Another Anniversary!

Yesterday this blog turned seven years old.

And I turned six.  That is to say, six years ago yesterday, I underwent my surgery. 

My, how time flies!

Five Years Since My Surgery

Today marks five years since my surgery--and six since I started this blog.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I have less and less to say about the surgery and my transtition.  And life as a woman has become a fact rather than a hope or dream for me.  I am still learning about it, and finding adventures (and pitfalls) I could not have anticipated.

I don't anticipate stopping this blog, though my posts may become less frequent over time.  I'll probably post more on my other blog.  Plus, I have other projects I want--and feel I must do. They involve writing, and other things.

But, as a famous Austrian body builder-turned actor-turned Governator growled, "I'll be back!"
 

Happy Independence Day!

It's also my birthday.  And, if you've been following this blog, you know that my other "birthday" is coming up.

Enjoy the day!

Four Years In My New Life, Five For This Blog

Today this blog turns five years old.  And, on this date four years ago, I underwent my gender-reassignment surgery.

I could not have predicted what would result from either but, in hindsight, so much seems inevitable.  I have made and lost friends--also as a result of the gender transition that had been in progress for a few years when I started this blog.  

One thing I realize now is that I never lived more in--but not for--the present moment than I did when I underwent the surgery and during the weeks when I was recovering from it.  Really, there wasn't much else to think about.  Then again, what else can you think about when you're dilating and soaking three times a day?

Everything else I experienced couldn't be thought about; it could only be experienced.  Like looking at my vagina for the first time.  Or noticing the way my hair grew.  Or the ways in which people were treating me.

Up to the day I arrived in Trinidad, there were people who knew me from before my transition and continued the relationships they'd had with me.  Then there were those from my past who ended the relationships they had with me.  And then there were those who met me after I started my transition, learned of my history and decided that there was nothing wrong with it, or that they simply didn't care.

The people I met in Trinidad--I include Dr. Marci Bowers, who did my surgery; her then-partner Carol Cometto, who ran the Morning After House; the others who were there for surgery and the ones who accompanied them and the nurses and others who helped--all knew why I was there, and why they were there.  Being a trans person was a "given" for me, for the others who were having surgery and, of course, Marci herself.  We didn't have to reveal anything to each other; as Melanie sang in "Lay Down", we'd bled inside each others' wounds.

In brief, we seemed "normal" to each other.  We didn't have to explain ourselves or worry about the reactions we'd get.  There wasn't any anxiety about loss or insincerity; we might remain in touch after the surgery or we might not.  Whether or not we formed friendships over our shared experiences, there was no way we would lose them--or hear a lot of political correctness over how we have to accept people different from ourselves--as a result of our sometimes-paralell histories.

The day I got to Trinidad, I realized that someone who'd been a part of my life for several years had been talking to, and otherwise treating me, as if I were some sort of freak.  While he voiced support for my transition and having the surgery, he did things to undermine me along the way.  Deep down, I believe, he wanted me to remain a man--or, at least, not to have the surgery--so that I could "stick" him, as he put it.

Now, I don't want to generalize about all men who date pre-op trans women.  But I realize now that he was with me because--to be perfectly blunt--he didn't have the balls to love anyone for who he or she actually is.  Being with me allowed him to hide his gayness from people who didn't know about him, or about my history.  It also allowed him--in his mind, anyway--to feel superior to somebody.  Also, he knew that he could use me as his emotional punching bag because, he realized, that if I complained, a lot of people would assume that I was in the wrong, or would simply not care.

He says he was bullied on his way to and from school.  I saw him with his family; he and they bullied each other.  And, I realized, that is what he was doing to me.  Of course, his bullying would escalate after I returned from my surgery and ended our relationship.

At the time, I had a sort of premonition that our relationship wouldn't survive my surgery.  He never saw it as anything more than an alteration of parts of my body and couldn't understand why I wanted it because, well, he wanted the parts I had before the surgery.  But here's something I never told him because I never could:  The transition was, above all, a spiritual experience.  I  took hormones and had surgery to make it a bit easier to live in accord with my female spirit; I never had any illusions that it was going to make me into a bombshell or any of the other stereotypes of what women are supposed to be.  I knew that I was--as Vicki, a counselor at the Anti-Violence Project, put it--a self-made woman.  Actually, I think nearly all women are because there are so few who can teach us how to be anything but our culture's--or, simply, men's--notions of what women are supposed to be.  


