Breaking the law

The other day on the metro platform I saw someone who might have identified with the term "crossdresser". I would estimate them to be somewhere in their 70's and dressed just enough out of place to be noticeable; certainly to me. 

Their choice of clothing and unrelaxed body language told me this isn't something they necessarily do very often. There was also a sharp contrast with the woman of a similar age sitting right next to him. 

I was sitting in the car going in the other direction but would have found the opportunity to overlap completely fascinating. 

They weren't breaking the law despite what they might have learned growing up. 

I see far more shocking things on a daily basis and so does everyone else.

A cardinal sin

The friends and acquaintances I have made particularly over the last few years don't know I am transgender. 

I have thought a lot about this; their ages, whether it's relevant that they know, etc. 

If someone were to point blank ask me I would tell them but I keep things as they are unless confronted. 

This could easily all play into impostor syndrome where you can feel like you are a fraud. However, since I am always myself I come off as genuine to them. 

I feel that they are interested in the kind of person I am rather than my gender which they do not question. 

Yesterday I met Angela for coffee who I have known for years. She used to work in the jewelry department at The Bay (now closed due to bankruptcy) and we would banter when I visited the store. At 60 she is in-between jobs and the conversation is not much different were I conversing with a male. 

There are some differences but only around the periphery of what is not important. At one point she asks what lipstick brand I am wearing. 

Gender was so engrained in us from birth (particularly among those of us who are older) that escaping its clutches became difficult. We had to perform it to perfection lest we committed some cardinal sin.

How dare you

As we get older, people's rudeness and sense of entitlement can really get under our skin. 

Someone speaks loudly on their phone in a crowded bus or they walk closely behind you doing the same. I get irritated and stop in my tracks to let them pass. 

I didn't expect I would turn into a crabby old person but after years of learning and employing good manners, the audacity of others perturbs. 

I tell myself that they don't get to skip out on the decorum many of us learned and adopted. 

This progression in me has happened in parallel with finding and respecting my own identity. You finally realize that a huge chunk of the world's population lives with an obtuseness which is hard to fathom. 

You wonder how their opinion ever counted for you at all.

Nevertheless, there isn't much I can do to change or teach others, so I keep that constantly in mind when I am tempted to get crabby.

Fremont

You might not think that a film about an Afghan immigrant working in a Chinese fortune cookie factory would be so absorbing, but it is. 

Set in Fremont, California the story explores the lonely life of Donya, a 30 year old former translator and insomniac who barely made it out of Afghanistan as the Taliban takes hold of power. 

Filmed in a moody black and white, it explores the subject of loneliness and alienation of people. It quietly and subtly shows us the underlying existential angst underneath every person. 

To be sure this is an art film and perhaps not everyone will appreciate its almost whispering tone and pauses. But for those who are patient, it's a treat worth sticking around for.

On Tubi and highly recommended.

Follow the dominoes

- America elects Reagan and the UK Thatcher both huge advocates of Neoliberalism and trickle down economics (a myth). 

- Globalization and increasing tolerance for mergers creating monopolies. 

- Jobs move overseas and wages begin to stagnate. 

- The divide between rich and poor starts to skyrocket in earnest as the rich control and manipulate markets. 

- Conservative leaders try to mask the problem by ramping up the culture wars 

- 2008 financial collapse followed by COVID in 2020

- America elects a blithering idiot and criminal (twice no less) to assuage the people who are desperately falling behind. 

- It fails miserably 

I like movies

Movies provide us a condensed version of life. They make us cry, laugh and commiserate with the characters because, when done well, we can deeply relate to what we see on the screen. 

Over those two hours we cannot fit all of the subtleties that real relationships experience over the course of years. That mental progression and growth is left on the cutting room floor lest the movie extend to well past the patience of the audience. 

Great movies make us think about where our own lives have excelled or perhaps gone slightly wrong. We are inspired by characters we wish we could be like or incensed by their capacity for cruelty. We pat ourselves on the shoulder for being better than that and walk away relieved that our lives aren't all that bad. 

However, we are far more complicated creatures than a movie script allows and we tie a ribbon on the story as the music swells and the final credits roll.

Every day

Every day that we are alive a new tiny piece of the puzzle regarding the mystery that is you emerges. The combination of life experience and reflecting leads us to some new morcel of insight. 

If you are older you have hopefully mostly stopped caring about what others think and have plunged into your own psyche to discover who you are; perhaps who you've always been but were afraid to be. 

People will believe who you tell them you are the caveat being that you need to believe it too. There is no fooling the self because that would be pointless and blatantly transparent to others. 

I see people asking questions publicly like "am I this? how do I know I am that?" 

If we are asking someone else we've missed the point have we not?

If you don't know then they most certainly won't know either.

Connection

Fear of vulnerability is almost universal and if we have been wounded before, it will be even harder for us. 

However, having the capacity to be vulnerable is the only way to make deep and meaningful connections. 

Being your true self warts and all in front of another person requires courage. We expose our fragility and they do the same building a bond which transcends our sense of individuality 

It is a thing painfully rare to possess. 

I have understood this over my lifetime as I have reflected on the way I connected with people. I had not let them in completely but instead focused on fulfilling a designated role I didn't allow myself to fail at. 

That leaves less room for vulnerability. 

Many relationships function at a level that avoids people being genuine and true to themselves because that requires self-knowledge and more importantly love of self. 

We need to get to the core of the person that exists below the surface; under the hurts and the programming received during the formative years. 

No easy task.

The simple habit

 

Quiet

Retirement requires an entire remapping of our psyche. We have spent decades working under a familiar model which may have been far from perfect but became reliable. Suddenly that disappears and forces a reflection on meaning and purpose. 

I tell people it isn't about hobbies or keeping busy. Quite the opposite; it is about being able to live more deftly within the necessary quiet space and comprehend yourself more fully. 

If we cannot live with the quiet it is because we are escaping something. 

We are closer to our mortality and that should be enough incentive.

Hair today

At age 63 I am letting my hair grow out so I can, after decades, finally ditch the use of wigs. Right now it's an experiment because with age comes thinning and patchy areas but I am cautiously optimistic. 

I am not looking for long hair but rather a short feminine style that is low maintenance. 

By the end of this year I hope to have something that works and then decide whether to colour or leave it with its natural progression into increasing gray. 

Fingers crossed.