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Making Sense of It All

Sticks and Daffodils

by Lee Etscovitz, Ed.D.

Spring is, for me, a very special time of the year. This is not to say that, as a resident of the northeastern part of the United States, I do not find the other three seasons to be special. There is something unique about each of them. But spring, particularly the month of April, brings with it an interesting situation. As I walked around my property on a warm mid-April weekend recently, examining the delightful daffodils and at the same time picking up the branches and sticks that had accumulated over the winter, I suddenly realized that, as a transgendered person, I, too, have both sticks and daffodils in my life.

There is a time, at least for most of us, especially among the transgendered, to throw away the outmoded and useless debris of our lives in order to make way for new growth, new beginnings, the daffodils that point to the summer ahead of us. Fulfilling our dreams, however, is not usually easy. In fact, the process is often painful. The following poem, called "April," speaks to the difficulty we face:

April
really is the cruelest,
but also the friendliest,
month of the year.

April
tells the truth
as winter warms
into spring,
and potent roots
nudge the budding earth,

while dry roots
yield not, share not
even a hint of growth.

April
can be cruel
after a winter of hope,
as dryness
here and there
mocks
the expected bloom.

April
also clarifies,
showing me,
and giving back to me,
out of potency and dryness,
the real roots
of my life.

April
is a springtime reminder,
a rebirth of my soul,
telling me who I really am,

that I may have
my summer,
and then,
and only then,
the true autumn
of my life.

What is it that makes the process of personal renewal so difficult? Why do we often have such difficulty in gathering and discarding the sticks and debris of our lives, let alone allowing ourselves to enjoy the personal daffodils that push for recognition and acceptance? Sometimes the sticks and debris keep the daffodils from blooming, and then what promises to be the beauty of spring and summer in our personal lives seems instead like a continuation of the drabness of our own winter.

There is a time for each season, but unlike the automatic seasonal change of the natural world, change and growth in human nature require human effort, and even that effort requires effort. I am not trying to speak here in riddles. It is just that life itself is something of a riddle, and I am trying to make sense of one of its biggest riddles, the riddle of human change, especially gender change.

As I say in my poem, April is both cruel and friendly, full of both sticks and daffodils alike. What are some of those sticks? They are our individual limitations, our weaknesses, physical as well as emotional, our old habits, and our fears. And there are social limitations involving our own interpersonal skills, our relationships, our situations in terms of family, work, finances, and intimate involvements. Rejection is painful, yet it is a risk which the transgendered person faces, at least in a world where gender change of any kind is not fully understood, let alone accepted.

None of this is easy to handle, but what start out as limitations can also be seen, not as barriers to happiness, but as hurdles to be conquered. It takes time to grow into oneself bodily, emotionally, and socially. The daffodils did not bloom from nothing. They started out as bulbs which sat buried in the ground during the long winter. So, too, do the daffodils in our lives require time to get ready for the right season, for the right moment to blossom.

Discovering that right moment and doing something about it are among the challenges we each face. We can, of course, plunge ahead blindly, not thinking through the implications of our gender change efforts. Or we can take greater personal responsibility for our lives by moving forward with our eyes open and striving to distinguish between the sticks and the daffodils, between the dry roots and the potent ones. Good gender counseling, for those who seek it, serves to clarify this difference as well as the requirements for proper nourishment, so that the transgender expression that often lies dormant within us can bloom properly.

It takes courage to face spring. The truth following our inner winter may not always yield the bloom we expect, or it may simply take longer to realize than we like. But whatever the truth, whatever our spring thaw uncovers, we will be preparing the way for genuine personal growth. As a transgendered person, I have finally learned to welcome both the sticks and the daffodils in my life, so that I can clean up my act and begin nurturing my real roots. The month of April is, for me, a reminder of all this.

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

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