homage...

I haven't written for a while. There have been so many revelatory events and experiences that I have had in the few weeks since I have last posted, that I am not even sure where to begin.

I said goodbye to someone who was very important to me. It felt impossible, yet necessary. And I remember themes in my last post, about grief and grieving. How it is a process of which we never willingly accept, or seek out in our lives. It changes us, but not always in ways that we can predict.

It has changed me. There are invaluable lessons that I have learned over the past few months. Emotions excavated, and splayed out to catalogue and analyze.

This is my life. I wish it was easy to sound so cavalier, but it's tough. To walk away from what we love... Or more so, to watch it walk away from us. It has humbled me, and granted me such a sense of patience that is new to me. More than that, it has instilled a grand sense of compassion within me.

Perhaps I needed to experience this sense of loss to empathize with the grief of those whom I love. Today will be a difficult day, as it is a date that stands out. These days are never so easy. I remember years past, and it fills me with sadness to see the complexities of things. Events I wish I had handled differently, with more care and precision. Regrets I try to forgive within myself.

But there are other dates surrounding this one. A few days back, what would have been an anniversary. And one day forward, the marker of one of the darkest days in my own personal history. It becomes more clear~through the fog of grief and the lack of understanding... We are given more time.

This does not always feel like a gift. Sometimes it feels like a curse~like that bad day which will never end. The nightmare from which we can not awaken. Other times, it means we have hidden opportunities.

During this long goodbye I was trying to explain this theme that has been the single most inspiring factor in my life for the past six months. This idea of "revisionist history." I know that it typically connotes a very negative flavor~when people set out with their own self interests and rework the relevance of facts within history to prove their own agenda. I can see how that could potentially be destructive within the context of cultural histories, international inter-dependence. But here~being the narcissitic, ego-centric fool that I am~I will make this term my own.

Meaning: I will make my history my own.

Over a year ago I tried to create an audio/video installation pertaining to the psychological concept of "the tapes," messages that we replay on loop within our subconscious. It is where we tell ourselves: "I am always the fuck up," "I am just going to get crushed again," or "Yet another example of how I overcame ~ I am the victor."

There are many factors that create the messages embodied within our tapes. We probably have a tens of thousands of them, each labelled and cued to play, awaiting the next psychosocial trigger to start them up. Ones for relationships, others for the ways we perceive ourselves within the construct of our families, our work forces, our general daily lives.

It became clear to me on the "eve" of my transition last year that a whole slew of my tapes were filled with the messages "It will never work. You will never be whole. Never lovable. Never feel resolved. You're dad was right~don't bother, you aren't worth your dreams." It was very easy to give up before I began. Easy to see that each new hope would just come crashing down, and reveal the "truth" about my life. There were patterns and evidence, maybe even commentary from those who knew me. It would all "comply." So how then would it be possible to stage a coup?

I honestly had no clue. I had no reason to believe that my life could be any other way. It never had been... History has a heaviness to it. A way that left me feeling like my path had already been laid out for me. Like there was no changing course so late in the game.

But something amazing happened. The person I loved most left me. And despite all logic and reason~ I still survived.

I was asked by a good friend to be in an art show about the topic of "consume" and it was the focus I needed to explore some of these psychological themes. Another friend had mentioned that an editor from Elle Magazine was interested in my perspective on my transition and wanted to explore an option for possibly working together. This editor asked me to simply document my life, through like a journal type system. (My art installation got some bad reviews, and the Elle Magazine possibility has not come to fruition, but I see the point in it all...)

I would not know that I could survive the threat of feeling the most unlovable unless I had to face it~unless what I loved most left me. I wouldn't have known how important is it for me to create things based on my personal expressions and experiences unless these people had invited me to do so. And I wouldn't have known that I would be able to withstand the criticism of people who thought those expressions were unrefined~that this alone did not make me paralyzed, but rather made me want to step up and do work that was better crafted.

Slowly I began to see that instead of these things seeming like reinforcements to the already pathetic tapes that had played since my youth~I could step up and revise what needed improving.

Yes, my ex was right~the person I was back then was not worth staying for... The version of myself invested in my self-defeating tricks. As much as I miss her, I see that this time is about envisioning and revision. If I can learn from the chaos of my childhood and let it inform me of the ways to simplify, then it was worth it. The tenuous (at best) relationship with my father, and the string of romantic relationships that made me feel like a failure... I can't change my past, but I can change the context in which I perceive it. It grants me the time and space to endlessly explore the kind of person I would want to be, the kind of person I do think is worth staying with...

If I get this second chance at a new body, a new name, a new context within society (even within circles of family and friends) ~ then who do I want to be? Some fearful, insecure, desperate person hoping that no one will leave me because I am trans and too weird or fucked up to be loved? Fuck no... Without realizing it, I have already changed "the tapes." There are still more to reinvent, but I am ready for the challenge.

I wouldn't have known how resilient I am unless I had been forced out of the nest of comfort and familiarity. It has been the hardest year of my life in all ways possible. And yet the only one that convinced me that I will thrive.

Thank fucking goodness for all that challenges us, as it reminds us what is most important in our lives~if we simply remember to listen to it.

This is an homage ~ to all that pushes us the most. May we learn from those struggles, and allow it to open us up to relief just beyond the pain.

Bon courage, g.