The best things other women have done for me, in and since my transition and surgery, is to support me emotionally (as well as in other ways) and to welcome me into their spaces, into their lives.  I try to do the same; it's something I'm still learning, as I never had to understand in my previous life. Sometimes I get the feeling the man I'm talking about--Dominick--never will because he doesn't have to, and has had no one who can teach him.

Perhaps that is the way in which my transition and surgery changed my life.  Sometimes that change has been very complicated, but I wouldn't trade it for my previous life, or anyone else's.

I'm Three; This Blog Is Four. What's Next?

Today I am three years old.  And this blog is four.


The second sentence probably makes sense to you.  Maybe the first one doesn't.  What I mean, of course, is that I had my surgery three years ago today.

If you've been reading this blog, you've probably noticed that my posts are less frequent.  I guess there's less to talk about, at least in terms of my own gender identity and reassignment, as time goes on.  Ironically, I find that the few occasions on which I talk about those things are with certain people at work, and in other academic settings. Most people who encounter me will never see me again and, as far as they know, I'm a middle-aged woman.  Which, of course, is what I am.  On the other hand, people who have spent lots of time in school--especially if their field of study is related to gender, gender studies or feminism--have to fit me into some sub-sub-sub-category or other.  


It seems that, in academic circles, more people than I'd expected are reading this blog.  At least, that's what I've been told.  So, every once in a while, I'll bump into some professor or researcher who's not connected with any institution in which I've worked, and whom I've never before met, and he or she will say that he or she has heard about me.


But once I'm outside of an academic setting, my past hardly seems to matter at all.  I suppose that if I apply for something and a background check is done, or even if I'm merely asked whether I've ever gone by another name, I'll have to explain where and what I've been.  I suppose--or I hope, anyway--that it won't be seen as negatively as having been convicted of a felony.  Not that I would know anything about that!


I have been volunteering with a women's organization, about which I'll say more in a future post.  I told its founder and officers about my past.  Even though I hadn't expected it to be an issue for them,  I figured it would be better for them to hear it from me than someone else.  Also, I figured that if they didn't want a trans woman in their midst (which, by the way, some women's groups don't), it would be better to find out before I got involved.  But, as the founder of the organization said, somewhat wryly, "We're not the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival."


It was exactly the sort of thing I'd wanted when I started my transition.  I not only knew it was possible; it was what I expected.  So, even though I knew that there were people who were like the organizers of MWMF, there were also people like the founder of the organization.  And there are many other women who've never heard of the Festival, or simply don't care about it.  I know, because I've come to know some of them, and they have friends, sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and other women in their lives who share their feelings.  And most of them don't, or wouldn't, care about my past--or would only care about it to the extent that we like to know where and what the people in our lives have come from.  


As one of them said, it's not easy being a woman, so she has all the more respect for someone who has embraced her femaleness, and chosen to live it. In the end, that's all there really is to what I've done during these past few years, from going into therapy, taking hormones, changing my name, living in my new identity, getting my surgery, starting this blog and doing any number of other things.  


It may lead me to start another blog.  If I do, it will probably be at least somewhat related to this blog.  (How could it not be?  Even my other blog, Midlife Cycling, is--at least to some extent.)  And it might lead me to other projects and work which I can't yet conceive.  All I know is that whatever I do, I have no choice but to live as the woman I am.  And I wouldn't make any other choice, even if I could.

Two Years Later

Today marks two years since my GRS/SRS.  In one sense, it's hard to believe:  It really does seem like only yesterday.  However, in another sense, the way time has passed makes perfect sense: I had the surgery so I could get on with my life.  That means change and learning are inevitable.  Life without those things is--for me, anyway--not an option.  I don't mean that I don't want it; I simply mean that I couldn't choose any other way, really.

Danny, one of my "classmates" in Trinidad, e-mailed me a few days ago.  I would like it if we can stay in touch; his humor, intelligence and empathy make any communication from him a rewarding experience.  I really would like to see him again some day. 

