Entering the Arena

For most of my life I've known the risks of standing out. As an athlete, a musician, teacher, and stage actor, I stood at the brink - about to enter the arena in situations where the team depended on what I could do. My success was the team's success and the opposite as well. I know how much courage it takes to enter the arena. 

As familiar as I was with that risk, standing at the brink of transition over five years ago felt different by a factor of a thousand. 

I have invoked Brené Brown's wisdom many times on this blog. Somehow I missed this address she gave to an audience of creative people at 99u in 2013. For we who are trans and must still put ourselves out there in the public eye, her words ring so true. Hearing them six years ago would have made a difference in my life. Luckily, somehow, I found the courage to step into that arena where all the critics and my worst fears held sway. 

Brené says things like, “I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

and

“Yeah, it’s so scary to show up, it feels dangerous to be seen, it’s terrifying. But it is not as scary, dangerous or terrifying as getting to the end of our lives and thinking ‘what if I would have shown up, what would that have been like?’ “

When I recognized who I was - a strong woman living the life of a hollow man - the question 'at the end of my life which path will give me peace?' was like a tipping point. It was time to woman up and enter the arena. 

At the risk of repeating myself, this song definitely applies - thank you, K.

"If we walk away, then we walk away never knowing what we could have done."

New Morning Sun - Blue Rodeo 

Male and Female Created He Them

I had watched so many YouTube videos that I fell asleep. In a dream-like state I was still watching a video, but my spirit guide Aadi was on the screen! As always, her image was shifting, old/young, woman/man, black/asian/nordic, then finally settling down as the picture and my laptop seemed to slowly dissolve. I looked up and she was sitting at the end of the couch, looking toward me; the beautiful woman I have spoken with so often in the past. 

“Aadi, it has been so long! It's wonderful to see you!” “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” She looked briefly like Mary Poppins as she said that. 

She asked, “How long do you think it has been since the last time?” I remembered immediately that my spirit guide didn’t live in a particular timeline, but somehow always knew everything about this version of me. 

“It will be seven years in a few days.” I told her, remembering having read somewhere that a human’s cells are mostly replaced every seven years, and thinking that I am not the person I was in 2014 in more ways than one. Yet to Aadi, I was always the same. It made me wonder what she saw when she ‘looked’ at me. It also dawned on me that seven years ago, I was teetering on a cusp. I might have turned my back on transition. I am certain Aadi also keeps track of those other realities where I rebuilt the façade and gave up on transition. How could she keep track of us all? Immediately I remembered what she had told me in that last visit together:

"In what you would call this moment my consciousness is here with you, and also consoling another Halle who transitioned thirty of your years ago and cannot imagine how she can carry on without her partner of twenty five years.  As I tell you this, I am with yet another version of you who just died in a mysterious car crash and is trying to figure out why he still is conscious and can see his dead body and mourning family gathered. These are just three of an infinite number of 'places' I am engaged in 'at the moment'. My perspective is *different* shall we say." 

Aadi smiled as though reading my mind, which I knew she was doing constantly, “You have some questions for me today I think.” I had to laugh at that, because I did have questions as a result of a particular video I had just watched on a channel where this man ‘discusses’ difficult issues in the context of the bible as he sees it. The show I watched was about a biblical interpretation of transitioning. Quoting from Genesis, he pointed out that God made humans male and female. To him, that means God doesn’t want us to mess around with how he made us - we are supposed to remain and live as we came out of the womb. It was the old 'abomination in the sight of God' argument.

"Aadi, am I an abomination?" She surprised me with her answer: "Oh, definitely!" then clarified: "In some human beings' eyes you and anyone like you is dangerous and they hate you." "Yes, I get that," I said, "but what about God?" Without missing a beat, Aadi morphed into a white-haired thunder god and gave me a hard stare. I am used to her being able to change appearance, but suddenly, it was my appearance that shifted, over and over. I became different versions of how I have looked to the world through my lifetime as well as some looks I can only guess are how I will or could look like in the future or in other lives. As I settled back to my current appearance, thunder-god-Aadi spoke in a voice that was the most gentle of baritones. "You look just fine to me Halle."

