For the past few weeks I have been feeling pretty down and trapped in my life which has felt both unfulfilling and without hope of change for the better.
I’m wondering if that was part of the appeal of transitioning and starting a new life as Nicola. It is a very clear and obvious break with the past, but even with the many risks and downsides, it would create some kind of freedom.
I might lose my marriage, but I would be free to live on my terms without having to compromise and accommodate the needs of another.
I might lose my family, but I would be freed from their expectations of me and who I should be.
I might lose my career, but that would free me to try something new.
For all that these fears of losing everything are terrifying and reasons not to transition and to hide firmly in the back of my closet, they are also secretly attractive to me.
In some ways I think this attraction is related to the way I have been feeling since the university visit. That gave me such a strong feeling of not having choices or freedoms and that all possibilities were closed off in the past.
But these are two sides of the same coin that are me feeling dissatisfied with my life as it is and needing to make a change.
Transitioning feels like a good answer because it forces such comprehensive change on all aspects of my life that it delivers on my desire for freedom. It does so by blowing up my whole existing life, which is kind of nihilistic and maybe unnecessarily so.
There is a paradox in my thinking about this though. One of the reasons I, and many of the trans people I know, give for not coming out is to not be the person who destroys a marriage, family, etc. for my own selfishness. Yet the appeal of transition as a means of gaining freedom is that it abdicates responsibility for change to others. If my wife can’t deal with me being Nicola and ends our relationship, then that is her doing. That I might gain freedom from that is no longer a selfish act, because it was her choice to force that on me. Similarly, if my current career becomes untenable and I am forced to change, I am not taking a risk on a new direction, I’m responding to necessity because of how other people have reacted.
This is not to say that any of this has anything to do with why I am trans. I’m a woman and have always wanted to live as one. This thinking about how I see the consequences of being trans is giving me insight into my life generally.
What is clear is that I am not happy in any aspect of my life. I feel that I lack the freedom to do anything about that or that it is too late or that all roads are closed to me due to choices from the past. I know that this is not true however. My status quo exists because I allow it to and that is a choice. My choice.
I don’t have freedom to live as I wish because I put other people’s needs before my own. I give in to my wife on everything. I accommodate and appease colleagues even at a cost to myself and even though I can see that they are wrong or are taking advantage. I don’t take risk to change any of this as I put my family’s security first. All of which is very noble and I have the comfort of being a Good Person, but what is in it for me?
The big learning point here though is that I need to take ownership of my life and get freedom to be able to have possibilities and happiness in my future. I don’t necessarily have to use transitioning as the trigger to start.
But I do have to start.
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