As for the other "alumni" I met there, I am always open to stay in touch with them; they have, if nothing else, a sympathetic ear in me.  However, I notice that I haven't been in touch with the others in a while.  Now I understand why I am not sad about that:  They had their surgeries for essentially the same reasons why I had mine.  I hope their lives are progressing in the ways they had hoped; perhaps this shared experience will figure in some way or another in our lives in the future. Whether it does or it doesn't, that will have been the point of our having the surgeries and, more important, undergoing our transitions.  

Moving on, as we used to say when funk bands ruled the world.  (Yes, they really did, once!)  That is the reason why, I've just noticed, I'm no longer sad about the relationships I lost during my transition.  People have told me that the ones who de-friended me weren't really friends in the first place.  Perhaps that is true.  But I now realize that even if I had not embarked upon this journey (I hope that doesn't sound too quaint!), we may have gone our separate ways.  The same, I believe, is true about the relationship I had with Tammy:  It made me happy, at least in some ways, for a time in my life, but we probably wouldn't be together now even if I hadn't started my transition.  And, I think, the same is true for those relatives who broke or drifted away:  However close we might have been at one time, we simply had very little in common, even when I was still living as Nick.

So, yes, I have a vagina that looks like the ones my gynecologist has seen on cis women.  (And, yes, it looks like the ones I've seen.  I'll let you think, if you care to, how I came to see them.)  And I've been feeling good physically.  But I think the most important way in which the operation has been a success is that I am living the rest of my life, and learning what that means for me.

Eighteen Months

Today is exactly a year and a half since my surgery.  It's hard to believe that it went by so quickly.  


I haven't heard from my Trinidad "classmates" in a while.  Maybe I'll give them a call or e-mail them tomorrow.  Hmm....I wonder whether they'd prefer not to hear from me.  After all, our surgeries and our stays in Trinidad are receding further into the past.  I'm not thinking much about them now.  Then again, that may just because I've been busy.


There is certainly something to be said for the experience receding into the background, if you will.  After all, while the surgery was a goal, it wasn't and isn't  the point or purpose of my transition.  It was just another step along the way, albeit a major one.


Now I'm teaching a class in a place where that's all I have to do.  And the people have been friendly, but not intrusive.   I'm starting to feel I'd like a full-time job there, should one become available.  It's really nice simply to go to work as a woman named Justine, or Professor Valinotti.  (I must admit, though, I like "Professor Justine," which some of my students call me, even better.)


I feel that simply working and living as Justine, with no need to explain who or what I am, is reason enough for what I did eighteen months ago.

Anniversaries and Revolutions

Today is le quatorze juillet or le jour de Bastille.  I don't think I did anything revolutionary today.  I hadn't planned to.  Then again, what revolution is ever planned? 


 The word "revolution" comes from the word "volute," which is the spiral scroll on Doric columns.  "Volute" in turn comes from the Latin "voluta," which is the feminine of "volutus," the past participle of "volvere," which means "to roll."


So "revolution" means "turning again."  In other words, they happen as part of some cycle or another.  Nobody can plan that.


That's why nobody can plan on making any radical change one needs to make in one's life.   At least, I never could have planned on making the most important changes I had to make in my own life, or the ones that were made for me.


Three important changes--at least two of them revolutionary, at least in the context of my life--happened on this date.  At least they happened on this date in different years.  Can you imagine what I'd be like if they happened on the same date in the same year?


On this date in 2003, my name officially changed from Nick (Nicholas) to Justine.  I had filed for the change a little less than a month earlier; the court order was issued on the 14th.  On that date, I got the right to be known as Justine Valinotti a.k.a. Justine Nicholas.  I would use the latter name in writings that I published as well as in some other professional capacities.  Five years later, on the very same date, I would officially become Justine Nicholas Valinotti.


In 1986, on the fourteenth of July, I spent my first day clean and sober.  Actually, I had made three earlier tries of it; none of them lasted more than a week.  But twenty-four years ago today, I spent my first day of my adult life without alcohol or drugs and haven't gone back.


And on this date in 1980, I was discharged from the US Armed Forces.  Officially, I was a US Army Reservist.  In reality, I was an ROTC cadet at Rutgers who did some training exercises and got paid--not much, but paid nonetheless.  Actually, I had been set loose a couple of months earlier; the papers weren't signed and notarized until the 14th of July.  However, I wouldn't know that until much later, when I finally saw the papers.  Ironically enough, I was in France when the US Army cut its ties with me.


