Forgotten--Or Incognito?

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?

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.

What Age Do You Want to Be?

This cold is slowing me down, the grayness and the shortness of the days are getting me down and it seems that just about everything else is spending me down.

And the next few days, save for Thanksgiving Day itself, will be non-stop work, as I am moving.

It's not the first time I've moved. In fact, I've probably moved more than anyone should. I recall the time Janine came to visit after one of my moves and remarked that I have had more addresses than anyone else she knows. It's an American thing, I guess.

You know what they say about being careful of what you wish for. Even though I like my current landlady and the place isn't bad, I felt that I might want to move as soon as I was well enough. I had been debating, to myself, a move to Colorado or Seattle or Europe. One problem is the same for all of those locales: finding work. And as much beauty as there is in Colorado, it's a bit far from an ocean for my tastes.

So now I'm moving to a place that's a few blocks from where I now live. The place is a good bit bigger, and the fixtures are in better condition. But now I'm feeling anxious about it. After all, the place in which I'm living now is the first to which I moved as Justine. And, of course, I've had my operation while living here.

At least, the apartment to which I'm moving is close enough so that I'll see Millie and Tami, the best friends I made on this block and the best friends I made in a very long time. And it's closer to transportation and shopping than the place where I'm living now.

Part of me tells me to look forward to the move. After all, the last two moves were good for me. I want to think this one will be, too. Other changes may result from it: good ones, I hope.

Then again, so much of what I've been experiencing during these past few months simply can't be compared to anything I experienced earlier. It's an odd feeling, in a way: Sometimes I wonder whether I'm losing my ability to miss my past.

Next semester, one prof is offering a Special Topics course he's called The Literature of Aging. He's made flyers and brochures that begin with this question: If you could be any age again, what would it be? 20? 30? 40? 50? 60? My answer would be "none of the above." Actually, I haven't been sixty, so I couldn't repeat that age yet. Fifty was just a year ago: It wasn't bad, considering that I was waiting for my surgery. But it's hard for me to imagine repeating any of those other ages. At forty, I was in the best physical shape of my life, but I was grasping at straws: I'd started to date Tammy in the hope that her love would make me into a man, or would at least make me want to be one. Thirty and twenty were both miserable times in my life; I would not want either.

Now, if I could have lived at any of those ages as a woman, I might feel differently about repeating them. But then, I wouldn't be repeating them, would I?