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.

Goodbye To All That? To What?

At this time last year, I was less than three months away from my surgery.  As you might expect, I was, in some ways, saying "good-bye" to being a man--even though for all intents and purposes, I had not lived as one for several years.  I had a very clear sense that  not just a phase, but a life I had once lived, was about to "become history," as people liked to say during my youth.  


I was excited though, surprisingly, not very nervous.  (When Marci Bowers called my mother just after my surgery, she remarked on how calm I was.)  In one way I was almost overprepared, as I had been going to support groups and therapy, and had lived full-time as a woman for almost six years.  But, at the same time, I had no idea of what to expect.  I recall that various women I knew--and I-- compared that time to the later stages of a pregnancy, for I was about to "give birth to myself."


Now more than nine months have passed since my surgery and I can't help but to think that some change or another is going to happen in my life.  I'm not sure of what it might be, but I get the sense that it will be major, or at least relatively so.  


I have talked about my job and workplace.  Perhaps one or both will change.  Sometimes I wish I had started a new job after my surgery,  but I realize that being in the place in which I'd worked the previous four years was probably good for me:  I'm not sure that making another major change at that time in my life would have been beneficial.  It's was probably good, in terms of my physical healing as well as my emotional state, that I didn't have to adjust to yet another transition.  


However, in one of my life's more perverse ironies, some of the people with whom I used to share lunch, and sometimes confidences, feel like strangers to me now.  I suppose that might have happened anyway; after all, most friendships (at least in my own life and those of people I know) have lifespans of their own.  Some simply stop working after a certain amount of time, or after whatever the friends had in common is no longer, for whatever reasons, a part of the relationship.   Or one friend simply "outgrows" the other:  I first  noticed that the only time I revisited my high school after I graduated. 


Julian, an adjunct instructor who's about ten years older than I am, even said--without my asking or prompting--that I have "outgrown" a lot of the people at the college, and possibly the college itself.  He became an instructor after technology rendered obsolete the business he used to own.  Like me, he earned a Master of Fine Arts, which is supposed to be a "terminal" degree.  However, he (also like me) doesn't want to pursue a PhD, for a variety of reasons, some of which are like mine.   Somehow I think he's outgrown more than a few people and situations along the way.


I'm thinking now of Belle, who was in charge of the office of academic advisement when I was an advisor.  She left, she said, because the college in which I work is a place where "people go to die."  I'm coming to see what she meant, and why she's urged me to get out of that college.  


Making a major change in your life can make a stagnant, stultifying place even more so.  I guess that's the lesson I'm supposed to learn from my current experience.


Then again, the change might not be in my workplace or job.  Could it be in my love life?  Or will I get my book published?   Or will it be something else wonderful or terrible or both?  I guess I'll find out in the coming months.

When Was The Past?

I must admit:  Today I didn't do much besides my laundry and cleaning.  It seems that I spend more and more of my days off recovering from work.  I went to bed and woke up late, and it started to the day's intermittent rain began not long after I had my cup of tea.  So I didn't have much incentive to go out, especially since Bruce was too sick to do lunch, as we had planned.


I don't know whether it has to do with  my gender change, or simply getting older (or sober)--or, for that matter, whether it has to do with anything at all--but "back in the day" Bruce and I would drink together.  Now we do lunch.  If you want to take that as a dissertation topic, be my guest. All I know is that one of the reasons why we're still friends is that we were able to make that transition from drinking buddies to friends who share lunch.


Lately I find myself thinking more and more about my previous expereinces, rather than merely my past.  What is the difference between them?  It seems that I don't learn much from the past.  Then again, most people don't, or so it seems.  On the other hand, experiences (as opposed to Experience with a capital E) are really the only teachers we have.  Or so it seems to me.


The past is always a sort of grab bag or potpourri.  There are some treasures in it, but there are also things that lose their relevance and usefulness.  Those things might outlive their obsolescence, but only because someone holds on to, and perpetuates, them--sometimes unconsciously.  I know I've done plenty of that.


Some of those things that lose their pertinence are the reactions to, or other ways of coping with,  things we may have experienced at one time but do not not encounter now.  I think now of so much of the anger I used to carry with me.  It helped me to survive, among other things, sexual molestation and attacks.  I may very well not be alive now were it not for the rage that roiled in me for so long.


