Still Learning What It Means

Early in my transition, people would sometimes say, “Oh, it must be so difficult.”  By “it”, they meant my transition and the things it entailed.  While I admit that some parts of it were strange, awkward or simply a pain in the ass (Try going through a second puberty in your forties!), I would point out that, for me, the real difficulty was having to live up to society’s, and some individual peoples’, expectations while pretending to be someone I wasn’t. 

From the time I first started my counseling, therapy and hormones until the day I had my operation, a bit more than six years had passed.  Now it’s been almost six years since my operation.  Along the way, some of my expectations have changed.  I have found friends and allies in people I didn’t expect to be on my side, or whom I simply never could have anticipated meeting.  On the other hand, I have lost relationships with people whom I thought would walk with me, or at least lend some sort of emotional support and spiritual sustenance, on my journey. 

Probably every trans person can say such things.  Also, nearly every one of us (or, at least, the trans people I know) would agree that the sorts of people we become, and envision ourselves becoming, are at least somewhat different from what we’d anticipated when we were still living our former lives or when we started our transitions.  A few might be disappointed, but I think more—I include myself—feel the pressure of, and are ostracized for not,  living up to a new set of expectations.  Some expected that I would be more sexual and attractive, at least by the standards of this culture.  Physical attractiveness and sexuality (at least in a hetero way) are seen as the hallmarks of femininity and femaleness.  (I think it’s the other way around, frankly.)  Others thought they’d find cute boyfriends or girlfriends, or husbands or wives who could “treat them right”.  Still others are trying to live up to other sorts of expectations, whether self-imposed or transmitted by the culture. 

Me, I’m not looking for a romantic or sexual relationship right now.  I don’t feel I need it; I can live just fine with myself, thank you.  Living alone, with a couple of cats, is certainly better than abuse or the demands some put on people in relationships. And while I’m going to try (again) to lose some weight, I rather like what I see in the mirror. Sure, I’m aging a bit quicker than I would have liked, but I think I also see an emotional honesty and vulnerability I never before saw. Perhaps others have seen it, too:  These days, people I meet talk to me because, nearly all of them say, “You look like someone I can talk to.”

Those same people tell me they knew, looking at me, that I’d survived a thing or two.  If I do say so myself, I have.  And, while I may not be the deepest person in the world, I don’t think people—whatever else they might say about me—accuse me of being shallow.  Plus, they all know that I mean whatever I’m telling them but I’m not saying any of it to be mean.

In short, I am starting to understand, not only what’s changed, but what I’ve gained in my transition.  Although some things are still very difficult, I still have hope that things will get better—or, more precisely, I will be better able to navigate them.  I’m also realizing now that the things and people I’ve lost probably would have been lost whether or not I’d transitioned or had my operation.  We change, sometimes incrementally, sometimes dramatically. But change we do, as long as we’re living.  I have to remember that a dozen years have passed since I started my counseling and, as I mentioned, almost six since my operation.  In such time frames—and in shorter ones—things changed, whether in my expectations or perception of myself and others. I didn’t want to be the same person at 24 as I did at 18, or the same person at 36 as at 30.  So why shouldn’t the kind of woman I want to be change as well.  After all, let’s face it:  I couldn’t be, at my age, the kind of woman I envisioned when I was younger, even if I wanted to.

Here’s some advice I’d give to someone—especially a young person—starting a transition:  You’ll change, but not necessarily as a result of your transition or surgery (if you decide to undergo it). And sometimes your change is of a kind you hadn’t expected.  Understanding those things, from what I’ve experienced, a way to prevent regrets and disappointments, neither of which I have about my transition or surgery.  

Still Here

I know that in the history of this blog, I’ve rarely gone more than a few days without posting.  Today I realized it’s been a week since my most recent post.  I’m not abandoning this blog; I simply was occupied with other things.

