All I Have Really Wanted
During lock down with the Broadway shutting down, I dedicated much time to practice. Uncertainty seemed like a common thread for all. First I tried my usual striving for perfection because I finally had all the time I needed that I didn’t have for an 8-shows-a-week-schedule (now no job), but soon enough I figured it was no use striving during a lockdown. It was time to rest.
Fortunately, I had aspirations for practice, resources, unemployment benefits, a partner, and a community to support that. On self-retreats, unlike my regular self, I start not following the schedule and letting myself lie down during many sits (the perks of at home self retreat). This finally relaxed my overachiever tendencies… just slightly. TBH I could not bring myself to sit with low energy and anxiety. I told my teachers what I was doing, expecting that they might tell me to practice more. On the contrary, they were glad that I was figuring out how to practice. They didn’t accuse me of not sitting or following the schedule. They respected my autonomy. No one had done that for me. Not even myself. Without me controlling, the experience still happened.
I heard Michele saying it like this:
Practice is a process of opening and closing like a flower. When we are open we are open to all experiences that are pleasant, unpleasant, neutral; we are open to the range of joy and sorrow. When we are closed, we are protected from sorrow but also closed off from joy. We cannot really pick and choose… Joy and sorrows and everything in between, all are worthy of paying attention. The amount of control that I might want to have… that much of control is pure violence. We actually would not want to have that much dominance over ourselves or anyone.
I knew this was true. My life has been a series of violent control from others, society, and myself that portrayed capitalism, patriarchy, racism, homophobia, and transphobia. During the lockdown without much contact from the outside world, I started to remember how I was. One important part was that I was a trans woman.
At one of the self-retreats I realized that I was afraid to be a woman. The obvious violence of misogyny and yet my desire to be a woman aligned with patriarchy scared me. I saw a glimpse of the cause of my avoidance to claim to be a woman. I felt angry. The anger gave me energy to explore what it meant to be a woman. A trans woman. The cruelty that happens in transphobia is despicable. The external cruelty might be hard to deal with, but at least I have committed to unlearn my internalized transphobia that violated my own existence from inside for over 3 decades.
That was the start of my medical transition. I steadily gathered the information about GAHT/ HRT because I wanted to offer myself something that I had always wanted and did not know how to. After years of denial, I had not known how NOT to be cruel to be myself, knotted by childhood trauma and self-hatred. Hormone therapy was the first gift that fulfilled my deepest longing. It was just for me. Not the pill itself, but the act of offering myself something meaningful brought me a sense of friendliness towards myself, metta.
Once I decided to proceed, there was no stopping. BUT it was not as easy to find a trustworthy medical provider even in NYC with the complication of the American health insurance system. Some medical providers claimed that they offered transgender medical care when they did not. Some did but their procedure was not up to WPATH’s standard of care. Wanting, aversion, and restlessness increased during the waiting period, on the other hand, the worthiness that I felt from intention to transition was something I had never experienced.
