Last week, a rebellion started.  The treaty talks had proved to be action-less.  The rebels, tired and strung out, gave voice to their grumbles and whispered conversations, came out from their back rooms and rushed the government center.  They weren’t violent…yet…but they weren’t going anywhere.  They literally staged a sit-in.

And so I sat down.

On the floor.  While I was supposed to be doing my job (you know, that conducting one that generally requires standing).

The elected leader of me – my left brain – which may be in serious danger of impeachment – tried to retain control.  She had made promises of change that would bring relief to the masses – schedule changes, more funding (in currency of space and time), more support for important causes, more understanding and emotional camaraderie – but the masses (all the rest of me…heart, body, right brain) apparently grew skeptical that such changes would actually be enacted.  At the time that they actually showed up for the sit-in, my left brain turned to a tried and true strategy – sheer will power mixed with charisma.  “You can’t sit down, sweetie.”  (The “sweetie” part was actually the only nod to charisma this time…I was mostly relying on my buck-up-and-barrel-through skills.)  “You can’t sit down.  There is a rehearsal to run.”  But before I had even finished my instructions, I was sitting.  Inexplicably.

“Are you there voluntarily?,” Nancy asked.  “I just thought I’d consider things from this angle,” I joked, badly.  Gotta work the crowd!  Any babies I can hold?

“Are you scared?”

Yes.

It doesn’t matter whether the source of this is mind or body (though, on the body front, we’ve moved cardiology to the top of the specialist list and I have that consultation this afternoon).  The physical rebellion is real.  It could as easily be the rest of me sending the distinct message that I am not responding.  I am not paying attention.  I am exhausted.  I am working beyond my physical and emotional capacity.  And so, I will now be sitting on the floor until some quarter is given.

I have had care coming at me from every angle.  Urges and allowances to give myself space for the enormous changes that I am negotiating.  Hugs and check-ins.  Prayers and blessings and entreaties to mother oak tree (I run with a varied crowd).  The intensity of that care has changed in the last weeks.  I know that’s partly because I’m choosing to write publicly about most of this.  But it’s also, I think, because the people around me somehow know that I need it differently right now.  That I’m not being able to take care of myself the way I need to.  And, I find, that I am open to it in a way that I have never been before.  I think that is the result of my defenses coming down.  All my layers of protection (physical fat to steely mind to cheerful personality) being taken away from me…which is another whole blog.  Or twelve.

My people – all of them – family and close friends to blog readers to choirs to people I’ve only met once – seem to sense this vulnerability and are forming their own layer of protection. Maybe it’s a cocoon?  Maybe there is a chrysalis in my future?

I believe that this depression and maybe even the sit-in rebellion is happening now not only because I’m seriously stressed and exhausted, but because it can.  Because it’s safe.  The world and my people in the world and my place in the world won’t fall apart without me for awhile.  In fact, that’s probably always been true, but not in my left brain.  I have been told several times in the last year plus that I am loved for who I am, not how I am.  For being, not doing.  And that these stumbles and faults and vulnerabilities only make that love stronger.  I really thought that I knew that.  I know that about other people, so why wouldn’t it be true for me?  But, characteristically, my left brain requires some proof.

Well, self, proof is being offered.  Proof is being hurled at me.  Will it be acceptable in the eyes of the law?  Could we please find it credible and admit the evidence?  Could we start up treaty talks again – perhaps to pursue a three-state solution between mind, heart and body?  I know that’s a tough pill to swallow for the dominant state.  But, left brain, as your opponents have proven – you are not infallible.  And if we don’t negotiate a peace, I believe that I will be on the floor again.  The masses are gathered and they want to talk, but they will sit down if they have to.  And the leader goes down with them.  Ah, the ultimate effectiveness of a check and balance system.

As I write this, I am sitting in an observation room at GW University.  Glass wall, headphone monitors and all.  It’s the speech and hearing department and this is a vocal evaluation, but I am not the vocalist.  Nicole is being put through a series of vocal exercises and speaking patterns through which they will assess her current (male-ish) voice and then she is cleared to begin a 10 week series to help her transition to a more female voice.

I’m sitting and listening to a voice that I know so well.  That I have heard every day for more than 10 years.  I hear her normal patterns and I hear the new-seeming softness in it that I associate with the transition (although maybe it’s always been there?). I hear her navigate the instructions with her normal mix of uncertainty, thoroughness and simplicity.  In this setting I’m aware of how her voice may be sounding to others, how they are hearing her cadence, pitch, clarity and how they will go about assessing that.  I’m also very aware, as I am often in my teaching and conducting, of how personal our voices are – so intimately connected to our identity.

This change is going to be fascinating and, I think it will also invoke many emotions – in us both and in those around us.  It will be as much a symbol and constantly present indicator of this transition as anything and may even be the most present.  I wonder how I will feel about that?  I wonder how she will?  And I wonder what the process will be like for all of us to adjust our ears as we adjust our eyes and still know that this is the same person that we’ve known and loved.

I’ve been feeling (and thinking and talking about) loss and grief on many levels and certainly the transition is one of them.  In addition to this blog, we used our video blog (Two2Transform is our YouTube channel) to talk about navigating these feelings of loss as a couple.  It’s distinctly present, but so hard to put a finger on and impossible to reason with.  But it also feels like it’s something we are (and need to) move with and through.  I wonder if this voice change will spark a different feeling of loss or, it seems very possible that it will spark feelings of getting where we are going.

This getting where we are going is definitely a balancing act.  I know that my current struggle with depression (yes, we are calling it that and it’s appropriate, but I’m not sure how I feel about all that) and my level of stress has Nicole wondering if she should slow down the transition.  And I see why she would wonder that.  But I also have the instinct that forward motion (and perhaps faster motion) would also be helpful to me in some ways.  I don’t want to rush or avoid feelings or ignore things, but I also am so wanting to get further down the path and be able to see what this change will look like and feel like.  I feel like I need that in some ways and delaying it is more stressful.  Of course, it may be that my head and my heart are perhaps not in agreement about this and that is something to explore a bit.

Oh dear, she’s making promises that she’s sure that I’ll understand what they are saying and I’ll help her figure it out.  Which I will!  And it’s that sweet combination of trust, deference and trying.  I hope I can help her in the way she wants/needs.

*** Hours Later ***

Well, I got some insight about some of the emotions that could spark around this!  The scheduling of these sessions are such that she may not be able to do it this semester while her new job (!!!!) gets established.  This was so disappointing to me that I was pretty quickly in tears.  I guess I really do want or need to feel further down this path and the thing is, that is not my agenda to push.  And I think that my fear of the future and her fear of the future are wanting to affect the pace of change in opposite ways right now.  Or this is still my over-developed want/need to be helpful.

Ah!  Time to put it to bed for today, I think.  It’s just another piece in the puzzle.  Our change-down-to-our-toes, shaken-to-the-core puzzle…that came with a different photo on the box from the pieces inside, so now we’re plaing without a map!