But what happens when all you have are survival skills and you're in a situation when your survival is more certain but all you have are those survival mechanisms and responses?    That sounds like a script for becoming one of those perpetually angry people you run into sometimes.  I guess that's how manipulative people become manipulative, too.   Some of those people may have grown up in--much as it pains me to use this term--dysfunctional homes or other situations.  


In other words, they are living in their pasts.  And, for them, the present is nothing but an endless repetition of the past.  They have never learned any new ways of responding to new people and situations. Instead, they yell and throw tantrums because they came from homes where everybody did that and therefore learned no other way of getting what they want.  Or they knew they could get what they wanted by sneaking around people, and they think that nobody means what he or she says; when someone says "no," there's always a way around it.  I've had more than a few students who were like that:  They didn't believe that a professor would actually drop them from his or her class, or that they would fail, for not attending classes and doing assignments.


What people in situations very often don't realize is that whoever called their bluff or wouldn't negotiate with them may actually have something to offer that they want and could never have found in their pasts.  I think now of a time when I was upset with a class full of freshmen.  They had been a good group of young people until the day we had a library information session.  The librarian who conducted the session has rubbed more than a few people the wrong way, so I could understand why they didn't like the way she talked to them.  However, I pointed out, that is no reason to be disrespectful. 


When I paused one wide-eyed young woman exclaimed, "Wow!  You weren't yelling at us. You didn't raise your voice at all."


At that moment, I would have loved to have known what her home life or previous schooling were like.  What was interesting was that after that day, she regularly came to talk to me about situations she'd encountered in the college, her boyfriend and any number of other dilemmas a young person faces. Along the way, I could see her becoming more confident about herself.


I get the feeling that I'm going through a similar process myself.  That's one reason why I think of a change in workplace scenery.  I realize that I'm in a place where I react to dysfunction rather than respond to appeals to reason and sensibility as well as sensitivity.  That's not how I want to spend my life.  I now realize that, for me,  living in the past in such a way is not a cause of, or recipe for, depression:  It is depression.  Trust me on that one:  By every clinical and medical definition, I was depressed for the majority of my life before I started my transition.


And the remedy for that is not to live in this moment, or any that will follow, as if it were the past.  In a way, I can't, anyway, because when I think about it, that past wasn't really mine.  Only my experiences were.  It seems that a good part of living involves knowing which ones are useful.  And the ones that aren't have to be gotten rid of like those undergarments I no longer had use for after my surgery.

Back to Normal: Change

You might say that I'm feeling that life is returning to normal. As if it ever was!

Yes, that ride yesterday kicked my keyster (sp?). Since I'm a lady, I can't use that more colloquial word that rhymes with "grass." Besides, I think the alliteration works rather nicely, if I do say so myself!

Anyway...About the only ways yesterday's ride felt different from the same ride at other times in my life are that I felt more tired and that I was a bit sore in some of my new privates. I expected both, so today I took it easy: I washed some clothes and graded a bunch of papers. And, when I finally woke up this morning, I made myself two crepes filled with sour cherry compote I made from scratch shortly before my surgery. Compotes and preserves are delicious paradoxes: They are best made with fresh, in-season, locally-grown fruit, but they taste better after being stored for a while. Tomato sauce, which I also make, is that way, too.

The soreness is all but gone. At least around my tender parts, it is. My muscles are another story. Oh, here's something I didn't mention in yesterday's post: I was riding my fixed-gear bike. So, even though I wasn't going very quickly, my legs were moving as long as my wheels were rolling. And, paradoxically, going downhill is as much of a workout for your legs (if not your lungs) as climbing. You see, when you ride a "fixie", you almost have to backpedal at the same time you're pedalling forward. So you really use those muscles and tendons in your legs, especially in the back of your thighs! The hot bath helped, but I still feel a bit of stiffness.

It's kind of funny to talk about things being, or returning to, "normal" after you've had a major life-changing event. It's just as funny to think that you've had such a life-changing event if things are returning to what they were before the event--or, more precisely, if you're returning to something that you did regularly before the change.

Then again, the beginning of spring is as much about the beginning of new lives as it is about continuing--or, in some cases, resuming--the cycle of life. And, if my understanding of Zen, or my memory of my long-ago reading of the Tao Te Ching (sp?) serves me correctly, life is change. Really, I don't know what else it can be.