During the past week, I’ve spent much of my time with the volunteer work I’d been doing once or twice a week.  Also, the work I’d been doing with one organization led me to drop in on another, related, organization.  As it has to do with bicycling, I’ll say more about it on my other blog, Midlife Cycling.

Meanwhile, I am working on other writing projects that, I hope, will lead me to wider audiences and pay. One of those pieces of writing has just appeared on the HuffPost Gay Voices blog. Instead of reproducing it here, I’m providing a link to it—which, of course, is a cheap, sleazy trick ;-) to increase the number of viewers there.

Companions on Longtime Journeys

Today I did a brief bike ride along the industrial waterfront of Long Island City and Greenpoint and through back streets almost devoid of vehicular traffic.  One of them--named Rust Street--parallels railroad tracks that cut through silent factories and cling to the banks of Newtown Creek, which has been called the most polluted body of water in the United States.


Actually, I had a specific reason for riding that way:  On my way back, I stopped at Russo's bakery in Maspeth, which has--to my tastes, anyway--the best sfogliatelle you can get without taking the next flight to Rome.  I wanted to pick up a small box of the miniature ones and bring them to the barbecue at Millie's house.  Alas, they had only a couple of the larger ones left:  not enough to fill a small pastry dish.  Instead, I bought one and ate it right then and there.  I also purchased a small cheesecake topped with fresh fruit (strawberries, grapes and slices of apple and cantaloupe) drizzled with a light glaze.  Everyone loved it; I thought it was the best cheesecake I'd eaten in a long time.


Millie's friend Catherine came to the barbecue.  I like her very much, but I wouldn't call her a friend simply because I see her only at Millie's barbecues and lunches and dinners.  On the other hand, she and Millie have known each other since they were five years old.  I don't have a friend like that; I met Bruce, my longest-standing friend, during my senior year at Rutgers.  Then we fell out of touch for a couple of years and bumped into each other near Cooper Union late one summer afternoon.  That was in 1984:  I remember that because it was during the first year since my childhood that I was living in New York.  I also recall that I was leaving work, which at that time was at the old American Youth Hostels headquarters on Spring Street.  


Honestly, there are only a couple of non-family members whom I can remember from my early childhood.  Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have remained friends with a childhood friend.  I suppose that in one way, at least, it would have been like other longtime relationships:  Knowing that person for so long could have been the very reason why such a person would have remained friends with me--or for wanting nothing to do with me--after I "came out."


Millie and her husband John knew me for less than a year before I started to live full-time as Justine.  Sometimes I think it's the reason why they accepted my change as readily as they did:  After all, they couldn't feel the same sense of loss that some members of my family and other people who knew me for a long time might have felt.  Plus, almost immediately upon meeting me, Millie decided that she liked me, and she tends not to change her mind about that.  


She reminded me that very soon, a year will have passed since my surgery.  Already!  And tomorrow I'm going for another bike ride.  Destination and itinerary are to be determined.

The Body of Lessons

This is depressing. I get the feeling that nobody's been reading my blog lately: I didn't get any hate mail after yesterday's post. In fact, I didn't get any mail at all. Maybe everybody understood what I meant, and that I meant no harm. However, I will refrain from using the "f-word" again. Really, I will.

And guess what? I submitted my tuition waiver to the Graduate Center. That means the course is now paid for, and I'm in it. I also told my department chair and a couple of other people in my department what I'd done. So now I guess I'm committed.

It looks like I'm committed to that course--The Poetics and Rhetoric of Hip-hop-- I'm scheduled to teach, too. Even Tom, my voice instructor, mentioned that he's heard about it. "I bet it'll be great," he said. Same sentiment, different words, from what my department chair said. And a few other profs, a bunch of students, Cady Ann and Sharon (the department secretaries), Dominick, Bruce and everyone else who's heard about it. And they all say I'm going to do fine in both of those courses.

