Human, for a Moment

Definitely for the past year, and maybe for much longer, I’ve mostly felt uncomfortable with almost everyone I interact with. I thought it was because I was stealth about being trans/dating men and that the power of the fear of being “outed” that was causing it. And this is part of it, for sure. But it isn’t entirely it, because I’ve felt this way with people who know I’m trans, too, and with people who know I date men. With old friends and new friends, acquaintances and coworkers and everyone in between.

 

Just, for one reason or another — and there is always some reason – that we’re inconguous, or incompatible, like how you might feel about someone during a first date when you realize you absolutely do not want this person kissing you goodnight. I thought it was me — that I needed to change myself to fit in better with people, a strategy I’ve tried my whole life, since I’m clearly the one common denominator in all of these interactions. And I felt terrible about it, you know, sort of like a robot or android, that no one could get near emotionally, like my heart was just absent, like I had some kind of terrible heartless disorder. But my (current) therapist just laughed when I told him this, and he said, “you just haven’t found your people yet, that’s all.” Then he added, “but when you do, you might just feel surprised.”

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The other night I was at a gender support meeting, and there were some folks there I hadn’t met before. A guy was there who was just starting out (clearly nervous, clearly excited), and two other guys were there who had started transition way back when (further back than me) who I hadn’t met before, as well, who had been friends with each other for a long time. I don’t know what it was about these two guys – we get so many different people in gender support, at all different stages of transition  – but there was something about them that made me instantly like them.

 

When the meeting was over and we went outside, the guy just starting out realized his car battery was dead. I carry jumper cables in my pickup and offered them even though I don’t really know how to use them, and these two other guys offered to direct operations. They guided me on how far to pull my truck up in the dark so that our vehicles would be close enough and then they connected the jumpers to both of our vehicles. In just a few minutes, the new-to-transition guy’s engine was purring to life.  And we were all heading out in our different directions.

 

It was a small thing. It really was, I know. But as I drove home, something I haven’t felt in a long time was gently coursing through me: I felt like a person. I didn’t feel like a robot. I felt like, even just for a brief moment, that I belonged somewhere, even though it was really just a random group of strangers, for a small moment, in a parking lot in the dark, and that maybe I do have the ability to be a part of something that actually helps somebody in this world, small as it may be.

 

It was only a few minutes. I don’t know that I’m that much closer to knowing exactly who “my people” are or any of that. But at least I know that in small doses, at least, I can actually feel like something besides far away.