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. 

Taking Charge

Eleven years ago I began an intense self-examination process; much of it documented here. Over five years ago, I did something that set me apart from almost everyone I knew ...

I took charge of my life. 

It had never occurred to me that so many people that I had considered friends would become angry. At the time, it seemed impossible to me that the fact of taking charge was what bothered them. It had to be transitioning itself. Yet that seemed to ring hollow. Why? Because, yes, transitioning does change our relationships with others a bit, but, I thought, not that much. I was still me. I didn't reject anyone's company because of being female. I still enjoyed going for walks, especially when a set of golf clubs was involved. I still taught at the school. I faithfully cut my grass, etc. Yet, the reaction of most was quite dramatic. It polarized those who knew me. There were a few who were accepting - even some who were quite excited and pleased for me. Mostly, there were the 'others'. 

In retrospect, a lot of the anger was generated from envy. I heard things such as "You have lived all your life up to now with this, so you should be able to carry on with it. You don't have that much longer to live anyway." That attitude made me wonder what had they sacrificed to make them so resentful of one who refused to put their own interests aside? 

It was in considering the nature of the people who immediately saw what I was doing as life-affirming and good that an answer began to form. Without exception, those positive people had made conscious choices in their own lives and they didn't blame others if those choices didn't work out. They understood life-affirming decision-making. 

Somehow, our culture had led those who envied me to believe that by giving up their own lives, ignoring their own interests, numbing the pain as needed, they were doing the 'right thing'. They saw what I was doing not as 'life-affirming' but instead as 'letting the team down'. 

If one chooses a path, because they know in their heart that it is right for them, that is life-affirming. If I had made the choice to continue to fight a battle against transition, and that choice was based on some positive motive, it would have been life-affirming as well. It is the motivation that counts here. Those who were excited and pleased were people who could appreciate how difficult the process that brought me to transition was. They had taken charge of their lives in some way. Those who hated couldn't understand or appreciate what I was doing. 

Choosing to put the needs of others before your own shouldn't make you envious of those who do not. But when it does, it is toxic.