OK. For the course I'm taking, I'll forget that it's the first class I'm taking in sixteen years and that it's on a topic--gender studies-- I once swore I'd never touch. And for the course I'm teaching, I'll forget that for half of that course's content, the students will know more than I do. So I won't introduce myself as Prof J-Val or Mizz J--at least not on the first day, anyway!

Today's session with Tom may be the last I'll have with him for a while. I wish that weren't so: The three sessions I've had with him have taught me so much. However, he's directing a play and is involved with another production that will keep him busy. I know I could take other voice classes, but nobody can top a teacher who's opened up a world to you.

In a way, Tom reminds me of Ray, the social worker I saw every week during the year before I started to live full-time as Justine, and for the first year-and-a-half of my current life. They both combine discipline and empathy: They have a clear sense of what they're guiding you through, but they also understand what you're going through. And, of course, Ray taught me all sorts of first lessons about one thing and another, while Tom taught me my first lessons about the way I carry my body and take my breaths.

I've talked to many women--and have read the words of many, many more--who look back in shock, anger, grief or frustration over the fact that they knew so little about their own bodies. Usually, they were in the dark because parents, teachers and other adults couldn't or wouldn't discuss those matters. Some of those women come from milieux in which such talk is taboo. For others, their lack of awareness had to do with the pure-and-simple misogyny of their communities or societies, some of which they internalized in much the same way that I internalized a lot of homo- and trans-phobia. I recall now an interview that some journalist--I forget who--did with an Afghani schoolteacher. She said that one result of the repressive regime that required all women to be covered from head to toe, save for a small grille around the eyes, was that women's bodies deteriorated. Worse, they were unable to pass on any awareness of how their bodies worked to their daughters, female students or any other girls or young women in their lives.

Of course, frustration over how little women understand their bodies--and one part in particular--is part of what motivated Eve Ensler to create The Vagina Monologues.

After my surgery, what will my vagina say? "Thank you for bringing me to light," or "Cotton only, please!"?

I'll soon find out. Meantime, I'm learning through other means.

The Frontier

Today I saw part of the Tour de France coverage on TV. The Tour is divided into 21 stages, each lasting a day. One stage might be long and flat, another a race against the clock, still another--like today's--an arduous ride, full of climbs.

Today the TDF cyclists pedalled through the Alps from France into Italy. I recognized the road: I pedalled up and down it myself seven years (already!) ago, on my last bike tour. You don't forget a road like that: beautiful and treacherous, like the countryside and the journeys some of us take through it.

Seven years ago, I cycled in the opposite direction from the ones in which the racers rode today: I was coming back into France from Italy. But I encountered the same kinds of climbs and descents--through a cloud, then and now. Except they descended into light rain and slick roads; I, on the other hand, was pedalling under a preternaturally clear sky just a few minutes after emerging from nearly opaque air.

For today's riders, the wet roads were a danger: A wrong turn or even pedal stroke could send half of the pack tumbling to the pavement. What a lot of people don't realize is that a road surface slicked by a light rain is even more hazardous than one washed by hard rain: The light rain mixes with oils and other substances that would be swished away by a harder rain. The resulting film has ended the day, and the Tour, for more than one rider past.

Rain is not the only hazard. At high altitudes (2000 meters+ on that ride), clear, sunny skies sap moisture from your body: Cyclists, hikers and other sorts of adventurers have met their endings without realizing they were dying. So you drink even when you don't think you need it.

Clouds or sun, wet or dry, coming or going, there is also the frontiere--what we call the border, what others might call the boundary. There stands one of the longest and steepest climbs of all. On one side it's called Col d'Agnel, on the other, Colle d'Agnello. For me, for today's riders, for anyone who crosses, this climb is one of the most difficult anyone will face. (If I recall correctly, it's the second-highest peak in the Alps, after Mont Blanc.) For the racers in the Tour, it is an ascent that will soon be followed by a descent and a stretch to the end of the day's stage; for me, it was a climb that prepared me for yet another, one of which I had a premonition while pumping and gasping my way up Agnel/Agnello.

