Authenticity

My word for 2022, my guiding principle and mantra is “authenticity.”  This I came up with in therapy yesterday and the glass pebble above will be a physical reminder for me to be vigilant about just being me; my authentic self.  On the surface it may seem like a silly thing to have to constantly remind myself to just “be,” but in fact it is a massive effort to transition from one mode of being to another, especially after more than 50 years of actively working at repressing my authentic self and affecting another self just to survive.  What a crazy thing to fathom, but there it is.  There it actually is.  So, even though now and for the past eleven months I’ve been in transition, and it would seem like the most natural thing in the world to “just be myself,” it actually takes a conscious effort… at least for now.  My goal for 2022 (and beyond) is to move from having to think about and constantly remind myself to just be me and fuck what anyone else thinks or says (or what I think others are thinking or saying) about me, to just actually being/living with no conscious effort.  Until I get to that point, though, I have my glass pebble and my mantra.  

 

I knew transitioning would be hard.  I knew it would present challenges.  I knew there would be obstacles, pain, and struggles.  But I never anticipated that I’d have to be so introspective as to retrain myself just to “be.”  This is truly the hardest thing I have ever done, but there really was no choice, and there is no going back (not that I would ever actually want to).  Every time I step out of the house, I am vulnerable, and for an introvert like myself who is happy to pass under the radar unnoticed, this is a very challenging thing to navigate.  I’m doing it, though.  Every day I do it, and with each passing day I am closer to my authenticity.  

I will look back on 2021 as a pivotal year in my life—the pivotal year—and perhaps on 2022 as a year of blossoming into my authentic self.  I’ve seen it happen with other trans women who post their progress on Instagram, and I will get there myself.  It's a beautiful thing.