Doing this all over again
Notes from a week where I cancelled my surgery and spiralled into depression
Let’s start with the big news of the week: I postponed my surgery. I did it for a variety of reasons, but the big one was COVID, which scares me and would’ve kept me isolated. What point is there of going with Trisha to Montreal for a week if she wouldn’t be allowed to see me, to be there when I come out of surgery, to visit me as I recover in the convalescent house? I couldn’t see one. I saw only spending hundreds of dollars for her to sit alone in a hotel room, a move that I see as not unlike paying someone to sit in a prison cell for a week. It made no sense.
Work was an issue too. I feel sometimes like if I go away for a day or two, all kinds of things start to go wrong, and as a manager, I feel like this all reflects on me. Is that fair? I don’t know. Is it true? Probably not. Is it something I worry about, every single day? Yes.
I never felt like the surgery was something that would make me happy, or feel complete, or any of those things. I wanted it because I felt like it was the next logical step in my transition. I also wanted it because I have hang-ups about that region of my body and because I wanted to be able to have sex with my girlfriend. I want to be penetrated, to feel like I’m having sex as a woman, not as a guy. I hate it, but when I have sex I feel his presence coming out, like I’m a high-school guy all over again and it’s a drag. It makes me sad, ashamed and dysphoric.
But weirdly, despite all that, I never felt like surgery was something that would make me feel like I was whole or complete. I never felt like once I got out my anxieties would vanish, or that I’d feel happy. It was just the next step in a staircase that ends in the afterlife, a trip I’ll never complete.
And now I feel like I’ll never even attempt to complete it. It’s like I’m sitting on the steps, thinking if it would be easier to travel back down than to keep climbing. Because I can’t just sit here forever.
The day after I cancelled - funnily enough, it was during a meeting at work about drama that happens when I’m not there - I went into a funk. I didn’t shave, didn’t put on any makeup. I was called sir a bunch more than usual, and I found myself lowering my voice unintentionally, like I was trying to meet their expectations.
Usually, I’m someone whose gender is hard to suss. I don’t pass, and unless I’m wearing a full face of makeup, most people guess at my gender, generally leaning towards the male end of the spectrum. It’s less insulting for a girl to be called sir than it is vice versa.
I was hoping maybe surgery would open some psychic door, make people get it right for once… but now, I worry it’ll never happen. I feel like I’m always going to be this asshole who stands there grinning as people call them sir and dude and him, because I work retail and the customer is always correct, and besides, I don’t want to provoke a conflict, because I will lose that battle every time.
I feel like I’m living in a Monkees song: “Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?”
In that one, over a stomping beat, and touches of a searing lead guitar, Michael Nesmith sings “how many times do I have to make this right?” and turns the title into a chant, singing it over and over. It’s a simple tune, little more than a couple verses and a short chorus, and in Head it’s the scene of a party where Nesmith feels out of joint, walking around while hippies party and dance.
I feel this song on a deep level: how many times do I have to keep going into work, putting on a full face of makeup and standing there as people get it wrong, either on purpose or because they mean well but just don’t get it. How many times do I have to get this right?
I remember my boss told me once, in a conversation whose context I don’t remember, that insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. I mean, that’s patently incorrect - I would perhaps define insanity as a mental condition where fantasy and reality are conflated - but I’ve been thinking about that lately with regards to how I present myself. I keep doing the same thing but I expect people to get it right.
Or, as Nesmith sang, “Didn’t I do it right the first time? Didn’t I? Didn’t I?”
But I keep doing it anyway. Does that make me insane? Or does it make me some kind of optimist, thinking that someday people will get it right?
***
As my funk worsened this week, I felt more and more forlorn. Like I couldn’t do anything right, like I’m wasting my time writing reviews and essays and putting them out there. Just to torture myself, I went to book publishers websites, and looked up books I reviewed advance copies of. And, as I knew I’d see, I was never mentioned. Instead were Twitter celebrities, a handful of Big Name Goodreads people and like one review by Kirkus or something.
No, I will not be naming them - it’d be too long. I literally went to every place that I’ve reviewed and looked around. (Although, oddly, I have been quoted on Wikipedia. That is interesting.)
My brain likes to do stuff like this to me. It likes to torture me by telling me nobody reads my writing, nobody cares what I do. But I’ve had authors help me by proof-reading my stories or sending DMs of encouragement when I’m struggling. People seem to care, even if I don’t get quoted, and I don’t know, maybe I do have an audience, even if it’s something like 12 people deep.
Still, my funk really got me feeling down and worthless. I spiralled down into depression, deleted my Twitter account for a day, almost trashed my manuscript and ate an entire pizza the other night. Work was my respite - at least there, I could turn my focus onto something else. But once I clocked out, my brain was there to remind me: “You’re not valid because you aren’t getting surgery. You cancelled your trans womanhood.”
I know that’s bullshit, and it’s a standard I would never apply to anyone else. But I’m hard on myself, and always have been. I have to be better than everyone because I’m not as smart, as talented or as pretty. I have to work harder at my job because I’m trans and have a target on my back. I have to be the best writer because I’m 35 and my window of opportunity is sliding shut.
But those are all endless loops of depression for me. As my therapist might say, it’s Worm Tongue - a guy from a movie I’ve never seen - whispering stuff in my ear. I need to learn to shut it down.
Which is why I’m writing this. The only way I can expel the voices that make me feel incomplete is to get them down on the page, and keep them there. I can refer back to them if I need to (I’ve been reading my back pages a lot lately), but once they’re there, they’re not bugging me anymore.
I don’t know if I’ll get the surgery. It’s been postponed, but I haven’t set up a date yet. I don’t know if I even will. It depends on the border, on COVID, on if Trisha can come or not. But one thing this week has taught me is that I’ll get by even if I don’t. I’ve already gone through the worst of it, and I’m still here. I’m still Roz, and even if I have to keep doing it over and over again, I’ll still be her.