Today I’m going to write about something that was,
perhaps, inevitable.
About a month ago, I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen
in at least fifteen years, or about five years before I started my
transition. We used to teach at the same
college; in those days, this person was an adjunct instructor who was working
on a PhD. For a brief time, we shared an
office; after that, our offices faced each other but we didn’t see each other
much, as we were on different schedules.
I met this instructor at a workshop that was held on
another campus of the university system in which both of us teach. This former colleague of mine is still at the
same campus in which we worked together so long ago (or so it seems). Since we last met, the now-professor finished
a PhD, got tenure and is now director of the college’s Writing Center.
Someone with whom I now work introduced us. I didn’t need it, as the now-director of the
Writing Center looks like pretty much the same as in those days, just a bit
older. Besides, this person has some
physical characteristics that time could not have altered, and an accent only
slightly diminished.
But—need I say this?—I’ve changed a bit since
then. I think I still had a full beard
the last time I saw this instructor before last month. Hormones and age have altered my face and
body at least somewhat and, needless to say, I was dressed in a way I never
would have dressed—for work, anyway!—in those days.
“Happy to meet you,” my former co-worker said.
“The pleasure is mine.”
It was, really: this person seemed calmer than—and as gracious
as—I recalled. Still, an unease tinged
my pleasure: Did this person with whom I
once shared an office, and a lunch or two, not realize who I was?
On one hand, that was what I hoped. Meeting me as Justine, and not recalling me
as Nick, means that, in at least one way, my transition was as complete as I
could have ever hoped it would be. Plus,
it would also mean that my onetime work-mate had forgotten some times when,
frankly, I was an asshole.
On another hand, I felt a sadness that came back a few
times over the next few days. I wasn’t
thinking about some relationship I could have had with this former
colleague: We were co-workers who were
cordial and sometimes friendly to each other—which, I guess, is how such
relationships should be. I had no
romantic feelings or sexual attraction and, as far as I could tell, this person
didn’t have such longings for me.
Rather, seeing someone from my past who, apparently,
only saw me in the present got me to thinking and gave me some flashbacks. I couldn’t help but to wonder what it would
have been like to have lived as Justine then, or before. Perhaps I wouldn’t have worked at that
college or, for that matter, in any college.
Would I have been one of those young women who were among the first in
their offices, boardrooms, courtrooms or other workplaces, as many—who were
around my own age—were in my youth?
Would I have become the writer, the artist, I had wanted—and still want—to
be?
Or would I have been some guy’s wife and the mother of
his kids (some of them, anyway)? If so,
what kind of man would he have been? Or
would I have run off, by myself or with another, to live or work in some
“womyn’s” collective?
Given the kind of person I—and the way the world—was,
perhaps things wouldn’t have been that good.
Perhaps I would have spent some years walking the street where I would
die. Then again, I could just as easily
have died on that same street—or some other—at someone else’s hands, or from
bottles or needles.
For all I know, I might have been the colleague of that
person I bumped into last month. And we
still might be working together in that same place, and I might be a
professor—or have another position and title.
Of course, we never can know what kind of person we
might have been. But seeing someone I
hadn’t seen in a long time got me to thinking about it. What if
she had recognized me? What if she did?
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