Monday, November 7, 2011

Great Expectations

I wrote a book when I was nine about who I would be as an adult.  Reading it now is entertaining, to see how I perceived the world at nine.  At nineteen, I had dated several people and was getting married to a, what else?, RM.  We eloped to the temple, had kids, some of them die, it was very drama-filled.  When I was 17, I was getting ready to graduate high school, and I knew what I was going to do: UVSC for four years, graduate with a bachelors in behavioral science, and attend U of U to get my masters in clinical psychology or something like that.  Somewhere in there, I would meet and fall in love with (ha, I hoped!) a nice RM and he would "take me to the temple". Part of the reasons I had these expectations, was that I was taught to have these expectations.  Some of these expectations can be very helpful and very useful, and others only allow us to not bother thinking outside the box.  The reason I knew who I was going to marry was because it had all but been planned out for me.  I knew I was going to get a good education, because further education was the next step after high-school until you have a degree.

I've been thinking a lot lately about who I thought I would be now.  At 22, I was sure I'd be at U of U right now, working on my master's.  I'd be married and seeking a career in psychology.  Maybe I'd even have a child or two.  I'd be closeted as a homosexual woman, and probably still have no conscious clue why I felt such a disconnect from my female body.  I wonder if I ever would have been Relief Society president.

Things are very different from what I expected.  Actually, things are very different from what everyone expected.  And that is not always such a bad thing.

4 comments:

  1. You're right. It's NOT always such a bad thing. :)

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  2. Great title :)
    although, I don't think I ever read that book...now that I think about it...

    I agree, having things turn out very different from what you (and everyone else) may have thought is not always a bad thing. Indeed, I think it is often a very good thing.

    Jack, I'm so curious to know, how did you get from feeling like you'd fulfill all these expectations as an LDS woman to where you are now (taking hormones, using the men's restroom, and such)?

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  3. Tiffany, after I came out as a lesbian, i decided that being myself was important to me and that i didnt want to go through life as anyone else. When it became clear to me that i was a transman it couldnt be a question of if i would live as a man, but how. I'm trans, exmormon, atheist, living with his significant other who is a woman... I am nothing like what i wanted to be, but i dont care. 17 year old me didn't have all the info but i have a lot more now and i am much happier and much more genuine.

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  4. Good! I love it when people are genuine. :)
    It's really great getting to know you, Jack.
    I love reading pieces of your story.

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