At that moment I remembered something else she said seven years back. She told me that everything I or any of my uncountable incarnations does adds to our totality. Everything we learn increases the joy of the whole. 

Aadi then surprised me by asking "Do you think God is a man?" In that dreamtime world it didn't take me a second to reply "No, I don't think so. After all, isn't it written in the same bible passage that God said 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness'? So, since 'man' is both male and female and so many different mixes of races and appearances, doesn't that mean that God is the same? Doesn't that mean that God encompasses all of humanity?" 

Looking about as though she was hosting a lecture series, Aadi asked "Does anyone have questions for our guest speaker?" then slowly faded away, Cheshire-cat-like, her beautiful smile disappearing last. 

A Recipe For Happiness

This story starts when I was young and naive. It usually takes a lot of living to find the truth about happiness. 

Because of my naiveté and a basic character flaw (I am a fixer due to experiences in my early life), I married someone who was unhappy a lot of the time, thinking that I was so wonderfully clever (not naive, not me!) and lovable that I could 'make her happy'.  Of course, if you have been reading a few years worth of this blog, you know that not only did I not make that lovely lady happy; I made her very, very unhappy because I couldn't keep the big-secret-of-me from finally grabbing me by the throat and coming out. 

Now some people will say that I transitioned to "make myself happy", which is nonsense spoken by those who know nothing of gender dysphoria. Oh, yes, I have become a very happy lady, but that happened much later and for many very different reasons having little or nothing to do with transition. No, transitioning was never about 'making myself happy'. It was about ending a lie. It was about finally letting my nature take over. It might be said that transitioning was about ending unhappiness, which does not automatically make you happy. It leaves you in an in-between state - a kind of 'happiness limbo' where there is at least a potential for happiness.

Since puberty I had been at war with myself. The way I felt and the things that testosterone made me want and feel made me really unhappy. Designated male at birth, that flood of testosterone was supposed to make me feel right. Estrogen should have made me feel awful. I know a man who had to take estrogen shots as part of his medical treatment. He hated how it made him feel; almost suicidal. In my case, blocking the testosterone felt better. Starting estrogen supplements felt right. All of those drives that made me hate myself were finally gone. It was clear what must be done. 

Was I happy? Hardly. The person I had spent over forty years loving and 'trying to make happy' said what I was doing was wrong. She told me she wouldn't live with a woman and be thought of as a lesbian. I was very unhappy. I wanted the two of us to be 'the Halle girls'. So this taught me that one transitions to be authentic, not to be happy. Do not let anyone con you into thinking that by transitioning you will 'find happiness'. That is horse-pucks. 

"So where is the recipe?" I hear you saying. First another story. 

Years ago our family used to go camping at the same provincial park every year. No matter what time of the summer we arrived there was always a man who was camping, alone, at the same campsite. He always had a big pot of water over his campfire, that was always a pile of glowing embers that he would add a small stick or two to now and then. He was an artist. He told us the water was there for anyone to take a panful. What a happy person! Working away, generous with his time if you felt like chatting. Such a life would have bored me to tears at the age I was then. 

These days, I could be that artist. I could be around that campsite, keeping the fire on low, adding cold water to make more hot when needed. I could read and do my stitching when the light is right. I would go for walks, make my meals, and sit, watching the world go by quite happily.

One needs to find their own happiness. It looks different everywhere you see it. As many people as you meet who are happy, there will be that many different ways to be happy. 

I suppose writing this has made me happy. 

Step 1: Think about what has made you happy and do it more.

Step 2: When you find it, be true to your own happiness. 

Step 3: Never try to make someone else happy. It is hard enough to find and nurture your own. 

Recipe notes: If you are very lucky, as I am, you will find someone to share your happiness - someone who appreciates your recipe, as you appreciate theirs.