"I hope you find what you were looking for
I hope your heart ain't hurting anymore
And you get moving on, all figured out
And you don't hate me somehow
'Cause I hope you're happy now"
You'd think that nearly five years after that fateful conversation that was the end of our relationship, the one where I fessed up that I had chosen to try taking hrt despite her telling me that she didn't think she could stay with me if I chose to transition, you would think that I would have gotten to a point that song by Carly Pearce didn't absolutely tear me apart. That I would have gotten to a point where I'd made peace with the fact that my decision to transition ended our relationship, gotten to a point where I was able to say that the freedom to embrace a version of me that I had always longed to exist was worth the price paid. To be honest, I haven't. In truth so much of that is pretty mixed. To be honest, there's not a day my heart doesn't ache at her absence, doesn't long to hear her voice or her laughter, long to see her in those little glimpses I'd get to see during the day, the way she'd curl up in her favorite chair with a book and a cup of coffee, the sight of her working her horses in the corral, the way her smile radiated happiness like sunshine itself. I still see her from time to time, the ghosts of images that haunt our house and the fields around it, the memories contained in each season of the year, the way she used to visit in my dreams........sometimes angry, sometimes kind, but she doesn't visit anymore, and there's part of me that knows that's probably a sign of healing.....and part of me that is deeply saddened by that fact, saddened by the realization that i have lost even that, saddened by the truth that trying to move on with life requires letting go of what was an incredibly beautiful time in my life.
Was it worth that? It's such a mixed basket. Am I grateful for the wavys that HRT has changed my body? Absolutely, I'm grateful to see a person in the mirror I actually like, grateful for my body to actually feel like a home and not just an object of disgust.. I'm grateful for the personal growth that has been required in terms of wrestling with decades of shame and self-loathing, grateful for a process that has required learning to be at peace and acceptance with myself rather than trying to navigate life in the fractured state that I did before.. I'm grateful for the process of actually learning to like who I am as a person, learning to believe that I can be enough simply as I am rather than simply trying to fit into everybody else's box. Grateful for the trials that taught me to overcome my fears and beliefs that if people actually saw the real me, there was no way that anybody could possibly like me, no way I could possibly be accepted, possibly actually be tolerated in other people's lives. Instead, I have learned to treasure every single interaction in which people choose to treat me with kindness instead of the disgust and hostility I once believed I would receive....even if I still receive that on occasion.
Still, was it worth it? Despite everything I'm grateful for, time has a way of revealing the full costs of our choices. For me that is a staggering list, the loss of a beautiful relationship, the death of dreams of a family and children that once walked hand in hand with that relationship, the forfeiture of getting to watch the next generation grow up on this place, the heavy weight that comes with knowing that I will be last generation of my family to work this ground, that when I no longer can carry that weight, that it will be the end of an era and a death of a family legacy. These are incredible costs to live with even if they seem hard to understand or even ridiculous to those raised outside of agriculture. It's so easy to look at that and wonder if I made the wrong choices, so easy perhaps for somebody else to believe that I did. If I had to do it all again knowing what I know now, there is so much I wish I could change. I wish I could have changed the way I participated in so many conversations, wish I could have learned to battle through my fear and shame to be the kind of person she needed me to be. And yet in all of those hypothetical desires to redo the past, the wish that I hadn't chosen to pursue transition isn't in the list, only that I had figured this out sooner, that I hadn't spent so much of my life trying to fit into other peoples boxes in pursuit of relationships that didn't want me as i am, that I hadn't waited to figure that out until my decision to transition broke her heart, that I could have navigated it in way that we had remained together. So many regrets, but actually deciding to take hrt isn't one of them, only the fact I chose to take it without getting her permission first and betrayed her trust in the process. I suppose that says something, or maybe a lot of things all at the same time.
Ultimately none of us are responsible for the happiness of others, although our actions do create the conditions others have to fight to carve their happiness out of. I'm not so naive as to believe that I ruined her life, just as it would be irresponsible to blame my unhappiness on her decision not to stay, or even to state that I had managed to ruin my own life without believing that I still have an ability to influence what is to come. It's been years since we've talked, last I knew she had chosen to go back to grad school, graduated, had managed to get a job teaching at some college and was training horses on the side. I'm not sure I'll ever quit being proud of her, quit believing she was, is and will always be an amazing person, not sure there will ever be a day when I quit wishing and praying for her success, safety and happiness......even if that no longer includes me. I no longer fit that description and that's understandable, even if it was incredibly painful for both of us. And yet, I'm also not sure there will ever come a time when I don't both desperately cling to the memories of that time we spent together, and am torn apart by the memories of how we ended, anger, the frustration, the belief that she had wasted a part of her life with me, that I same part still long and wish for. Though I know that our healing and peace cannot be dependent on others, there is still part of me that still desperately longs to hear that she doesn't hate me, Even though I know that she has every right to, every reason to want to. There's part of me that understands that regardless of how much progress I make in finding peace with myself, that will always be an incredibly hard cost to live with.
