and seemingly omniscient perspective. It seems too that I need to have a sense of control over the direction in my life, even though I know deep down that it is foolhardy to think we have much of any. It is my own sense of inability to fully realize who I am without destroying so much around me. Truth be told that much life is found anew within the embers of a burned out forest, yet the loss is still there amongst the renewal. It is bittersweet to be certain.
I am aware that I have a IQ that is apparently very well above the median average. I certainly don't feel like I do, and in most times, I feel like I am running blind and well behind the curve of most. At the very least, I feel I am always thinking and planning and trying to solve everything in life rather than taking anything as rote and as verbatim and just simply accepting it. Truly, I find there is a quieting of the mind when I am out with friends enjoying a glass or two of wine....something that only distraction, a bit of alcoholic inebriation and an tangentially obtuse and obnoxious sense of humor and wit, which I oft employ a a tool, which seems to help me deal with and quiet an overactive, over-thinking, over-analyzing and oft too aware mind.
Perhaps, one day I may find that peace of mind even still within the turbulent and chaotic sea of life. Maybe I never will. But one thing is most assuredly certain..... I have seen this world, I have interacted within this world, I have been accepted in this world without question.... as a woman.... and in years prior seen as a man. I have perspectives and stories which men could never see without living as a woman, and I have perspectives and enlightenment as only someone who has lived in the male world could have playing the part of a male. But in all of this, I still truly know now, as I have felt since the day I could first remember as a very, very young child, that I have a place in the universe as the woman I always have been inside. it is something withing my heart and forever within my soul. while there exists this urgency and the necessity to live my life truly as who I am, and until that day can come, there can be no "random walk" for me, and ultimately no rest for my soul.
From the 1956 sci-fi movie, "Forbidden Planet", Morbius faces his subconscious self coming for him as it melts through steel to reach him. A famous line, one word modified makes the caption below pertinent in my own life's journey....
 |
| My female self is at that door, and I am powerless to stop it |
very powerful piece as always!
ReplyDeleteI need to see that movie! I sense my self slowly growing and emerging, day by day.
ReplyDelete