This all started when I put on the movie “Love Actually”, a British romantic comedy released in 2003. It might have been better if I had skipped the movie. Lately, my emotions are all over the map. Much of the last few weeks, I have felt like a lovesick teenage girl even though there is no love interest in my life. The movie amplified my emotions.
The film has many very funny parts but it has a very serious side, too. It is all about the vicissitudes of love.
Definitions of ‘fool’, from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fool):
1: a person lacking in judgment or prudence
2 a : a retainer formerly kept in great households to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells, and bauble b: one who is victimized or made to appear foolish : dupe
3 a: a harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding b: one with a marked propensity or fondness for something <a dancing fool> <a fool for candy>
4: a cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard
Sometimes I feel like a fool. What kind of fool am I, exactly? At times, I fit into the first dictionary definition. I can let my emotions and my passions cloud my judgment. This is not what I refer to tonight.
No household, rich or poor, has ever retained me to provide casual entertainment on demand. Nonetheless, parts of my life might entertain some people. This is not what I mean now, though. I do not feel victimized, either.
I have no experience as “a cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard.”
There are times when others have viewed me as cold, or ‘dispassionate’, as my old Myer Briggs Personality Type Inventory results suggest. I am very passionate and have been all my life. For most of my life, I was also extremely introverted so few knew about my life passions. Being introverted is not a bad thing, but simply another way of being. Passionate introverts who tend to be observers can come across as dispassionate. Since I transitioned, I am much more out-going. I still tend toward introversion. I doubt that there are many who would describe me, these days, as dispassionate or cold.
None of these definitions fit what I have felt for at least the last two months. Number 3b does: “one with a marked propensity or fondness for something <a dancing fool> <a fool for candy>”
A fragment of the lyrics from “Both Sides Now”, first released in 1969, by Joni Mitchell:
“I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all”
I am a fool for romantic love. I have always been foolish this way. I can maintain a long-term relationship; I was married for 20 years, after all. Part of what sustained the marriage, for me, was romantic love. Or the idea of being romantically in love, even if that never quite matched my reality. Even in the face of my attraction to men, I remained faithful to my wife. This was likely made easier by the fact that I had no real desire to sleep with men, as long as I identified as male anyway.
From Michael Grayson Connor, PsyD (
http://www.oregoncounseling.org/Article ... LoveMC.htm):
“Love is mostly tender and quiet. Love is a light that allows people to see things that are not seen by others. Romantic love is a deep emotional, sexual and spiritual recognition and regard for the value of another person and relationship.”…
“Romantic love is a deep emotional, sexual and spiritual recognition and regard for the value of another person and relationship.” …
“Romantic love is based on shared sight and is shaped by happiness. Immature love is based on shared blindness, and is merely a fortress against pain.”…
“Romantic love is a sanctuary, and a source of nourishment and energy. Sometimes romantic love is the only point of certainty, and the only thing that is solid and real in the midst of chaos and ambiguity.”
What I experienced in my marriage was immature love, described my Michael Connor as being “merely a fortress against pain.”
In the early 1990s, a therapist described my marital relationship as “two hurting people who found each other”. His statement shocked me and I objected. Eventually, I understood that this was true. It did not mean our relationship was not mutually beneficial or that we did not love each other.
My ex-wife and I were best friends. I was never, in my heart, her lover. I was not capable of that and I never understood the emptiness I felt. Nor did I realize that the problem was my not being fully alive.
It is only in the last several months that I have begun to understand, no, to feel, what I was missing by not being a lover.
Now I live my life with honesty and integrity. As the months pass since I transitioned, I let go of the no longer workable parts of my male persona. I feel an increasing urge to be a true lover in a relationship with a man, as the woman I am. And from a place of strength, not hurt.
Lasting romantic love may be no more than an illusion. I do not think so, if I look at it the way Michael Connor does. What he describes goes beyond the initial thrill of first love and discovering each other. It is lasting, but it may be uncommon.
I want it, very much. This is where I am a fool and likely an unfortunate one. I am a fool for a love I will likely never find. Yes, there is always the possibility that genuine love will come my way. The reality is, though, that for transsexuals authentic loving relationships do not happen often. Unless most of what I read, and hear from transsexuals, is wrong, that is.
I need to learn to cope with my very strong desire for a meaningful, sexually intimate relationship with a man. The desire is natural and I feel more feminine because of it. It is a good thing. The intensity of my desire, though, concerns me. Perhaps as I mature beyond the early teen years of my second puberty, I will gain some perspective.