After decending the Agnel side, I pedalled another thirty kilometers or so to a village that was probably abuzz during the ski season but was, on that summer day, all but deserted. It was late in the afternoon; even though I was in much better shape than I am now, I was ready to eat and collapse, in no particular order. I spotted an uncharacteristically boxy building which I figured--correctly--to be a ski dorm. A couple of young men, probably caretakers or other workers of some sort, looked like they were fixing a pump or some other necessity of the building.

Pardon, monieur. Y-a-t'il une lit disponible?

J'en y crois. Demandez l'acceuil.

So someone was at the reception desk. Good sign. I found him; he explained, "nous voulons fermer ce nuit; il n'y a pas des voyageurs."

Sauf moi, I deadpanned.

Oui. Yes, I was the only one.

Je suis arrive d'Italie. J'en ai ascende le Col--I pointed in the direction of Agnel.

He stared. Je suis tres, tres fatigue, I sighed in a tone of voice I almotst never used, especially around another male.

D'accord. Quelque chose sera possible. He said perhaps he could do something, just aller a manger--he pointed to a cafe down the road--et reviens. Yes, I would come back, I said. He motioned for me to follow him and pointed to a shed. "Velo--la": I could leave my bike there.

I walked down a road that crossed a creek to the cafe. The Eagles' "Hotel California" played on the radio; the Beatles' "Get Back" followed. I remembered reading somewhere that "Hotel California" is one of the most widely played songs, and the Beatles the most commonly played group, on French radio.

Aside from me, there were only a few regulars, all of them at the counter. Actually, considering that it was a Sunday evening during the off-season, I was surprised to see even those few. They were chatting; I glanced down the road and the mountains I had just pedalled. For the following day, I'd planned to continue on toward Annecy and Chambery. I knew there would be a few more climbs--one of them, Izoard, is one of the more famous ones on the Tour. Beyond that, I only knew there would climbs, though I didn't know which ones.

That was part of the premonition I had on Agnello. The rest of it went something like this: I would have to repeat a climb, but after that, I wouldn't have to do any others.

I had no idea of what any of that meant. However, I knew somehow that I would confront something and that afterward, I could not remain as I was. After crossing the frontier, so to speak, I couldn't go back.

Two days later I pedalled le Col du Galibier, one of the two most famous Tour climbs. And I had that revelation that I'd never have to do it again; later that day, I finally confronted myself in the person of a middle-aged woman going home from work in the town of St. Jean de Maurienne, practically next to the frontier I'd crossed at Agnel/Agnello. After seeing the way she occupied time and space, as a woman--the way I'm supposed to-- I knew I couldn't go back, though I tried.

Now I'm here and don't want to be anywhere else. Nor do I want to go anywhere else but wherever's next, whether or not I have to cross a frontier. And I'll climb if I have to, but only then.

Name Change (I'm Still Justine!)

Tonight I had to make another name change.

No, I didn't have to become another person. I am still Justine Nicholas Valinotti, nee Nicholas Valinotti Jr. It's my progeny, so to speak, that got a new identity.

You see, I found out there's a website called Tranny Times. (So much for my originality!) Therefore, I had to come up with a new name and link.

I thought about a couple of others. I wanted to stick with "Times" because it reflects my aim to describe some of the quotidian details of my last year before my gender reassignment surgery. And, of course, I wanted to keep "Trans", or some form of it, in the title to encapsulate the blog and to keep the alliteration I had in the title. But "Trannygirl Times" and "Trans-lady Times" sounded too much like porn sites. While I may discuss sex (You have been warned!), I will not (consciously, anyway) satisfy anyone's voyeurism. After all, I am a lady!

Thursday Night; Hey, You!

What is it about Thursdays?