And, yes, it was an honorable discharge.  Basically, I kept myself out of trouble, which was about the best I could do.  I did not distinguish myself in any way as a soldier.  Then again, I didn't have any real opportunity to do that.  Then again, I'm not so sure I would have wanted such an opportunity.


So why was I discharged?  Well, a clerk discovered that I hadn't had a medical examination in more than two years.  On my records was a report of tendinitis and traumatic arthritis in my right knee.  The doctor (or medical assistant:  I'm not sure what he was) cranked my leg, heard a low noise, shook his head and sent me to the end of the line where a clerk rubber-stamped my papers.


Leave me to my own devices, and I start to ask the "what if?" questions.  In my case, I can answer the ones related to this anniversary.  The short answer is that if none of those things happened, I wouldn't be who or what I am today.  In fact, if I hadn't gotten clean and sober, I might not be at all today:  I probably would have died years ago.


Ditto if I'd remained in the Army and had been sent off to some exotic foreign place to meet interesting people and kill them.  If you are sent somewhere to kill--or if you go off to kill on your own volition--you run as much risk of being killed as you have of killing someone.  How do I know shit like this? I dunno; I just know.


And what if I hadn't changed my name?  Well, the real question is what if I hadn't done the other things that prompted my name change?  But it was certainly one of those milestones--along with my "coming out," my first day at work as Justine and my surgery--along the road to the life I have now as a woman named Justine.


Some people have told me that such a life is revolutionary.  The funny thing is that it feels anything but, and I didn't undertake it because I was trying to change the world.  I don't mean to compare myself to real revoulutionaries, but I don't think any of them ever set out to become such significant historical figures.  Rosa Parks just wanted a seat on the bus after a long day of work; Lech Walesa just wanted to be sure that he and his fellow workers could afford to feed their families and themselves after long days of work.  I don't think Ms. Parks ever envisioned herself as a founder of the Civil Rights Movement:  Given the place and time in which she grew up, I'm not sure she could even have imagined anything like the Civil Rights Movement.  Likewise, I don't think Mr. Walesa thought that he would start a movement that would help to bring down one of the most powerful empires in history.


Me?  I'm just happy that I was able to lead the life I've always wanted, even if I had to wait until fairly late in the middle part of my life to start living it.  So what can I say?  En bas...to what?  En vive.. Justine!  Hmm...Some might say it's grandiose.  But I think it has a rather nice ring to it.

Another Day After: Bumping Into A Former Student

One year and one day after my surgery...All right, I'll stop counting, at least on this blog.  Still, it's hard not to think about the first anniversary of my surgery, which passed yesterday.


Tonight I was riding my bike home from my class.  I was in Jackson Heights, about two and a half miles from my place, when someone called out, "Hello, Professor!"


I recognized the voice, which I hadn't heard in a couple of years.  It belonged to Navendra, who'd been a student of mine.  He did well, and he was one of those students who always seemed happy to see me.  And the feeling has always been mutual.


He's working on his master's degree in accounting in Queens College.  He took a class with me on the recommendation of his friend Sajid, who took three and sent me a "Happy Birthday" e-mail.  Now Sajid is at the Harvard School of Public Policy.  He and Navendra are both the kinds of people who could do anything they set out to do.   I have written letters of reference for both of them and do the same for either of them.  


It's funny that yesterday I was reflecting on how I have changed, and am changing, since my surgery.  But seeing Navendra again, I felt that in some way I hadn't changed at all--and I felt good about it.  Somehow, neither he nor Sajid seemed consigned to my past, as some people with whom I was living, working and simply spending time with not much more than a year ago now seem--not to mention those who decided, for whatever reasons, they wanted no part of me after I  started my transition.


Perhaps my perception of Navendra and Sajid has to do with the fact that they're progressing with their lives. Of course, it hasn't always been a steady progression:  About a year after he graduated (three years ago), Sajid was having a tough time:  Something hadn't worked out as he'd hoped, and he had to re-evaluate some choices he'd made.  But I always have had confidence in him, and I think he knew that.  I'm sure other people did, too. Sometimes I think he was worried that he was letting us down.  Actually, I don't feel let down by anyone who's progressing in whatever way he or she needs to--even if that means taking a step back and re-thinking something.  


