It’s up to you to do the stitching

Harper: “In your experience of the world, how do people change?”
Mormon mother: “Well, it has something to do with God, so it’s not very nice.”

Today is two weeks until surgery. At this exact moment in fourteen days, I will no longer carry these weights on my chest, this heavy self-awareness that slows me down. I’m excited; but also sad. I wrote a few days ago about the pain from where I stand with my family, as well as the financial burdens of physical and legal transition. And when the weight of my chest is no longer with me, these still will be.

But I’m a Cancer rising, so I pretend like everything is fine. I was at a conference all weekend, running into professional colleagues, old professors, and even an old friend from high school – and every conversation was about how wonderful things are for me. How healthy the transition has been, how much better my life is, what support I have. All of which is absolutely true. But never do we talk about this constant ache just beneath the skin. The uncertainty; the fear; the realization of loss. We’re expected to be completely certain about every decision, particularly when they have such implications for our bodies and our families, that we don’t get to talk about our doubts.

What makes me both the most sad and the most hopeful about all of this is the knowledge that absolutely none of this is unique to transitioning. We all live this way, wrestling with unspoken ache. We’re all walking around like this. Just mangled guts, pretending.

Which means none of us are ever alone.

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