It's going fast, a lot faster then I had thought it would. I thought I'd transition slowly from male to female. Take my time and give everyone a chance to recover from the shock. Just a few months ago that's how I thought it'd work out. I was wrong, very wrong. This path is not a slow steady climb to the top of a mountain. It's a jump out of a plane. You're either in the plane, or you're falling out of it fast. There is no in between.
You're either a female or you're a male. There is nothing in between. I misjudged this. Not only did I misjudge the speed of the transition, I misjudged how people would react to the news. I'm finding that once they know the truth they try hard. Everyone tries hard to help, to get to know the real me. They try hard to become comfortable. They try hard to make me comfortable.
I'm sure it's all new to them. I know each and every one of them are confused in some way, in every way, about this path. For as long as I've been on it, I'm confused, I'm lost. How can it be easier for them? How could they possibly know the right thing to do, the right thing to say? How could they know what to do and when to do it? To fight the urge to say Rick, him, and his. To not do a double take when Dana walks in and not Rick. Or worse, to have Dana walk in around their coworkers, friends and family.
And yet, I'm confused too. How do I make them comfortable? How can I possibly tell them how much their love and compassion means to me? I'm at once extremely grateful for all they are trying to give me and yet embarrassed that I'm putting them through this.
I'm confused as to how to ease their concerns. How could I possibly ever repay any of them for the effort they give me. I doubt any of them will every ask anything of me even approaching the magnitude of all this.
Before I started I thought the way around this was to walk slowly. To ease my friends into this slowly, to give them time to come to terms with all of it. Yet, that's not how it works. They don't want to see me slowly transition, it's a binary to them. Male or Female, pick one, but only one and exactly one.
People only see one gender, you must be a female or a male, and you can only be one. I started this post by commenting on how fast everything was going. Just a few weeks ago Dana's world was limited to K and M and a few good friends. Dana was alive for a week or two a month. To be Dana was thrilling, a novelity, a glimpse of the future. Now she's here. I'm 'she' and people refer to me as her, and I stand back amazed, smiling like a kid wearing his first dress. The glimpse of the future is replaced by the reality of now. Rick yearned for Dana, strived to be Dana, practiced being Dana for years. Dana has no such desire, she's happy with Dana, and happy to put Rick behind her.
Now Rick is here for only a few days a month. Soon, he'll be gone. I can't even begin to put into words how this could be. How can the one you've been for 50 years be gone? How can he just stop being? How is he just replaced by Dana, so easily and quickly M is still grieving for Rick. I know this. I know her pain of having Rick gone is far worse then the joy of having Dana. I only hope that she grows to love Dana as she has loved Rick all of these years. Rick was a good husband, a good lover and a good friend, but he was fatally flawed. He was perpetually tortured, never sure of who to be.
I hope I can be all that Rick was and be just one, Dana.