And, when I see someone growing and changing, I do not have a stagnant image of him or her.  On the other hand, some people are still in the same places, spiritually and even physically, as they were when I first met them.  I realized that about one former friend of mine, with whom I reunited (albeit briefly) after a long absence.  We were having exactly the same conversations as we'd had when we were college undergraduates--or, more precisely, I was listening to the same monologue as I was listening to back in those days.  I was simply hearing it again in a cafe on the other side of the world.  (It sounds like a dystopian version of Casablanca, if such a thing is possible.)  After that, I was really glad I've never gone to a reunion of any school I ever attended.


I remember telling Marci, only half-jokingly, that I want to be her when I grow up.  I'm starting to think that what you become when you grow up isn't as important as simply growing up--or just growing, period, and surrounding yourself with people who are.

My Birthday As Myself

I am one year old today!


To be exact, I had my surgery one year ago today.  The time has passed much more quickly than I ever imagined it would.  Somehow that always seems to happen after important events in my life--or, at any rate, events that are important to me.


Some of that, of course, has to do with the fact that we're older after each event, as we are after any sort of passage of time.  The more time spend on this planet, the more quickly the time ahead moves by us.  It's simple arithmetic:  One year is a smaller portion of a 50-year-old's life than of a child who is only five.  But I also think that because major events, for many of us, mark stages of our lives, those events widen the distance between ourselves and our past and bring us closer to our futures.  I think that happens whether the event is a graduation, marriage, divorce, death of a loved one, birth of an offspring, beginning or ending a career, or any number of other things with that can change a person's circumstances.


I also believe my perception of time is shaped, in part, by the knowledge that unless I live longer than 99.9999 percent (or thereabouts) of all people, I will have lived more time as a male than as a female.  That is to say, I will have spent more years as Nick--in the sense that families, friends, co-workers and others knew him, the law defined him and I projected him--than as Justine.  Even though I feel freedom and confidence that I never felt before my changes, I am very acutely aware that I have only a limited amount of time, at least in life as I know it, as the person I have always been in mind and spirit.


What I've just described, I realized for the first time as I was describing it.  I wonder whether other transsexuals feel anything like it.  If they do, it might explain why some change everything, or at least everything they can change, in their lives after their transitions and surgeries.  Some move to new cities, or to or away from cities generally.  A few move to other countries; still others change jobs and careers, whether or not by choice.  Many also get divorced; at least I don't have to worry about that!  Others marry or remarry, or take up with new partners.  


Nearly all--at least the ones I know--re-evaluate something or another in their lives.  It makes sense; after all, that is what each of us has to do at the moment we face the truth about ourselves and begin to think about what we will do about it.  Along with that, of course, we have to re-evaluate our notions about sexuality and gender--our own, and that of others--and some of us have to examine our attitudes toward those whose gender identity or sexuality resembles whatever we were denying in ourselves.  In my case, it meant examining the homo- and trans-phobia I absorbed (sometimes transmitted to me unwittingly)  and cultivated out of sheer desperation.


As you can imagine, you really do find out who your friends--and, equally important, your allies--are.  It also fine-tunes your bullshit detector.   There are some people, particularly in English and other humanities departments, who want you as another token for their collection--butch Filipina bisexual: check; one-armed Native American with learning disability: check;  tranny, check.  Perhaps I should be more understanding and indulgent than I am, but sometimes I really do get tired of listening to people who try to simply must show how much they really do understand and empathise with me after taking a workshop about what I live every day. 


On the other hand, what I've experienced makes the friendships and other relationships that have endured--and the new ones I've made--all the more meaningful and pleasurable.  Even more important, though, is that I am learning to find pleasure in my own company and--now I'm going to say something I never expected to say!--beauty in who and what I am, and what I've become.  Some of that has to do with having a body that more closely reflects the person I always have been.  But it also has to do with the fact that I have had to develop, and draw upon, wells of strength, knowledge, wisdom and beauty I never knew I had, much less that I could develop.  Some people gave me all sorts of reasons--no, I take that back, they tried to intimidate me with their fears about--why I should not undertake the transition I've made, and why it would never work or why it is wrong.  And, when I was in the Morning After House in the days after my surgery, I was among other people who endured such experiences and won similar kinds of wisdom.  For that matter, such a person performed my surgery!


