Controlled Chaos
I am feeling stressed.
Really stressed.
And I’m feeling alone.
So alone.
And I’m feeling like I don’t matter.
Not one … single … bit.
It’s expected. And I’m not phreaking or anything because of the feelings. Managing everything I need to pull together associated with my transition is stressful, there’s just a bunch of stuff to do … I was expressing this sense of overwhelmedness to Caitlin the other day and she referred to it as “controlled chaos” … she’s definitely right !!
Now since it’s MY transition, I’m stuck doing every, single thing that needs to be done …
And since I’m doing every, single thing that needs to be done, I’m bound to feel like I really don’t matter much to others … ’cause most of what I get them are requests for assistance, not offers of assistance. (Shaft’s an exception to this overly broad statement.)
Totally side … unrelated observation … I understand this whole transition thing is hard on people, and phreaks people out … But you know what totally blows? … What makes me come to believe that I don’t matter unless I’m doing what people want? … Is that not once has any female who knows offered me one iota of assistance … sure … I don’t expect glee and excitement … especially at first … but as time has progressed and the seriousness of this to me has become established … you’d think that if I really mattered … there’d be at least a “hesitant, please don’t accept this” type of offer by someone … to “help you learn some girl things.”
But no … instead … it’s the “I don’t think you’ll really transition” … “You’re too old” … “I think you’d have done it by now if you were going to do it” … not necessarily mean comments, but still, message sending in a way.
Oh well.
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician–
nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and
school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make
a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination”–above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,”
shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
–Marianne Moore
“Poetry”
Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups, in automobiles, with firearms, or concerning gender issues. Stay the course, Amy. You are doing fine. 🙂
It really is remarkable to me that people who seem to think I’m so rational and intelligent in every other aspect of my life seemed to feel that I’m just not trying hard enough to stick it out in this instance … that I’m being irrational … because apparently I can’t really be feeling what I think I feel .. since I’m incapable of knowing my true self. And I know they aren’t saying things to be mean or evil, but it’s astonishing to me how apparently stupid they seem to think I’ve become !! 🙂
im with Caitlin on this one. (possibly the first time in known history…) I think it’s hugely important to note what your critics are saying, ****then make the extra effort to forget it.**** This is a lesson I’m just now learning, and let me tell you, the ability of file and forget is a very nice trick.
i’m just a tired song
playing on a tired radio;
most natal women
never fully overcome
the resentment of
feeling that we’ve gamed it unfairly;
those who genuinely care
have a hard time overcoming the feeling
that we don’t realize what we’re getting into…
it is the nature of the case
that very few people
can be a friend
of the magnitude we require…
add to this the fact that jealousy/envy
is a much larger dynamic
for women than for men;
those of us who have lived as men
think women are being mean to us,
but they’re not, really…
Isn’t it remarkable on how many people think that they know you better than you know yourself?
Truly, you’re doing as well as can be expected in this. And file away these comments you are getting from other people, but certainly don’t take them to heart. You’ll use these later to determine who really knows you and who doesn’t.