That means I'm definitely living. If my definition of life is self-serving, then so be it. I'm happy to be part of the cycle.

Stories: The Assumption and Woodstock

Today is the Feast of the Assumption. Having gone to Catholic school, I should know what's celebrated on this date.

As it turns out, the Assumption refers to the Virgin Mary's physical ascencion into Heaven at the end of her life. Some churches teach, and people believe, that Mary never passed through death; she entered Heaven body and soul. But others believe that she died and, three days later, she was resurrected and assumed into Heaven. This is seen as an homage or precursor to the death and ascenscion of Jesus or as a preview of the Final Judgment, when all of the dead will be resurrected and, along with the living, judged.

I must say that the Final Judgment seems immensely unfair to whoever may be living at the time it happens. After all, the sins and misdeeds of the long-dead will be forgotten by that time, or the memories of them will not be fresh. Then again, I recall what Shakespeare's Antony said upon the death of Caesar: "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." So maybe it all evens out...

The odd thing is that there is no actual record of Mary's death, and people at the time did not know what happened to her. She was one of those people you see one day, and the next she's gone. Her assumption was essentially an apocryphal tale, a legend: Nowhere in the Scriptures does it specifically talk about Mary's fate. However, Pope Pius XII (who helped Nazis escape to South America) defined the Assumption as dogma for the Roman Catholic Church, and cited several scriptural verses as evidence of her corporeal and spiritual ascent. Sceptics have used those very same verses to discredit the notion of the Assumption.

Today's feast is actually a national holiday in several countries--including France, where laicite has been the official policy for more than a century. (I recall trying to cash a traveler's check once on la fete; no bank or exchange was open anywhere!) When I was in Catholic school, we were expected to attend mass on that date. I don't recall how or whether such a policy was enforced, as school was out for the summer.

Being the sort of kid I was, I wondered what people would look like when they were resurrected. Did those who lost limbs regain them? Or what about people who went blind or deaf: Would they be able to see and hear?

Now, if I believed in the story of the assumption, you know what I, as a post-surgery transgender woman, would ask!

Today, as it happens, is also the 40th anniversary of the first day of Woodstock. Now, I rather doubt that anyone consciously chose to start the world's most mythologized musical festival on the Feast of the Assumption.

So, other than for their coincidence, why should I talk about the Assumption and Woodstock in the same entry--one in a blog about my life as a transgender woman, no less?

Well...let's see...Half a million people went to the Woodstock festival. The youngest people who were there (save for the babies conceived during that heady time) are well into middle age, or even older. Some are already dead; in not too many years, others will die off in almost as rapid succession as World War II veterans are dying now. One day--most likely not in my lifetime--there won't be anyone left who was there, and there will be few people who could remember that time.

That means that Woodstock will become an event that will survive because of the stories told--in whatever ways--about it. Of course, we have film and video footage of David Crosby confessing to the crowd that he was scared shitless, as he and Stills, Nash and Young were performing together publicly only for the second time. We have the sounds and images of performers as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Melanie Safka, Joe Cocker and Elvis and pictures of long-haired young people, their tattered clothes soaked from rain that soaked but did not cancel the second day of performances, chanting, hugging, and smoking.

For people who weren't yet born in the middle of August, 1969, those images and the music of those performances are Woodstock. And those young people--and anyone else who wasn't there (including yours truly, who was, let's say, just a bit younger than most of the people who was there)--reconstruct, in their minds, something they call "Woodstock." Even though the name of that music festival has become a kind of shorthand for "peace, love, dope and music." or "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll," no two people have exactly the same story about it in their minds.

Now, as for the Assumption--if it indeed happened--there hasn't been anyone who was alive at that time, much less saw the event, for about two thousand years. And, of course, there aren't any written, much less audio or cinematic, records of the event. Even if someone had been there and written an account, or if video were available (Young people have a hard time imagining a world without cell phones, which was, of course, the world of Woodstock!), records would have been made from the point of view of whoever was recording it. You remember what Cicero said: Victor Imperatus, or the winners write the histories. When you consider that, even in the most powerful nations, the majority of people up to about 150 years ago couldn't read or write their names, any and all record-keeping, much less the stories told about events, were skewed toward a rather small segment of the population.

Anyway, even if there were record the Assumption, who would have written or painted them? And, as for Woodstock, most of the attendees as well as the performers came from some degree or another of privilege. The poor kids were working to pay for school or support themselves or their families--or were slogging through the jungles of Vietnam.

