Transition is messy

Facebook, as it is prone to do, likes to resurrect old posts and suggest I reshare them with the world. Many of these suggestions are hardly relevant 5, 7 or however many years later. Some leave me wondering why I shared them in the first place. A rare gem might be worth resharing. But many of them leave me with a most awkward feeling, as they revive memories of a past life that I have difficulty connecting with.

Recently I read this article on the grieving process that often accompanies transition. While the author focuses more on the attachment to a physical body that is simultaneously alien yet intimately familiar, I resonate with the article more in terms of my holistic connection to the person I once was. The author writes:

“But I live in the real world, too, where the pretending had to be so emphatic, it flirted with the truth. I had to be something I wasn’t long enough to reasonably convince myself, and the feelings there are residual, even now.”

When a person transitions later in life, as I did, one faces the challenge of what to make of that former life. As the citation above says, I lived as someone I wasn’t for so long and had myself and others largely convinced that that person was the real me. It wasn’t, but transitioning to my true self doesn’t erase all the memories of the person I once thought I was and tried so hard to be. For some transgender adults this struggle may be still more acute than it is for me. I don’t desire to forget the past. I readily acknowledge that it happened and fondly hold many memories from childhood and the years I was married. At the same time, it feels like it all happened to someone else, or in an alternate universe. I feel this particularly when I see old pictures. I look at this person in the picture and feel like I am looking at a stranger. I don’t want to be seen that way. That’s not who I am.

I’m a fairly active Facebook user, which probably means I’m an addict and don’t want to admit it. But I’ve been on it for about 8 years now, so I have a lot of memories and pictures shared from life before my transition. It’s a running chronicle of my life. However, I don’t want to keep a significant portion of that life visible. So I have begun removing some old images. I feel a bit strange about doing this, because it seems I’m trying to erase the past. I’m not. I still have copies of all the pictures I remove, should I ever want to go back and look at them. But they are not part of my public record anymore. I show old pictures of myself only to my closest friends now. Of course, those who knew me before and are still willing to speak with me may have old pictures, and that’s fine. I’m not asking others to purge their memories of how they knew me. I just don’t want that former self to be the way people who know me now see me.

One of the most awkward reminders of my past is my former name, my dead name as many in the transgender community refer to it. That’s an accurate description in a way, because the name is certainly dead. Is the person dead as well? Or what is the connection between the person with that former name and me, Andrea? It pains me when someone uses that name. Recently I received an invitation in the mail to an event, addressed to that old name (and worse, to my former spouse as well – talk about rubbing the wound) and I was offended, because those who had sent it know Andrea well and should have had the sensitivity to adjust their mailing list. But they aren’t the only ones. My parents still slip up and use my old name. I try to give them grace. They did know me for years by that name. However, that name has no meaning for me now. It’s an artifact of the past. As difficult as it is, I appreciate when others train themselves to see me as I am, not as I was.

What does a transgender adult do with her old life? Does it simply fade away? No, not really. It maintains an awkward presence somewhere in our minds, occasionally bringing a smile, at other times tears of grief.

I envy one thing in particular about today’s transgender youth. Without taking anything away from the very real challenges they face, they have the opportunity to live their entire lives in harmony with who they are. They won’t have to work through this weird relationship with the person they once were. Despite this I definitely wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t choose differently if confronted again with that choice to be true to myself or to keep living under the false identity I had assumed for so long. The bittersweet memories are one of the prices I must pay for being who I am.

"The truth of transition, they will tell you, is that it is pure and unadulterated joy and discovery. It makes for a touching story, to be sure. But quietly, I hold the space for something more—the messy reality that mingling with that joy is also raw and relentless grief, a letting go that too many of us struggle to make sense of."

I won’t deny the messiness of transition. I’m not going to pretend it's all joy and bliss. It’s raw and real. It’s painful, and wonderful, amazing and hard, all at the same time. I appreciate my friends and family who continue to walk this journey with me, allowing me space to grieve as well as to rejoice, joining me in both. What matters most is that I’m still here, and you’re here with me.