Back in 1994 a little bit of time before my surgery, I wrote about my future and what I might want it to be. Since I'm going to be posting about my surgery on Tuesday and Thursday, it seemed appropriate to revisit this time capsule and see how I am doing with that. I invite you to peer in there along with me...
Becoming
For a lot of years now, I have been struggling with finding out who I was. Finally, there was nothing left but to admit that I had known who I was all along and do what I needed to do. For the last two years, I have done that, and become the "me" that was meant to be. Nowadays, life has a flavor unlike ever in the past. My body feels like it fits (almost...still a bit of nip and tuck to do :-) ).
At the same time, learning to be "me" has been a day to day process and has left little time to spend trying to go beyond the "me" that I am now in search of the "me" I want to be. In the past week, spurred by someone else who knows who she is, I have had to sit down and consider that. It's time for me to start getting on with my life.
So...I have to figure out what direction I want my life to take. Part of that is trying to figure out what I want out of life. That's sort of where I am right now. I've tried to visualize myself in the future, to project myself into various roles and lifestyles, to try to see what fits.
I have always wanted to be a teacher...currently, the subject is math. One scenario of the future shows me on the faculty of a small (but tolerant!) college somewhere, teaching in an atmosphere where I am respected for my teaching abilities and for the person I am, including my various "quirks." I'd eventually retire, living a nice quiet life in a small cottage‑like home, to spend my days writing, traveling when I could to keep up with friends, learning to paint and perhaps to sculpt, and attending events on campus and have people happy to see me when I do.
At the other extreme, I sometimes see myself as part of something large, a push for human rights on an individual basis. In this scenario, I would have written my autobiography and had it published and turned to writing about other things, views that I have about individual rights, about tolerance, about respect for people, and about the need for diversity. I would be a "voice." Of course, I would be "known" on a larger scale. I would not have much privacy. I would sometimes be the target of attacks, both open and covert, by those who would want to discredit what I was trying to say.
I suspect that the truth of what my life will become will be between these two extremes, or perhaps nothing like that.
Do I wish to stay a math professor? At present, that's the only skill I have, other than a fairly good working knowledge of the English language and the ability to express my thoughts and emotions (at least to some extent and on certain topics). Could I or perhaps should I go into another field? After all, teaching is not necessarily equal to mathematics...I chose mathematics purely because it allowed me to get through my undergraduate education in two and a half years instead of the normal four.
Teaching does not always even mean classrooms filled with students . Counseling is a form of teaching...one‑to‑one teaching about life and how to live it. I enjoy the counselling work I now do with the gay students on campus and with other transsexuals both locally and on the net. Should I consider a career in counseling? But education can also be accomplished on a larger level, through speaking, through writing, or through performing like Kate Bornstein does.
I guess there is a larger question here somewhere. How do I want to affect the world, to leave my mark? To a large extent, I have done that...through the thousands of students I have had, who have gone on, I hope, to live good lives. By writing about my experiences, I could perhaps stretch beyond my circle of friends to reach people I've never imagined, perhaps in a way that could help them when they need some help. Perhaps I might say things that strike a cord somewhere, and make life easier for other people like me. I'd like to see some movement in that direction before I die.
But...at the same time, as we get older, the thought of having some peace in one's life at long last is attractive. I've not had any real privacy, let alone anonymity, in the past two years anytime I have been outside of my apartment, and sometimes not even when I've been inside it.
So, anyway, I know that I can work to make my life what I want it to be. The question really is: "What do I want my life to be?"
--July, 1994
Art Link SandOn Time
The years fly by
while the months
pass too slowly
Each day drones on
With not enough
minutes
Each second
measuring
the beating
of my heart
pounding
relentlessly
to the end
of my eternity
counting
the grains
of sand
in the hourglass
acting as
the timepiece
of my life --Robyn Elaine Serven --December 22, 2005 |
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