I remember trying to explain this on-hold feeling and my own physical ambiguity a few weeks ago. I didn't, and still don't, know what my status is at my current job. I had final grading to do for the term. The stress of transitioning on the job had been wearing me down for months, and I badly needed a few weeks off. I had top surgery scheduled in a few weeks. My gender markers were all female, and I wasn't always read as male. My partner had broken up with me a month earlier, and I was staring at a lengthy divorce process. I knew that I couldn't look for a new job or a new apartment in such a state of ambiguity.
The gal I was talking to was trying to work out the logistics for me. "You see, you put in applications now, maybe you get a phone interview in a couple of weeks when you're recuperating from surgery, you do your pre-semester prep while you're on jury duty in early August, you start teaching fall semester in mid-August, you look for apartments as soon as you get past the first day of teaching...yes, you can absolutely teach at a new job and find a new apartment all at once."
She just didn't get it.
The thing is, it wasn't about logistics; it was about my emotional needs. I had been living pre-transition and transition and regular life for months, and I had a pretty good idea of what I could and could not handle and what kind of break I needed and what kinds of psychological requirements it would take for me to jump certain life hurdles. She didn't. I kept saying, "I'm not going to do that." She kept saying, "But you CAN." I finally said, "Logistically, yes, it is possible. BUT I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT."
The thing is, it WASN'T logistically possible. I knew that my psychological needs had to be taken into account. I knew that because of my transition, certain parts of my life were on hold and would be for a little while. Only some kind of gigantic life crisis, like being homeless or having no money at all, could reorient my priorities and force me to bypass my psychological needs. And I don't think such a scenario would have had a good result in the long run. I think I would have cracked. I tried to give myself a break for a short time this summer so that I wouldn't crack.
In her mind, I could quite easily negotiate the following in a seven- or eight-week period: finding and starting a new job, finding and moving into a new apartment, living in a new gender and sexual orientation, having and recovering from top surgery, making legal gender marker changes, initiating the early stages of my divorce, and starting a new life without my partner of twenty years. In my mind, I knew that I had been barely hanging on for months and needed to get further along in transition before I could handle certain other things.
Drives me nuts when other people tell me what I can handle, especially when they're talking about something they will never experience. She just didn't get it. But, yes, I need more progress in my transition before I leap into the next new thing. My therapist agrees, and even my partner agrees, even though he would love for me to waltz into a new job and a new apartment as soon as possible so he can get to the next phase of his life and start dealing with his "me issues." (He feels that he can't deal with "me" until I'm out of his life and out of his personal space. Whatever.)
I don't know why this friend was being so obtuse when I tried to tell her what I needed and what I could handle. I felt like she was telling me what to do. Sorry, but I do things my own way. And I have a much more realistic idea of what I can handle than she does. And certain parts of my life will have to be on hold until I transition. Yup.