Anyway...One year has passed since my surgery.  It is a year--already!--and it is only a year.  I am a year old, and a year older--and older but a year:  a year past and a year in coming.  And, I hope, another and another and more to come.

Upcoming Anniversaries

One year ago today, I was making my final preparations to go to Trinidad.  I would leave the following day, which was Independence Day--and my birthday.


As I recall, I was making trips to the drugstore and supermarket so I would have at least some of what I needed when I got home.  I didn't expect to be in any physical condition to shop or do other errands; even if I were, I thought, I might not be in the mood.


It's funny how last-minute logistical preparations take on such importance when you're about to embark on a life-changing journey.  If I recall correctly, the narrator of Sophie's Choice--a movie I hated, by the way, in spite of Meryl Streep's presence and the fact that it was based on a very good book--was getting ready to go off and fight in World War II.  He enlisted in the Navy, but he was underweight.  So, he said, he spent the days before he had to return to the recruitment station engaged in eating bananas and masturbating.


Of course, there was a practical reason for eating the bananas.  So it would make sense to recall that.  But why did he recall masturbating?  In the face of a war one is going to fight, that would seem to be one of the most banal detail of all.


Now I remember that the surgery was four days away, and I was making my final preparations to go to it.  And now I am preparing for two birthdays, if you will:  my natal one, and the anniversary of my surgery.  I wonder if I will dread or look forward to subsequent anniversaries of my surgery as I and other people do to our birthdays.  

I Can't Be A Ninety-Day Wonder

Today is ninety days.

If you've been reading this blog, you might be thinking, "No, that was last week." Yes, last Monday came ninety days after my surgery.. (Wednesday marked three months, if you count that way.)

But today was the ninetieth day of my sobriety. At least it was twenty-three years ago.

If you've ever been involved with any of the twelve-step programs, you recall that the program leaders always recommended that you attend ninety meetings in ninety days. I know I exceeded that: On one Saturday alone, I attended five meetings! In this city, there's a twelve-step meeting available at literally every hour of the day or night.

Ninety days is often considered, if not the first, then one of the first milestones in sobriety. Most people who make it through ninety days make it through a year. And most who make it through a year make it through two. And so on.

As I recall, for me, there was no question of not "making it." I simply didn't know what else I could do. Even though I'd tried to become clean and sober twice before, somehow I couldn't see not sticking with "the program" that third time. Although I couldn't see any reason why, I knew somehow that I had to survive. I didn't--and still don't--believe in a supreme being in the sense that most organized religions represent him. (Yes, most do represent him as male.) And Kevin, whom I would ask to be my first sponsor (and who would accept that sometimes-thankless task) advised me to stay away from religion but to believe in something greater than myself. He agreed that AA's description of "Higher Power" sounded suspiciously like the Judeo-Christian God, but said, "There's really nothing wrong with believing in it. Just don't listen to anyone who tries to tell you what it is."

For a guy who "never saw anything beyond Fordham Road before they shipped me off to 'Nam" and who, before becoming sober eight years before I met him, "saw guys die in the jungle, then in my uncle's bar," he could give most philosophers a run for their laurels!

The funny thing is that he understood me in a way that no man besides Bruce ever had up to that point in my life: He knew that I have always been very, very emotionally vulnerable, almost to the point of brittleness and fragility at times. But he, like Bruce, also knew that it was the key to any sort of spiritual growth I needed to make--including sobriety. And that, he later told me, is how he knew I would "make it": "Your soul was crying out for it. And you finally admitted that you had a soul, so you couldn't do anything but listen and care for it."

This, from a guy who came to meetings clad in black leather and on his motorcycle.

"I just knew you were no ninety-day wonder," he said.

From a guy whose best buddy got blown to bits just feet away from him--in fact, from any soldier--that's a rave. Somehow I think he also knew what I knew then: I had no choice; I couldn't have been a ninety-day wonder even if I'd wanted to be one.

Such is my situation now. Good thing I knew that before I started my transition. I mean, things have gone well and having the operation had given me what I'd hoped to have, in a spiritual as well as in a physical sense. But I knew--even before that day I met Jay and told her what seemed, at least to me, the first true thing I'd ever told anyone about myself-- that I was a "lifer;" that not only could I not turn back even if I'd wanted to, the thought of doing so wouldn't and couldn't present itself to me.