It seems that every Thursday night, like this one, I am tired. Sometimes it satisfying: Thursdays always seem to be the longest and busiest day of the week; the good side of that is that I can accomplish something or other. And even if it doesn't rank that high on the scheme of things, accomplishing something, whatever it is, feels good.

But sometimes I feel pure and simple exhaustion: You know, when you know the next day is Friday but you don't know how you're going to get through it. The funny thing is, when I feel this way, it's when--because--I haven't accomplished much of anything, even if I did a lot.

Today tended toward the first kind of Thursday I described. I can't say what in particular I accomplished, if anything. I didn't work particularly hard, even though I had my class to teach after my day job. I'm not even sure that I taught my students anything in particular, even though I'd planned to do so.

So, why do I feel rather satisfied? Hmm...Maybe I'm not so tired after all. I feel as if I shouldn't be: I'm taking hormones, but I can't honestly say I'm doing women's work. Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty about that. I can cry the way we're supposed and allowed to, but I don't have to, and can't, bleed in the same way.

Could it be that simply being what you're meant to be, or who you wanted to be (depending on whether you believe in destiny or choice), is something of an accomplishment? Even if you get to do it just for one day?

Without any prompting from me, that's pretty much what two different people told me today. One, a student in the class, said "You're completely who you are. That takes courage. That's something. Be proud of that!" Hmm...Well, I guess he knows something about courage: He came to this country, this city, by himself when he was fifteen years old. And he lived on the streets. Now, at age 27, he's a rep for a surgical-supply company and is in college. Not bad, I'd say.

A fellow faculty member echoed my student's comments. We were talking about relationships, affairs, marriages (He's been in three.) and such. He brought up the old subject of beautiful vs. sexy. "Well, I'm not such a pretty woman, am I?"

"But you know, more people than you realize find you very attractive, even sexy."

"Really?"

"Sure. You're so completely, unabashedly yourself. Believe it or not, integrity is sexy--at least I think so. And you look like you're really enjoying being who you are. You're not like the person in your old photos."

Integration is catnip. Have I stumbled over another of life's big secrets? Ha!

But, well, if people like me because I like me, I guess that's a pretty fair deal. Simple, too--or, at least, it sounds simple.

I think of all this as I'm listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall. To me, it's the last great rock 'n'roll--and, certainly, progressive rock-- album. Of course I love "Comfortably Numb," but the song I'm thinking of now is "Hey You." On one hand, I have felt the alienation the song's narrator/persona must have felt; on the other, I completely understand the longing for--and fear of--human interaction the song depicts:

Hey you, out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with you ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I'm coming home.

This song has always reminded me, in some way, of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which is probably the one poem by T.S. Eliot I can stand these days. Not just stand it--I still feel it; I still love it, even as much of his other work leaves me cold these days. I mean, do you want to know how many times I asked myself Do I dare and Do I dare? You don't? That's probably a good thing: I can't count that high. After all, I was an English major and teacher. I don't do math, as they say.

The first time I heard the song and the album--shortly after it came out--I was, coincidentally, re-reading "Prufrock" for a paper I was writing. And shortly thereafter, I discovered another wonderful poem about a person's alienation from/relationship to him/her self: Juan Ramon Jimenez's "Yo no soy yo":


Yo no soy yo.
Soy este que va a mi lado sin yo verlo,
que, a veces, voy a ver,
y que, a veces olvido.
El que calla, sereno, cuando hablo,
el que perdona, dulce, cuando odio,
el que pasea por donde no estoy,
el que quedará en pie cuando yo muera.

I'll make an attempt to translate it here:

I am not I
I am he who walks by my side without my seeing him
Who, sometimes, I go to see
And who, sometimes, I forget.
He who follows, silently, when I talk,
he who forgives, sweetly, when I hate,
he who walks where I'm not,
he who's left standing when I die.

The one whom Jiminez describes is something like the one whom the narrator of "Hey You" calls.

