Stopping Is Part Of The Journey

I can say with near-certainty that on this date at around this time, ten years ago, I was riding on rollers, which are a kind of treadmill for bicycles.  Back in those days, that's what I did during the winter.  Even after I stopped racing, I still was trying to prove something to myself.  Or, more precisely, to disprove something.

What was it?  Well, before I try to describe, let alone name, it, I have to say that what led me to ride rollers even after my racing days ended was the same thing that kept me training for soccer after I stopped playing it.  I knew full well that I would probably never play again and, even though I enjoyed playing, I wasn't mourning my acknowledgment that my playing days were over.  In fact, I felt surprisingly little.  But I still had the impulse to train as if I were still playing.

Something similar happened after I stopped racing.  Although I'm glad I raced, I wasn't upset when I knew that part of my life was about to end.  And once I "retired," I really had no urge to go back.  However, I wanted to know that I could.  

Why?  Well, I always want to feel as if I start or leave stages and challenges in my life on my own terms.  It's never a good feeling not to do something because you're not capable of it.  The worst of it is that you can't even kick yourself, in hindsight, for lack of effort if you simply didn't have whatever it took to do something that you wanted to do.

Perhaps I never got past or over being the ungraceful, unathletic pubescent child I was.  Until I started training and playing, I was taunted by other kids--and sometimes adults--not only for my seeming lack of athletic ability, but also for my perceived lack of manliness, or even the capacity for becoming a man, whatever that meant.

Those taunts were echoing in some recess of my brain.  That's the reason why, ironically, I spent more time on rollers and trainers in my early post-racing years than I did when I was actually racing.    In an irony within that irony, I was pushing my body--my male body--so hard because I was trying to poound it, or something about it, out of existence altogether, or at least into submission.

I've been on my bike once in the past two weeks.  I'm feeling antsy and hoping that I'm not gaining weight.  (At least I'm not eating any junk.)  But, at the same time, I'm not as ornery as I would've been back in the day.  When I couldn't ride--or after a few weeks of riding rollers or trainers--I used to feel resentful and angry that I couldn't do what I wanted to do but, it seemed, everybody else could.

I think that being off my bike for a few months after my surgery last year made me aware, for the first time in my life, that the times when you recuperate, or simply stop for whatever reasons, are also part of the journey. In fact, those times might be almost as important as the times when we're riding and training.   For some people, it's the only opportunity to reflect on the question of why they are doing whatever they do.

My First New Year's Eve

So...This will probably be my last post of the year. It's a little sad to write this: This, the most momentous of my life so far, is ending. Then again, I'm about to start my first full year in my new life.

Tomorrow I am going to Millie's house, again. She seems to think the first day rather than the first second of the new year is more important--to the extent that she thinks of such things. In that sense, she's rather like me.

It seems that almost everyone is happy to see this year end. At least, the people I've heard talking about the topic have expressed such a feeling. At the same time, they seem more hopeful than optimistic about the coming year. In other words, they're hopeful in the same way as someone who comes to New York after his life has fallen apart in Nebraska. That, by the way, is the story of someone I talked with a few nights ago. Maybe I'll tell more about him later.

Anyway...They say that hope springs eternal. Maybe that's why people ring out the old and ring in the new year. Some--not all of them young--have visions of the wonders that the new year can bring. I'm thinking now of what Eva-Genevieve said in the wake of Mike Penner/Christine Daniels' suicide: Many people enter gender transitions with the idea that living full time in their "new" gender will be like a permanent drag ball. They think of the sense of release they feel when dressing up and going out, or the sexual thrill they get out of "kicking up their heels" and expect that the adrenaline rush they get from playing their roles will continue 24/7/365.

In a similar vein, on this night, many people are thinking only of the things they expect or hope to be better in the coming year. The mass media are full of that sort of thing: The economy is going to turn a corner, etc, etc. Of course, one should have hope. But if you've had some difficulty or another for years or even decades, is it rational to expect that problem to change, much less disappear, by turning a page in a calendar?

Back to transitioning: There are probably more things that don't change, at least in the circumstances of one's life, than there are things that change as a result of starting the process of becoming true to one's self. You still have to pay whatever bills you were paying before. In fact, they will probably be bigger and there will be more of them. You still have the same tensions over work, workplaces and living situations, which may be exacerbated by undertaking a transition. And, I've discovered, though the form of some of your relationships may change, the real attitudes of the people with whom you're in those relationships don't shift--at least, most of them don't. The ones who decide they want nothing more to do with you are really acting on attitudes and prejudices they had before you "came out" to them. The ones who change their attitudes either loved you or simply had open minds before you shared your "secret" with them.

The difference is that you may not have known these things about the people in question before you decided you could no longer live in as the person they believed you to be. The truth is, you didn't have to know them. That is part of what having privilege means: You don't have to know at least some of the truth about others. That also defines what privilege I still have. As an example, I know people who lived on the streets at one time or another in their lives. I admire them for having survived and becoming advocates, going to school or doing other positive things with their lives. But, at the same time, I can't even begin to imagine the realities of the lives they lived when their only shelter was whatever place they hadn't been chased away from and the only way they could make a home for themselves was to curl up in a fetal position, as if they were recreating their mother's wombs.

All right...I'll get off the soapbox. I'll tell you another way in which I have privilege. Happily, I acquired it during the course of my transition and surgery. You see, I didn't get a sexual thrill out of putting on female clothes or an adrenaline rush out of going public in a dress. To tell you the truth, I was scared to death when I first did those things. And I was for a long time afterward. Furthermore, I felt completely out of place the one time I went to a "drag" bar: I am a woman, not a cross dresser. The other patrons--most of them, anyway--went back to their lives as boyfriends and husbands and fathers, as horse trainers and construction supervisors and mechanical engineers. I had no such option of "going back."

That was eight New Year's Eves ago.

Today I made it to the appointment with Anna I rescheduled from last week. I had my hair cut a bit and had it treated to so that it's softer than it was. Other women were getting their hair done; two were also being made up by one of the stylists at Zoe's Beauty. I was there for the same reasons as other women; I simply felt normal there. And that is how I felt when I walked the strip of Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint and tried on shoes and clothes I didn't buy: It wasn't a thrill or a rush; it was simply life as I was meant to live it.

And, yes, I had a late lunch/early dinner at The Happy End. I began today's repast the way I've begun every meal I've had there: with their white borscht. This time, I had the grilled kielbasa with onions. The menu said that the kielbasa was "locally made;" it certainly tasted better than any other I've had. And today's meal is probably the only one I've ever had that included two servings of mashed potatoes. Plus, the sides were interesting and tasty: red cabbage, sauerkraut and a salad made of sliced carrots. I noticed once again that the proprietress, who's about my age, was friendlier toward me than to her fellow Poles. She's seen me before, and remembered me, but I'm sure most of those Polish patrons were repeat customers as well.

She was also friendly to two male hipsters who were eating at the counter. Oh my goddess--I hope that's not the end of the restaurant, or the neighborhood!

Then again, should I begrudge a couple of hipsters their privilege? I wished them a Happy New Year on the way out; they wished me the same.

And I hope you have a great New Year, too!