"No apologies ever need be made
I know you better than you fake it, to see"
["1979", The Smashing Pumpkins]
I wonder: if my mother were still alive today, would I call her "Mom", or would I call her "Betty"?
Dear Mom...
Over a year ago, when I wrote v46, Liza-Ann read it and said something like "I think you freed yourself from that cage long ago". We didn't discuss it much further at the time. She was largely right. But nothing is ever 100% black and white. It's why the Taijitu ("Yin Yang symbol") has the little dots. I have, in past years, continued on my journey of self-discovery to find lots of little remaining bits of bad programming and pull them out by the roots where I can. It's like fixing small but persistent bugs in old software. I imagine programmers find that somewhat satisfying. This is certainly satisfying, even if it isn't in ways always obvious.
And the last year has continued to see my views on life, the world, myself, relationships, just about everything really, grow and change and evolve in what I hope to always be in positive directions. But if anything, it's not a small number of big, clear changes, so much as a more numerous blurring of lines. I think things will continue to become more comfortable and liberating to me in time (said as someone with incredible privilege and freedom, I know), but as someone who has spent his life so obsessed with precision, if there's one thing that could be said to be significant, it's that I could say I've found ways in which I've still been clinging to some bad habits that I'm getting better at not white-knuckling.
These changes haven't been without their growing pains. I grew apart from a friend of 25+ years enough that it was necessary for us to part ways. I miss him from time to time but firmly believe we're better off apart. It should have happened sooner, if anything.
And while I consider it obvious, and think I've made it obvious, in case it wasn't already as crystal clear as it always should have been: my child coming out as trans lead me down a road of self-discovery and awakening that I truly believe has made me a better person, and my life richer for it.
That's it in one sentence. It really was the catalyst for a whole new period of evolution in who I am, at a time when I thought I'd become who I was meant to be. Frankly, feeling that I'm not done learning and growing was at first a tiresome idea, which is I suppose why so many people are resistant to change. Now, instead, the thought of continuously becoming a better person is invigorating. It's like a gift I've been given that I want to share with anyone willing to sit and discuss.
Let me never be complete. (Tyler Durden)
I plan to someday write about that journey. I see it in others going through similar experiences. I don't know if they see it in themselves. And, incidentally, one of the best, simplest pieces of parenting advice I've ever been given was from a young trans adult with no children, and it wasn't just good advice for 'parents of trans', it was good advice for all, simple and plain. I alluded recently to how I feel about the good the LGBTQ+ movement is doing for the human condition that helps us all - even the cis straight white ones - in enormous ways that go unseen.
Mom...
If you were alive today, I know you'd love Dan and appreciate his many great qualities. I think you and Liza-Ann would get along like gangbusters. And let's be honest, you didn't approve of all my girlfriends in the past, and now, older, I can see there were good reasons why, reasons that become more obvious with age but blinded back then by youthful naivety. But Liza-Ann, I think you two would have many things to bond over.
I think you would have been proud of the man I was a few years ago, but prouder still of the man I'm becoming.
At the same time, Betty...
My thinking or knowing that isn't nearly as important to me as it once would have been. (And then, perhaps ironically, "meta meta", you'd be prouder still knowing that.)
I'd have loved to have a conversation with you about mid-life existentialism. The great divide in our religious views would have made it interesting. It's something I think about from time to time, but my thoughts are not yet really cogent enough to even begin to write, largely because there's enough fear in me still to keep me from seriously contemplating it. I know you saw yourself first and foremost as a mother, a nurturer. This much was obvious to anyone and everyone who knew you. But what I would love to know most is: what was next? You were too intelligent a person to have confined yourself to a single purpose. What would be your second great love had you been healthier and lived longer?
Work has been both good and bad for me of late. The past few months have seen me under more stress than I've experienced since my youth and early 20s, and I underestimated the tricky nature of human memory in preparing myself for the challenges I faced. I thought I was readier than I was. Nonetheless, I've lumbered through, and recently feel like I've turned a bit of a corner. I was experiencing night-time anxiety for the first time in my life, waking at 4am with my mind abuzz about Email and what I had to do the next day. But that's slowly wearing off, and now I mostly just need to re-adjust my sleep schedule by an hour so I can be awake past 10pm. I want to enjoy more of my evening one-on-one time with Liza-Ann, which has been the biggest price in this struggle. She has been a rock throughout, and patient. How did I ever get so lucky?
I should also point out that it has also been rewarding, along with the challenges. I've done good work. I generally perform well under pressure. Advancement has come too, and opportunities - rewarding and challenging ones - are presenting themselves. There are things to look forward to.
It's winter, of course, and that means a lot of cold weekends indoors and not as much socializing as I'd like. Dungeons & Dragons and board games are both experiencing a bit of a "golden age", which is great for me, but there are other friends I'd like to see more often, and I never seem to find the energy to make that happen, or at least not as often as I'd like. Perhaps once we get through March, and particularly as I near the end of my current contract at work, I can look forward to that changing. My doctor tells me my iron is back to normal, so my current energy levels are more about mental than physical health.