I didn't have the courage to make that call for a very long time. And when I finally had no choice, I was scared. But that person I called is here, is me: She demands a lot sometimes, but she will not leave me any more than I would leave her. Or any more than she left me through all those years I was pretending not to want her, to want me.

I've climbed mountains, on bicycle and on foot, and have had conquests of one kind and another. But conquests aren't always accomplishments, much less victories, because you can never be at peace, much less in harmony, with whatever you've conquered.

So, before this becomes even more of a literary wankfest (Will I have one after the operation?) than it probably already is, I'll ask: So what did I accomplish today? Another day of being who I am, completely. It's all I can do and want.

Hey you, it's Thursday night.

"Tea" Is The First Three Letters of "Tears"

Around noon today, I started sipping a large styrofoam cup of green tea. So what does that mean? Well, I guess I'm not Japanese because I used the wrong vessel and drank my tea alone. And I'm not British because I was drinking the wrong tea at the wrong hour. Oh well.

But I digress (already!). I was at one of the college's computers, working to create some materials that will help faculty advisors advise. I've done the more-or-less interesting stuff, so now I'm into such tasks as making tables and creating links. No writing or thinking involved in those jobs. Somebody's gotta do 'em, I guess.

Anyway, I was doing one of those chores that you don't go to graduate school for, and...what happened? I started to cry. At first, the tears were like the drops of rain that just barely touch a speeding train (think the TGV) because it's going so fast. Then the tears streamed like hot sea water mixed with lemon juice and vinegar. My eyes stung and dripped the tingeing liquid down my eye sockets and cheeks.

The stinging and tingeing actually felt refreshing, in some odd sort of way. It was not the first time my crying felt that way, but I didn't experience anything like it for the first forty-five years of my life. Not that I can recall, anyway.

So, you ask, did I break up with my boyfriend? Am I getting cold feet about the operation? Did someone die, or did I get some other kind of bad news?

No, no, no and no. (All right. It doesn't have quite the same ring as "Tomorrrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." What can I tell ya? I ain't Shakespeare.) Does that mean I have to spend another few hours and few hundred dollars on therapy for the answer?

Another no. And my therapist, doctor, social worker, friends and mother all say so. I didn't talk to all of them--or any of them, for that matter--today. But I've mentioned impromptu sobs like the one I had today to them, and they have all given me the same advice: Don't fight it; you probably need it. And, in fact, the therapist, doctor and social worker all predicted that I would have these low-grade crying jags after I spent some time on hormones.

I've been taking them for five years now. I don't mind the sobbing and tears: In fact, I often enjoy them because I feel so much better afterward. And, sometimes I even feel better while crying than I did right before the tears began to flow. But I wonder if I'll ever get used to it. Should I?

Again, everyone says not to worry. For one thing, I can get away with crying in public now, although I wonder how well it would go over in a professional situation. Today didn't count: I was working by myself. If you cry and no one's there to hear it...

The roses won't tell your secret. This morning, just before I left for work, The Jaynett's "Sally Go Round The Roses" played on the radio. It's my favorite "girl group" song because, well, it doesn't sound like the "I'm nothing without my guy" laments we heard from Little Eva and most other acts of their time. I grew up with that sort of thing. I kinda sorta identified with them because both they and I didn't have the love we longed for. The difference was, they lost theirs and I didn't have--and didn't expect to have--mine in the first place.

But "Sally" is something else. It's more like Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" than any of those other songs. "The roses, they can't hurt you. They won't tell your secret." If you have a secret and no one tells it...what? It means you can stay in the closet until someone outs you. If you have a secret and have no one to tell it to...it's still a secret. But what of it?

Actually, I wasn't thinking that deeply about that song, although it would've been worth the effort. I was simply responding to the feel of it: its obsessive yet subtle rhythm that seems to come out of nowhere, its call-and-response introits and refrains in gentle but persistent voices that don't quite grab you but get a hold on you anyway and don't let go.