And so all we have of either event are stories--told by people who come from narrow segments of society.

And if you are reading this, you are reading the story of someone who, though not born to privilege and not living in luxuries, has had at least other good fortune that enabled her transition to the life she had envisioned for herself. I mean, I'm not exactly a salt miner or a field hand. I have some education, such as it is, which has allowed me to acquire, if not a lot of material prosperity, at least some choices in my life that my parents and lots of other people haven't had.

I mean, let's face it: In order to undergo GRS, you have to have a certain level of literacy and education in order to find, much less use, the relevant information. And you need the time and means to acquire it. Finally, you have to come up with a way to pay for the surgery and other expenses related to your change, and to be able to take time off from making a living so that you can recover from your surgery. As it happens, as a college instructor, I have that time off.

So...the Assumption and Woodstock are stories rather than events for most people. And so am I, dear reader (oh, how quaint!): If you are reading this, you know me by the stories I'm telling you about myself and the world around me. Now, I have never been anything but honest. But my point-of-view is not all-encompassing, as is the point of view of anyone else. And, of course, one day, I'll be gone, and so will anyone who knew me now or at any other time in my life.

So I know stories about the Assumption and Woodstock. And if you've been reading my blog, you know a few about me. If you know me, you know others. In the end, whatever believe in and whom we love (which are really all that matters in life, as far as I can tell), all we have are those stories

On The Eve: Bastille Day

Tomorrow I'm going home. As nice as this place is, I'm looking forward to going home.

Danny, the very sweet (and handsome!) trans man from Alaska, left this morning. And Marilynne and her daughter are not here now, either: They had to go to a hotel because one of the secretaries in Doctor Bowers' office messed up their reservation.

As much as I like the other people who are staying here, I miss Marilynne and her daughter, and Danny. Then again, I look forward to seeing Marilynne and her daughter again for a "girls' weekend." They brought up the possibility of coming to New York in October or November, after her daughter and I have sufficiently recovered and while the weather is still nice in my hometown. I'd really love to spend Thanksgiving weekend with them because that's when New York starts to deck itself out for Christmas. But I don't think they'd want to leave their family, and I would probably spend that time with my family or with Millie's.

I'd really like to see Joyce and her partner, Becky, again. That might be an excuse for me to take a trip to West Texas. I've been to Texas once, and I went only to Houston, which, in some people's minds, doesn't count. I don't particularly want to go to Houston again, but it might be fun to go to Lubbock, which Joyce described as "a college town in the middle of nowhere."

And/or I could go to Alaska and see Danny. Now that's definitely not a weekend--long or otherwise--trip. Also, I wonder how his wife would feel about that.

Hmm...Is this where I start expanding my horizons--into my own country?

Is that what revolutions are all about? Well, at least the French one was about that. I mean, some guys thought that maybe didn't need monarchies and droits du seigneur and all those other things that were making French people--some of them, anyway--unhappy.

They had the right idea, although it took them a while to make it work. I think, though, that the next revolution shouldn't be within a country. I think the human race needs this one: getting rid of war and all other forms of hate and exploitation. If the human race has any hope of becoming more enlightened, I think that is what we need to do.

Someone once told me that I'm a revolutionary. I almost want to say "If only...," except that I'm not sure that I'd actually want to be one. It's like I was telling Mom tonight: I never really wanted to cause anybody any trouble, or to be difficult in any other way. Things just turn out that way sometimes. I am who I am, and that in and of itself is very difficult for some people, at least at certain times.

The thing is, I have made life difficult, if only for a moment, for everyone I've ever loved and who has ever loved me. You can only imagine what it was like for Mom to raise a kid who was feeling something almost no one knew about, much less understood. Bruce and I have fought and argued; I'm sure there must have been moments when I've made Millie cringe.

And they are the ones whom I feel ready to see again. Marilynne and her daughter are part of the experience I am bringing back, which is a resource that will enable me to continue my life in the way I want it. So are Danny and Joyce and Becky. And that couple from Montana and their kids. Carol, the manager of The Morning After House, too. And, of course, Nurse Phyllis and the staff of Dr. Bowers' office: Robin, Janet and Ann.

