Making Sense of It All

Ms. Lee Etscovitz, Ed.D.

Why?

For most of my life I have asked, "Why?" Why am I the way I am? Why am I different? Why do I have to have these feelings, these wishes to be feminine, when I know my body is (or was) that of a man? Why can't I be like everyone else? Why, why, why? It has taken me a lifetime (least a good portion of it) to understand at last that the "why" I have been asking is the wrong one and that there is another "why" which is more productive both for me and ultimately for those around me.

The "why" which has plagued me all my life has a self-pitying sound to it, as if I were asking, "Why me?" It sounds more like a complaint than anything useful. To keep asking "why" in this manner is to keep looking for a culprit. What I have finally learned is that blaming is useless, except as a way of avoiding responsibility for one's self.

Rather than spend time and energy trying to figure why I am the way I am and blaming someone/something for my feminine wishes, I have finally seen the truth of the matter. The truth is that my life would be fuller and more productive if I could simply accept myself for who I am the way I am. My so-called "condition" might be better seen for what it really is: my identity as a person. Just as the sky is blue and the grass is green, so, too, is my sense of self a gift from God. If I do not respect that gift, who will? It is time to treasure this gift of life and to be kind to it. I should feed it right, though not excessively, clothe it properly and enjoyably, allow it to find personally satisfying work and hobbies, and perhaps most important of all, help it to find fulfilling human relationships. Maybe I will even allow myself to reach into the unknown to realize the sacredness of all that I feel and do in this life of mine. I will then see that I am only a small but nevertheless important part of the scheme of things and that I must do my best to make my life, and the life of each person with whom I come in contact, a better experience.

It is out of this effort to live more fully in the present, especially as a transgendered person, that I have begun to know the true meaning of the question,"Why?" It is that meaning, introduced above, along with some answers out of my own life experience, which I have tried to capture in a poem called, appropriately, "Why?":

Why?
For sunsets
that pave a lake with gold,
and mornings
when hope resounds
in every chirp.
For deep skies at night
with stars that hypnotize,
and the sun at noon
which heats the hunger's blood.

Why?
Because babies smile
and kittens purr
and horses prance
and butterflies dance.
Because God speaks
in thunderclaps
and signs His name
in lightning bolts
and takes you in His arms
with every ocean swell
and every wilderness breeze.

Why?
To see the fields
of wild flowers
that decorate the valleys
in the high country,
to smell the hay just cut
and the animals
that fertilize the pastures,
to taste wild berries
and trout just caught and cooked,
to swim and run and love and sleep
and live those moments
the memory keeps.

Why?
To meet old friends
and meet with new ones,
to dance and drink and laugh
and play
and learn of life
both good and bad,
to cook a meal,
to read a book,
to write a poem,
to feel the sand,
to share one's soul
and hold another's hand.

Why? That I may listen
to my favorite melodies,
to my favorite souls
and to myself,
that I may be
and be with others
till the rains cease
for me.

And so at last I am beginning to ask a "why" which yields meaningful and useful answers to the daily challenges of my life as well as to the challenge of my life as a whole. It is true that my gender confusion is itself proving to be at least a partial explanation of the general and mystifying unhappiness I experienced during a good portion of my life, which included childhood, teen-hood, and adulthood. I never thought that something called "gender confusion" could be a major factor in my unhappiness. After having spent a great deal of time and effort trying to solve the riddle of my being, it turns out that my self-recognition and self-acceptance as a transsexual seem to have settled a lot of my inner turmoil. But I no longer have an interest in asking why I was so confused about my gender in the first place. I simply want to face life with the answers I find to the fundamental human question we all must ask, regardless of our gender: "Why?"

Want to comment? Send email to Dr. Etscovitz at hmdm@voicenet.com.


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