Who am I?

(Sorry for the length of this entry....but that's what happens when you stick me in a place with my laptop and no internet.)

It’s been over 2 years since E and I broke up. Because I was just barely post-op when we first met, I still hadn’t been through the little identity crisis. Now, though, and in the past 2 years, I think I’ve been searching. I’m not alone. I see a lot of us searching for who we are and where we fit in to this thing we call life.

And the sad part is, the sky doesn’t seem as bright as it once did. I’m sorry I sound so morbid. With my mom going through cancer treatments the past 2.5 years, I see how mortal we all are. And this life only brings with it one shot. And the harder part is that if we don’t figure out our identity early on, we’re often stuck along a path that doesn’t bring with it the joys that others find. It’s very difficult for this old train to jump tracks to the one she belongs on.

It’s hard to describe this to people. Sure, I took the mini-online test not long ago to see what profession would work best for me. It said I should be, of all things, an engineer. I’m already an engineer, and you would likely think I would be happy. Sure, there are certain aspects of my job that I like, but it doesn’t seem as rewarding. I don’t get to see the customer enjoying our products and making great scientific breakthroughs. All I get to see is the customer complaints when something goes wrong or somehow the customer thinks our products did not perform as expected. Typically, this is less than 0.1% of the products we sell, but it’s a very loud 0.1%.

I think one of the aspects to this search for identity deals with lost time. Imagine, if you will, a 14 year old child that is time-warped into a 37 year old adult. How will they make a living? What part of them can grow up? What part of them can adapt and sustain their life based on their new surroundings? What part of a 14 year old children makes them grow up so fast they can fight in wars...present and past. What part of me hasn’t grown up because I simply did not experience that part of life that makes you grow up? Does our maturity depend on life’s experiences?

And yet, I feel I have been wandering...not necessarily aimlessly, but rather, wandering around the wilderness with a backpack filled with supplies. I can sustain my life, but I haven’t found a place to set up permanent camp. I think I’m too far into the wilderness to find my way back and take the other path. I can see if there are any paths ahead of me that lead off to other paths, but those trails are not well worn.

I sometimes wonder what type of legacy we all leave in this life. I’ve always felt like somewhat of an environmentalist. When I worked in the auto industry, I tried to ensure my processes were sound and that we tried to recycle when we could. I helped establish a recycling center in the county, and volunteered there on the weekends. I have always lived within 3 miles of work such that my commute was minimal. I recycle paper, metal, and plastic at home. I recycle what I can at work. Part of this desire to be an environmentalist, though, kinda makes me feel like it hampers the capitalist in me. I have a conflicting desire to create something tangible simply because I know it would eventually do nothing but end up in a landfill.

One of the questions that always comes back around, though, is “who are you?”

Who am I?

My name is Kara, but does that really say who I am?

From there, it all comes down to more labels and how we choose to define ourselves.

I’m a woman. I play sports. I’m an engineer. I’m 37.

I like to sleep in, exercise, eat good food and converse with good friends, to watch sunsets and sunrises, to enjoy views of the city nightscape, and cuddling in bed.

I like to smash my Frosted Flakes into small bits to get more of a sugar rush. I don’t like to be in certain confined spaces. I don’t mind the sight of surgery, but I have a hard time watching people suffer. I like listening to music. I like surfing the web. I don’t like celery or any bean other than green ones.

When I spoke at Stanford earlier this year, the woman who organized the event conversed with a few of us at the reception. She asked me how I knew what type of woman I wanted to be.

I love those questions, for you see, I can’t answer it any better than she could answer it, and in fact, I usually lead them to their own answer.

“What type of woman did you want to be?”

“Well, I wanted to be intelligent and (this and that)”

“But how did you know you wanted to be that?”

“Because that’s who I am”

“There you go. I knew what type of woman I wanted to be because that’s who I am.”

In the airport terminal the other day, a guy sat down right next to me as I was about to eat my lunch. I’d picked up a high quality burger with some fries at a local airport deli, but I saw him start to unroll this healthy looking turkey sandwich.

“Great, now you’re going to make me feel guilty about not eating as healthy a lunch as you.”

We joked around for a few minutes then entered this really friendly conversation. He was a conductor out in San Francisco for a few performances. We were both headed off to the same destination, but he told me he was from New York.