But lemme tell ya: I've cried over songs that weren't nearly as good as "Sally." My doctor, therapist and social worker said that this is normal. And, not long ago, my mother told me she sometimes experiences spontaneous sobs like the ones I let out today. Not to seem sexist, but estrogen really does remove a filter between you and the world--one that I didn't even know I had until I lost it.

Mom says she doesn't cry when she's sad, necessarily; she cries because she needs it. That is, her body as well as her mind and spirit must cleanse themselves. You're flushing toxins out of you when you cry, she said. My doctor said something like that, too. The poison has been made; all you can do is let it out of you, mother says. Don't worry so much about what made the poison; it's in your past; it's gone now. "You're close to living the life you want; soon you'll be there. Just do what you need to do--including crying."

And my therapist said something like that, too. All right. So I have a crying spell when I'm alone or among friends; that's OK. But what do I do when I'm on stage, literally or metaphorically.

I guess I can excuse myself and go to the ladies' room. It seems to work for the other women in my life. And I can continue to drink my tea; it helps to bring on--and heal me with--tears.

Is this what the British and the Japanese had in mind? Tea for tears; tears for healing. Makes sense in some weird way.

Another Day, Another...?

Another day, another...?

Another day further into this year? Another day passed in my life? Another day closer to my surgery.

Well, duh, you might be telling yourself. The answer is, of course, "yes" to all of the above.

I've never before had a whole year to count down. When I was in school and couldn't wait to get out, graduation seemed far away and abstract, even though I'd seen others don their caps and gowns and walk up to a podium where someone handed them a rolled-up piece of paper tied with a ribbon. Maybe it was because nobody in my family had done it before me. On the other hand, I know people who've had gender reassignment surgery. In fact, I've known two "before and afters", and I met others post-surgery. While I can imagine the surgery itself only somewhat, I can somehow--"Visualize" is not quite the right word; nor is "imagine" --the experience of going through it, and what I might feel.

Empathise--maybe that's the right word. I'm empathising the surgery. I never could do that with a graduation or any other impending experience. Maybe it's because most of my peers have gotten diplomas from high school, many finished college degrees and some of us went on to higher degrees. Just in the sheer numbers, graduation is not such a special, unique experience. Nor is retiring, though that may change. So who else counts off their days? Inmates on death row? Now there's a real stretch for a comparison!

So the analogy to graduation wins, by default, I guess. Maybe I'm making that analogy to my situation because I received an e-mail from a website called "Find Your Classmates" or some such thing. I followed the links to a page from my high school graduating class.

Now, I've never had any nostalgia for any school I've ever attended, probably high school least of all. But I guess I felt like Primo Levi in "Si Questo Un' Uomo" (which, in America, was published as "Survival In Auschwitz": one of the grossest mis-translations in history), a book in which he recalls his internment and escape. One inmate he describes was a real wheeler-dealer: shrewd to the point of avariciousness, nonetheless capable of saving someone's life, however inadvertently, because his impulse toward self-preservation was so great. Of that inmate, Levi muses, "I would love to know what he's doing now, although I have no desire at all to see him again."

That's a pretty accurate description of how I feel about some of my classmates and others from my past. I don't want to bump into them, but I'm curious to know what's become of them. Why? I guess that it has to do with one of my oldest and most persistent weaknesses: my fondness for a story, any story. Of course I want a good one, but I'm even curious to know how the shoddily-constructed and improbable ones go. Maybe that's why I became a student of literature and a writer.

And the ones who turn out differently from what you expected: Why do they? Could, should we have known that they would? One of Allen Ginsberg's "angry angelheaded hipsters"--or a wannabe--was hoisting his baby grandchild up to the camera, doing something I never saw him do back in the day: smile. And it looked genuine. The way that baby looked, I guess I would've been happy, too.

