All the Bears

Do you know when you're hiking in the woods and you come upon a bear and so you start running, even though you know you shouldn't, but your instincts tell you to run, so you run and then the bear starts chasing you, but thankfully you quickly find a tree and climb it to get away from the bear? While you're perched high in the branches of that cedar tree, you look down at the bear and think to yourself that if you survive this it will be a hell of a story to tell one day.

That pretty much describes how it has felt for me since I was told by my daughter that she would be changing her gender to a boy. Mostly, I have been trapped in a tree, gathering courage to come down and face my fears.  Sometimes the bear wanders away for a day or two and I come down from the tree, all fierce and brave.  But then that bear quietly creeps back, or another bear moves in and ... sends me climbing that tree once again.

People are quick to tell me that I need to be supportive, for my child's sake, and I agree, of course, but if your constant and very real fear of the bear renders you helpless or immobile for a while, you might find that all you have in way of support is retreat and silence.  You wish you could speak, but you know your silence is safer, for some of your words would hurt - all of the words hurt, sometimes - not from hate, but from fear and anger.  And from truth.

It's always easy to watch a bear chasing someone else in the woods, sitting on the side of the path - thankful that bear is not chasing you and sure you know exactly what you'd do if it was.  But no one truly knows what they would do.

One of the good things that comes from sitting in silence up a tree is ... it gives you the opportunity to consider your options and also allows you to hear what others are saying.  I am constantly surprised and amazed and thankful (for Chris) by the support Chris has received from his identical twin sister, Courtney.  Courtney's support and constant alliance with Chris has forced me to see things far differently than I might have seen them if she wasn't so much in the picture; twins.  And then ... there are those moments when Courtney is the bear chasing me.  My worries for her in all of this - because as difficult as all of this is and has been for me, the mother, the inner struggles have to be very real and maybe even far more profound (as Courtney lives with Chris and has experienced all the struggles and changes of her twin) for her as Chris' twin and best friend, but you wouldn't know it by how strong and supportive Courtney remains when it comes to Chris' transition.  I'd like to say I have gained strength through Courtney's strength, but the truth is it confuses me.  Not because it isn't true and admirable and completely driven by love - I see and understand all of that.  I am confused by how Courtney seemed to so easily lay her own life down for her twin and why I continue to have parts of me that resist that same sacrifice for my child.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be as strong as all the bears ... stronger than all of my worries ... strong enough to lay all of me down ...