Spring Break; The Point Is...

Spring recess is about to start. I can't wait. I warned my students, especially the freshmen in my composition class, that there will be less than a month of classes when we return from this recess. And, of course, there will be only about 2-1/2 months until my surgery.

Speaking of freshmen...Yesterday it seemed as if I were having a class reunion with the ones I taught last semester. I was bumping into them everywhere I turned. I didn't mind in the least: I had some really nice students, and they know that as long as I'm there, they have someone they can talk to about school or unrelated topics.

I could tell that at least one of them has been having a rough time this semester. She had a rough time last semester, too, although she did well in my class. I'm guessing that she did well in her other classes, too. But a lot of people can't get past her appearance: She's very overweight and has a harelip.

I won't say, "But, she's a nice person" or anything like that. It happens that she is a very nice person. I also wouldn't say she's naive. She just doesn't act as if people have treated or will treat her badly: She simply doesn't have it in her to do bad things to other people, so she isn't looking for evil and wrongdoing in other people.

Sometimes I'd like to be like that. Sometimes I feel like the inverse of that: I will do what I do whether other people think it's wrong or right. And I usually do the most ethical thing I can for someone, but not because it's ethical or because I'm thinking about whether it or anything else I've done is right or wrong. Rather, I'll do the ethical thing because there just isn't anything else anymore to do.

There came a point, for me, when "right" and "wrong"--other people's notion of it, anyway--no longer mattered; I didn't have any reason or desire to continue in any other way. The point of life--one's own life, anyway--is not victory or moral certitude or approval of same from others. It's also not victory, conquest or accumulation. Rather, life is about, well, life and living it. As far as I can tell, there is no other justification for life than to live.

Ditto for my surgery. I am doing it only because I want to live and, of course, be happy. I can explain how I felt or talk about how I lived with my conflict over who I am, and that my reasons for my gender transition are spiritual. But the bottom line is that I'm doing the surgery only to allow me to live, in some fashion at least, as the person I am.

And now I am going to bed because, well, I want to sleep--for now, anyway.