Starting Off Well-Rested

Well-rested. I guess that's a good way to start a New Year. That was the first thing Millie, John and Stephanie noticed about me today. Yes, I got to live a stress-free week, and I guess they noticed ite effects.

The rest will do me lots of good. Tomorrow, Friday, is a day off for lots of people. But it's not for me: at least, not completely. I start teaching a winter-session class, which will meet in the evenings for the next three weeks.

Starting a new class while well-rested is a good thing. And I know lots of other things will start with this year, or soon after its beginning, this beginning. I mean, the coming semester at the college will be different from the one that ended last week. And what follows will certainly be different from that.

In fact, I expect that the next few months will be very different from any other time I've lived, though I'm not exactly sure of what will change, or how that will come to pass. Then again, if I knew, it wouldn't be change, would it?

A little while ago I was talking with Mike, my brother in California. He said that people around me--including Mom, possibly, and Dad for certain--are bound to change their feelings about me, my surgery and its possible consequences as the date for it draws nearer. I had been thinking about something like that on my way home yesterday: That Mom and Dad's relative calm, and their benigness toward me, could turn into something different over the next few months. What it could become, I don't quite know yet.

From the moment I started this transition, I understood that I could not realistically expect anyone's blessing for what I wanted to do. All I could do is hope, really, that at least family members, friends and colleagues would accept, if not me or the person I would become, at least the fact that I was going, and needed, to do what I've been doing. So far, that seems to have happened, maybe to a greater degree than I'd hoped. A corollary to that realization has been that in some situations, like work, allies are more important than friends. I have always known that it would be utterly unrealistic to expect that anyone would be thrilled that someone he or she has known for years or decades is changing the most fundamental aspect of the way he or she has identified that person.

I don't know whether Mike has thought about the same things I've just mentioned, simply because he hasn't needed to. But in light of those realizations, what he said makes sense.

So lots will happen in the coming year. Good thing I'm well-rested: at least for now, anyway.