There was simply no way I could be a ninety-day wonder. And there still isn't.

What Would Grandma Think of an Escapee? A Parolee?

The other day was my maternal grandmother's birthday. Today is the anniversary of her death. The latter, I realized much later, sent me into one of the deeper troughs of the depression in which I spent about much of my life as Nick.

I can't honestly say that I've mourned her--or anyone else's--death in a while. Perhaps that sounds callous. But for the past few years I have not had a new death to mourn, unless you count Nick. Yes, at times I mourned him because even though I wasn't happy when I was living as him, there were pleasurable moments. And I certainly learned a few things from him. But there were days that it simply didn't seem fair that he lived and he suffered--for my sake. Not only did he not have the opportunity to bask in the light and warmth of his flame, he also did not have the chance to receive gratitude, or any other reward, from me. That simply didn't seem fair!

And that very lack of justice is the reason why mourning becomes, after a while, futile. We all die; almost none of us gets to pick the time or way in which we'll leave this planet. Grandma was so ill that it was all but impossible to determine her precise cause of death. But would it really have mattered which of the complications from her diabetes killed her? To some doctors and forensic scientists, yes. But not to anyone else.

I think about her now and wonder what sort of relationship I could have, or could have had, with her were she still on this planet. If she were, she'd be 96 years old. I can't say I've spent a lot of time with people around that age. Then again, not many other people could say they have, either.

I loved my grandmother because, well, she was my grandmother. But I liked her because she always seemed to know how I felt. Sometimes I think she suspected my gender-identity issues, or had fleeting thoughts that I was gay, or at least not straight. But she knew that I wasn't a "normal" boy: I could see it from the expression on her face when I showed no interest in toy soldiers or erector sets.

What would she think of what I've become? I'm sure it would be difficult for her to understand, as she was certainly a daughter of her place and time. She was also religious, but I've found that a person's religious beliefs don't always determine how or whether a person will accept someone different from him or her self. I've experienced kindness and compassion from some people who worship in institutions run by men who think that what I've done is wrong, or even worthy of a death sentence. (Actually, a lot of people extend what they think their religions say about homosexuality to transgender people when, in fact, the holiest documents of their faith may have said nothing at all about homosexuality or transgenderism.) And someone who has a PhD in gender studies and no discernible religious beliefs ended a friendship we once had.

Somehow I don't think Grandma ever even had a conversation with anyone in which those subjects came up. She probably never knew anyone about whom she could say with certainty that he or she was not heterosexual. That may have had to do with being in a time or place where people were more covert about their lifestyles, much less their inner lives. And it may also have had to do with the fact that, well, she didn't know or didn't care.

I can't deny that there would be times she would have looked at me and seen her grandson. Even if I was an unusual boy, it was as a boy that she knew me. She may have even wished that I weren't trans or that I didn't make the changes I've made.

Then again, she was always so proud of the things I did, whether they were the grades I got in school, becoming an altar boy or simply taking a long bike ride. I think it would make her very happy that I write and have been published and that I teach in a college. I also think she would be even happier to know that I have become someone with whom people talk about their fears and secrets--none of which I've betrayed on this blog! She might not like the fact that some young student got pregnant out of wedlock, but I think she'd be really proud to know that such a student sought me out for advice.

I haven't treated some people very well. But I have made every effort to be better, especially to my parents. And I really would rather deal with people through kindness and gentleness than through hostility and suspicion. Sometimes I'm still on "high alert" or I respond to people as if they're more bigoted than they may actually be. But I'm learning who is and isn't, and simply spending as much of my time and effort as I can with those who aren't, or who simply don't care.

Yes, I would like for Grandma to know who I am now. I think we could've had a nice relationship. But then again, Grandma died at 68 and was--physically as well as emotionally--much, much older than that. Even in comparison to other women of her age, she wasn't healthy. By the end, she was clearly suffering, though she never lost her will to live. At times it was almost painful to see: Her body had become a prison, but she wouldn't dream of escaping.

That's not what I did, though. I finally embraced what was within me. And I was released. I think she might've appreciated that.