“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, especially one which you know will never come.<\/i>”<\/p>\n
At first I thought that was a quote from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D<\/a>, but I couldn’t attribute it to her. Then I checked out to see if Soren Kierkegaard<\/a> had said it … but no, didn’t appear to be his quote either.<\/p>\n Now before any of you get the thought that there’s more to me than meets the eye … that maybe, just maybe … I actually venture into reading material besides my Cosmo<\/a>, PC World<\/a> and Maxim<\/a> … solely because I reference writings from people who have yet to be mentioned in an episode of Friends<\/a> … rest assured … there’s nothing more than meets the eye … it’s just me … ya see … all I do is listen.<\/p>\n The quote was mentioned in last week’s episode of Joan of Arcadia<\/a>, the priest in the show who said it, had previously mentioned Dr. Kubler-Ross’ book, On Death and Dying<\/a> … which is why I thought she might have said it. As far as Soren Kierkegaard goes, come on … I’m a Jedi … I’m expected to know the writings of a bunch of different philosophers and religions. On yeah, it was also mentioned on a Joan of Arcadia forum board<\/a> I frequent ! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Regardless, until otherwise informed, I’ll attribute the quote to the priest in the episode.<\/p>\n And did it ever resonate with me.<\/p>\n As once you start transitioning …<\/p>\n Once you commit to transitioning …<\/p>\n Once you start telling people …<\/p>\n You cease having the possibility for a future that you and others had maintained in your mind for your life up to that point. Now granted, you and others might not have had the same “future” in mind for you … but whatever future each of you had in mind … ceased. But still, parallel with that wish … because I also suspected it would never be granted … I contrived a future in my mind otherwise …<\/p>\n One with a wife, children, happiness, challenges, comforts. Life.<\/p>\n And even today, there are periods when I think about … not growing up the man I had formulated in my mind since my youngest days.<\/p>\n And I suspect my loved ones, on occasion, think of me as not growing up the son, brother, friend they had always thought I would be.<\/p>\n And when you are in the place of remembering such a future … while knowing it can never be now … it is a terrible, terrible place.<\/p>\n Oh sure … one could always cease transition, “de-transition”, pretend it was just a phase … but we all know … once Disclosures are made … you are never looked at the same way again … and that makes the future you were remembering before Disclosure … one which you know will never come.<\/p>\n But futures are never guaranteed.<\/p>\n And just because I had one future in my mind at one point, there was no certainty that would have happened.<\/p>\n Remembering pasts is fine … because those are known events. They really did happen. They bring memories, they bring feelings, they bring connection.<\/p>\n Remembering futures is futile … because you’re not remembering anything that actually happened, in fact … you’re postulating things that most likely would never have happened … and certainly never will. It’s a game of “Ifs and Butts” \ud83d\ude09 … one where the mere exercise of it can do nothing but make you feel bad. Because you almost always remember positive futures … you never remember futures where you get drunk and kill someone with your car or forget to do something causing great pain to others. Naaaa … you never remember those types of futures … negative futures. Everyone and everything is great in their remembered futures … everyone wins the game, everyone has the best job in the world, everyone gets the boy\/girl, everyone gets everything they think they might have wanted.<\/p>\n Remembering the future is no different that fantasizing being the hero.<\/p>\n It’s recreational escapism with pain … because while you’re enjoying the recollections of what might have been … you’re getting smacked in the face with the fact that … NOPE … it’s not ever going to happen. And maybe it’s not going to happen because you’re such a loser !! Had you tried harder, had you been nicer, had you been more committed … that might have happened … but because you weren’t\/didn’t … it won’t.<\/p>\n Whatever.<\/p>\n You might have done everything right to make the team, get the job, win the heart … but that doesn’t mean it would have really happened … way too many things could have happened to still screw things up for such a remembered future to occur … and most of those things are all out of your control.<\/p>\n Which is why …<\/p>\n I always remember the past, because those who don’t are condemned to relive it (Paraphrased, I know. Besides, there are so many mistakes I can make, there’s no need for me to re-do those already experienced !! :)) And,<\/p>\n I always think about the future, because one must plan, anticipate, prepare and hope.<\/p>\n But,<\/p>\n I don’t Live for Remembered Futures … those are just fantasies with any connection to reality dimmed by time, similar to how I remember myself playing high school baseball better than I probably really did at the time.<\/p>\n No …<\/p>\n I Live for Possible Futures.<\/p>\n Because those … can happen !! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The most painful state of being is remembering the future, especially one which you know will never come.” At first I thought that was a quote from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D, but I couldn’t attribute it to her. Then I checked out to see if Soren Kierkegaard had said it … but no, didn’t appear to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":139,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/AFavIconTransBackRev-1024x1024.png",1024,1024,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Amy","author_link":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/author\/amy\/"},"comment_info":8,"category_info":[{"term_id":139,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":143,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":775,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":139,"category_count":775,"category_description":"","cat_name":"General","category_nicename":"general","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nSure … sure … if you’re ts … there’s a very good chance that for your entire life up to that point of decision … you often wished, prayed, thought about … a future where you were in your proper gender role … at least I did. It consumed me.<\/p>\n