Of course, the bridge from the days before this experience to tomorrow is Dr. Bowers. The friends to whom I will return tomorrow, the family members I hope to see in the days and weeks after and the colleagues with whom I will work again in a few weeks know who I am. Now I'll be more able to live as that person.

Another Fall, Again?

Another cold, blustery day. Most of the trees are bare now; the remaining leaves swirl and rustle, echoing the last flickering of a flame.

And I wonder now about my job, as lots of people are, although my concern is different. I was observed by a senior prof three weeks ago. Two days earlier, I observed an adjunct prof. I--and I assume the other faculty members--received a notice saying that we had to submit our observation report within a week of the observation. That's what I did, but the prof who observed me hasn't.

But that, in and of itself, is not the problem. Here's what's bothering me: A few days after the observation, this prof told me my class was "really good" and he was "glad" that I was "teaching a basic skill" rather than "having them talk about their feelings." But when I saw him yesterday, he apologized, then said, "Well, I have to go back and look at my notes."

Cady Ann, the secretary, says not to "sweat it." She says I worry too much. But what am I supposed to think? Plus, I know I'm under all kinds of scrutiny this semsester, and if I were to get a poor, or even a mediocre or merely good observation, I might not be reappointed. Then what?

I know Cady Ann and other people think I'm a worrywart and try to pacify me. But they don't realize that I had one evaluator tell me to my face that my class was fine, then slam me on the report. That professor also took longer than normal to submit her report. And, after my transition, I went back to a former boss, looking for work. He said "there were problems" with my work; that I was "erratic." Well, for one thing, I'd had nothing but very good and excellent reports. (I guess I always had to be either excellent or very good. ) And, for another. he himself praised my work when I was working for him.

Unfortunately, the academic world is full of people who will tell you something one day, then its exact opposite, or something that simply contradicts it, the next day. Is it any wonder that so many of our students are put off? They live lives in which whatever worked today might not work tomorrow, and parents, guardians and other people who are in their lives today are gone tomorrow, for no apparent reason. They see the college as another place that has the dysfunction and is run by the seemingly fickle fate of the homes and neighborhoods from which they come.

All right. If Cady Ann wants to call me a worrywart and you want to call me something more clinical or vulgar, well, I won't protest. After all, I don't want anything that has even the slightest possibility of keeping me from getting my surgery, or that could cloud life after it. My original plan was to keep a low profile this year; things seem not to have worked that way. Of course, being visible makes you a target, which is what I didn't want. Then again, I haven't been trying to gain notice, except perhaps in a professional way.

Then again, I suppose everything I'm doing and experiencing could have positive outcomes; after all, knowing that you've accomplished something--which is a distinct possibility for this year--usually leaves a good feeling. And that wouldn't be a bad way to end this school year and come to my surgery, would it?

I hope for those things. But for now, there are waiting, worrying along with the hoping, if not believing. Hoping and believing don't come as naturally to me as worrying does, but, well, what else can I do?

And then there is the end of this fall. Or so it seems. One more season gone in my current life. It's been an intense, both in the best and worst senses, time. Which is good, even beautiful. I must admit, I am feeling a little sad because I know I won't hold on to as much of this as I would have tried to keep if I'd had times like these earlier in my life. Why? Well, because I've been busy, and moving forward. Of course both of those things are good, and good for me. But I also wonder whether I'm losing some part of myself.

Then again, being backward- rather than forward-looking has never left me saner, happier or in any other way better. But it's what I did for so much of my life. I'm still learning to live with hope, if not belief, if only because the past is less and less of an option for me. Somehow I think it has to do with my gender transition. I don't know why, but I think women don't have as much of an option of living in--or yearning for--the past as much as men do. It may have to do with the fact that many women give up their names--and lives that went along with them--when they get married. Even when they don't, there's still an unwritten, unspoken expectation that they will follow their husbands.


But I also think there's something more basic, possibly hormonal, that I can't explain. I mean, why is it that the audience for O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Rush Limbaugh and Fox (Faux) News consists mainly of men, mostly past a certain age, but also younger ones who think they're entering a world in which women, blacks, gays, and whomever else you can think of, usurped some of the privileges they believe their fathers or grandfathers had at one time.

In other words, they see a fall coming and they don't want to give up their garden, whatever's growing in it. Do words like entitlement and perogative ring a bell?

Giving up whatever certainties one had in one's life is always difficult. I just wish I could do it more gracefully. And worry less, like everyone says I should.