I miss you and, in a way, more than I used to. In the past I contented myself with the idea that "I know what she'd say" to most questions that arose in my mind. But as I grow older, the questions I have change, and the topics are things you and I never talked about. It's no longer about an opportunity lost - to speak with my mother - but about an opportunity never had - to get know to Betty.
I suspect she's someone I'd have found fascinating. I don't think she'd have ever stopped growing either.
And the last year has continued to see my views on life, the world, myself, relationships, just about everything really, grow and change and evolve in what I hope to always be in positive directions. But if anything, it's not a small number of big, clear changes, so much as a more numerous blurring of lines. I think things will continue to become more comfortable and liberating to me in time (said as someone with incredible privilege and freedom, I know), but as someone who has spent his life so obsessed with precision, if there's one thing that could be said to be significant, it's that I could say I've found ways in which I've still been clinging to some bad habits that I'm getting better at not white-knuckling.
These changes haven't been without their growing pains. I grew apart from a friend of 25+ years enough that it was necessary for us to part ways. I miss him from time to time but firmly believe we're better off apart. It should have happened sooner, if anything.
And while I consider it obvious, and think I've made it obvious, in case it wasn't already as crystal clear as it always should have been: my child coming out as trans lead me down a road of self-discovery and awakening that I truly believe has made me a better person, and my life richer for it.
That's it in one sentence. It really was the catalyst for a whole new period of evolution in who I am, at a time when I thought I'd become who I was meant to be. Frankly, feeling that I'm not done learning and growing was at first a tiresome idea, which is I suppose why so many people are resistant to change. Now, instead, the thought of continuously becoming a better person is invigorating. It's like a gift I've been given that I want to share with anyone willing to sit and discuss.
Let me never be complete. (Tyler Durden)
I plan to someday write about that journey. I see it in others going through similar experiences. I don't know if they see it in themselves. And, incidentally, one of the best, simplest pieces of parenting advice I've ever been given was from a young trans adult with no children, and it wasn't just good advice for 'parents of trans', it was good advice for all, simple and plain. I alluded recently to how I feel about the good the LGBTQ+ movement is doing for the human condition that helps us all - even the cis straight white ones - in enormous ways that go unseen.
Mom...
If you were alive today, I know you'd love Dan and appreciate his many great qualities. I think you and Liza-Ann would get along like gangbusters. And let's be honest, you didn't approve of all my girlfriends in the past, and now, older, I can see there were good reasons why, reasons that become more obvious with age but blinded back then by youthful naivety. But Liza-Ann, I think you two would have many things to bond over.
I think you would have been proud of the man I was a few years ago, but prouder still of the man I'm becoming.
At the same time, Betty...
My thinking or knowing that isn't nearly as important to me as it once would have been. (And then, perhaps ironically, "meta meta", you'd be prouder still knowing that.)
I'd have loved to have a conversation with you about mid-life existentialism. The great divide in our religious views would have made it interesting. It's something I think about from time to time, but my thoughts are not yet really cogent enough to even begin to write, largely because there's enough fear in me still to keep me from seriously contemplating it. I know you saw yourself first and foremost as a mother, a nurturer. This much was obvious to anyone and everyone who knew you. But what I would love to know most is: what was next? You were too intelligent a person to have confined yourself to a single purpose. What would be your second great love had you been healthier and lived longer?
Work has been both good and bad for me of late. The past few months have seen me under more stress than I've experienced since my youth and early 20s, and I underestimated the tricky nature of human memory in preparing myself for the challenges I faced. I thought I was readier than I was. Nonetheless, I've lumbered through, and recently feel like I've turned a bit of a corner. I was experiencing night-time anxiety for the first time in my life, waking at 4am with my mind abuzz about Email and what I had to do the next day. But that's slowly wearing off, and now I mostly just need to re-adjust my sleep schedule by an hour so I can be awake past 10pm. I want to enjoy more of my evening one-on-one time with Liza-Ann, which has been the biggest price in this struggle. She has been a rock throughout, and patient. How did I ever get so lucky?
I should also point out that it has also been rewarding, along with the challenges. I've done good work. I generally perform well under pressure. Advancement has come too, and opportunities - rewarding and challenging ones - are presenting themselves. There are things to look forward to.
It's winter, of course, and that means a lot of cold weekends indoors and not as much socializing as I'd like. Dungeons & Dragons and board games are both experiencing a bit of a "golden age", which is great for me, but there are other friends I'd like to see more often, and I never seem to find the energy to make that happen, or at least not as often as I'd like. Perhaps once we get through March, and particularly as I near the end of my current contract at work, I can look forward to that changing. My doctor tells me my iron is back to normal, so my current energy levels are more about mental than physical health.
I miss you and, in a way, more than I used to. In the past I contented myself with the idea that "I know what she'd say" to most questions that arose in my mind. But as I grow older, the questions I have change, and the topics are things you and I never talked about. It's no longer about an opportunity lost - to speak with my mother - but about an opportunity never had - to get know to Betty.
I suspect she's someone I'd have found fascinating. I don't think she'd have ever stopped growing either.