Then there was my only namesake in that class. Of course, she wasn't my namesake in those days, but she would've been had I been born with a female body. Yes, my mother would have named me Justine. She told me that when I was about fourteen or fifteen, I think, most likely when I mentioned the girl with the name that should've been mine. At least it is now; I guess, when you think about it, it always was, after all.

The one and only kid with whom I kept up contact after graduation wasn't on the site. He and I haven't talked to each other in twenty years, at least. There was no falling-out, no rancor. It was just, I think, that one or both of us realized, a few years after leaving that school, that it was all we had in common anymore. Really, it was all we ever had in common: that school, or more precisely, the way we experienced it. And at that point, I was tired of talking about, much less remembering, it.

What would he think of what I've become? What would the wannabe hipster say? Or Justine?

Welcome to Transwoman Times

I have one year left.

When I say that, you're probably thinking retirement or--death.

Rest assured that neither is the case. I'm nowhere near old--or, for that matter, rich--enough to quit working. And, as far as I know, I'm not going to die, at least not in the immediate future.

You see, one year from today--on 7 July 2009--I will undergo gender-reassignment surgery. I plan to share my thoughts and feelings about my impending surgery every day, or at least every chance I get.

Sometimes people ask me whether I'm nervous about the surgery. I'm not, really: I'll be full of drugs and knocked out while the doctor does her work. I've been warned about the pain I'll feel afterward. That doesn't worry me, at least not yet: I'm anticipating it, but I can't imagine how or whether it will be similar to, or different from, other pain I've experienced.

Tonight I am writing after a day at work that was no different from others at this time of year. This day was another Monday after a long weekend: It's always difficult to return under those circumstances. But this weekend was different: It began with a Friday, the Fourth of July--which just happens to be my birthday. My fiftieth. That doesn't disturb me nearly as much as turning forty, thirty or twenty, possibly because of what I'm looking forward to.

Not long ago, a friend said that what I'm doing is as close as I can come to giving birth because I am, in a very real sense, giving birth to myself. She is mostly right: Since taking the first steps toward this transition some seven years ago, I have been in the process of being born. And during the forty years before that, I carried within me the person I am becoming. There were times when that girl, that woman, seemed dormant or even dead. And, believe me, I spent more time and energy than I can measure in trying to kill her.

She has cost me a lot, but she is making me a wealthier (and healthier) person now that I'm giving her--me--what she needs. I may not be a pretty woman, but the woman I am fills me with her light--which is still, at times, brighter than anything to which my eyes are accustomed--when I see her--me--in the mirror.

Nothing could have prepared me for becoming her, for her becoming me. And I don't know what, if anything, can prepare me for that day one year from today. I can plan, I can anticipate, and fortunately for me, my parents have offered to accompany me to the hospital when I go for my surgery. They were no more prepared--or surprised, really--than I was for the day when, for the first time in my entire life, I was entirely honest with them about who I am. And, although my therapist, former social worker (and current friend), and various other friends and friendly acquaintances have offered advice and various kinds of support, none of us can really anticipate what will come next. It's as if I've researched the country, learned its language and packed my bags for my trip. But, for all of my planning, will I be ready?

But then again, how much of my success or failure, memory and forgetting, tears and joys, were really the results of mine, or anyone else's preparation?

At least I know one moment, one year from now, won't be a continuation of the past, which is what most people mean when they talk about the present. There is tomorrow; there will be dying, and we will be born, all of us.

But we're different after we give birth. I know that much. The question is, how will I be different? If I pick an outfit to wear that first day after I leave the hospital, will I still want to wear it? Will I be like those mothers who, during their pregnancies, binge on foods they'll never touch again after their babies are born?

I know I'm getting ahead of myself. But this is the first time in my life that I know where I'll be and what I'll be doing on some specific date in the future. It's hard, for me anyway, not to speculate.

For now there is the journey. And there will be a birth: mine, and whatever else that brings.