Letter, godfather

Received today in the mail from my godfather.

[Birthname]-

It doesn’t look like I’m going to get to see you in person before you undergo surgery, so I elected to send this via snail mail rather than electronic means. That way when you got it, I would have your undivided attention for a few minutes…

I’ve got a million and one questions that seem like they would help me to understand why you are taking this step. Questions like: Why would you rather look like an effeminate male rather than a masculine female and is that really more attractive to gay women? Did you do independent research on the health risks, like [his wife] did, and find out just how much long term risk you are taking? However, I realized that answers to these and other questions really won’t help me to understand, because what I am struggling with is really about a sense of loss.

You may have as hard a time understanding my sense of loss as I do of your need to make this change, but here it goes anyway. In a very real way, everyone who has known you for a long time or come to love [birthname] will have a very real feeling of mourning. Gone will be the person that we watched grow up. Someone I don’t know, calling themselves ‘Logan’ will be in [birthname]‘s place and telling me that the [birthname] I knew and loved and whose hopes and aspirations I embraced, was a lie. I don’t know how long it will take me to accept Logan. I do know that I won’t be able to connect the girl who wanted to change the world and who talked about Girl Power to this new person. It’s like a caricature where the one aspect of a person that is exaggerated in the caricature has come to life. As if your sexuality has become the one aspect that defines who you are and that everything else you ever wanted to achieve is worth trading away.

…

Regardless of what you decide, I know I will ultimately accept Logan. You need to accept that those who love you will mourn the end of [birthname], and we won’t be able to start accepting Logan until that mourning period is complete whether that takes months or years is hard to say.

Sigh. Again. Hurting people again.

I get letters like this, and other similar reactions, and can’t help but feel like I’ve failed in some way – that if I’d gone about this differently, that it might’ve been easier for people I care about. That if I’d told them sooner, or anything at all really, that maybe they wouldn’t feel so left out now, so surprised and hurt and feeling like they are obligated to give me their two cents before I “do something drastic.” And that might be true. Maybe if I’d reached out to him sooner, this would be easier for him. (God knows how many other people in my life that’s also true of.)

So much of this process seems to boil down to finding ways to stop hurting ourselves, but ways that hurt as few others and as little as possible. And we don’t get a handbook, particularly not for that second part.

So I’ll write back. Just… not yet. Not right now. I have to hurt first. Then write him. Then write a handbook.

Advertisement