“Really? You don’t seem like a New Yorker.”

“Thanks,” as he smiled.

Is that how I defined him...New York conductor? To him, I was this female athletic engineer liberal military brat living in San Francisco.

But you know, I’m still not sure who I am.

I’d love to be a super model actress. But I’m not. Super models aren’t made, they just are. They’re these skinny little girls who look either really hot or really unique. They’re like 90% looks, and 10% sass. I have plenty of sass, but not enough to make up for the lack of looks. I could probably model for Women’s Muscle Fitness clothes or Trans-Attire, but I still don’t have that tiny waist.

I’d love to be a musician or an artist, but it takes years and years to learn music, and then years and years trying to make a name for yourself. I need to start taking music lessons. I have to start somewhere, I guess, and see if I like it or not.

I’d really love to be a writer. I wrote half of a story, realized I wasn’t where I was supposed to be at half way and that my ending wasn’t going to fit as well anymore, so I have it shelved in the hopes that my mind can come up with better sequences to move it along. In the meantime, I’ve been working on a few other stories and trying to capture how they should flow. I really need to write more.

And of course, I’d really love to just find someone to share my life with...definition based on the definition of someone else? I am so-and-so’s girlfriend.

But who am I?

Are we defined by how we look on the outside? Is it a reflection of the inside? For transsexuals, it can be difficult to manifest the outside to look like the inside...and that is, perhaps, one of the hardest parts to transition. A lot of us just want to be who we are and live our lives. Transition throws a huge monkey wrench into a portion of our lives...hiding in the dark twisting area of our inner essence, then jumping on our back like a big gorilla for a few years. Only after we pry that big ape off do we start working on who we are...because for so long, we’re simply known as the girl with the big gorilla on her back.

And, yet, defining ourselves sorta becomes reliant on our own journey. The mountains we climb are so big, we want to tell the world, “You see that big mountain up there? I climbed it...and survived.”

But, defining ourselves by the big mountain leaves us with an apparent handicap to so many.

“Ewww....she climbed the mountain where the big gorillas jump on your back.”

So, we search for other ways to define ourselves...or we change the way we are perceived by others.

Perception is becoming aware of something via the senses. How are you perceived? How am I perceived.

In one of the recent workshops at the Transgender Leadership Summit, we formed an inside circle and an outside circle. The two circles shifted at different times so we were matched up with different people. I was lucky to be paired up with two people I knew I had an instant connection with. One of the topics was to listen to how the other person perceived you and then see how close that perception came to who you were. This session was not for the fragile at heart, as you had to see how others perceived you and you also had to share how you perceived others.

I told the girl that I perceived her as a tall, skinny geeky chick who was into sci-fi. She said I was pretty much right. I don’t remember exactly how she perceived me, but I said I thought others perceived me as a curly-haired sporty chick. I think she said I was dead on.

Is who we are the perception we give others? If I cut my hair really short, wore leather, and rode a motorcycle, would I be perceived differently? How would I be perceived if I never had facial surgery? Or SRS? Or a breast augmentation? Or never had electrolysis. Would I be treated differently? I think I would, but you know, there are some people that, for them, it wouldn’t matter. These are the true perceivers who see people more for who they are than how they look...and these are the people I like to call friends. They are the ones that look past the superficial possessions.

Are we defined by the people we call friends? Is that who I am? I am the friend of E, the friend of JoanB, and the friend of Amber.

Perhaps that is one of the important parts of life...to find ourselves, and as E used to say, “finding our passion.” I think I’m still searching, and perhaps that is who I am, the person searching for who she is. Perhaps the hunt is the defining part of the prize?

“Hi, I’m Kara...and I’m still searching for who I want to be when I grow up.”

If I ever find her, will I no longer be able to define myself? If the goal is reached, is it no longer a goal, but an accomplishment?

The thing is, I think we’re all changing over time. Even people without the darn GID end up maturing. People we knew 20 years ago aren’t the same now as how we knew them then. They’ve changed with life’s experiences. And I think we continue to change throughout life. I think the only way we wouldn’t be able to change is if we were all locked in a little room without any windows...and even then, though, that experience would change us, too.

So, from here on out, I think I’ll just consider myself a work in progress...and leave it at that.