In case that sounds a bit morbid, let me elaborate. Hopefully, with succinct
clarity.
Lately,
partly because of some persistent orthopedic problems, I’ve found myself slipping easily into regret for all the
things I know I can’t do any more—and fantasizing, in an admittedly neurotic
way, about all the things I fear
I won’t be able to do any more. I’m enough of a psychologist to know that this
sort of preoccupation isn’t going to help much of anything. So, I’ve been
trying—with greater or lesser success—to transform
my regret into gratitude. As I’m reminded of things I can’t do, I try to focus
my thoughts and feelings on the pleasure I’ve gleaned from all the years I could do those things. This seems so
simple as to be trite—but it has actually helped a lot. I have spent many happy
moments recalling past adventures with great pleasure—an experience that would
be nice enough if it happened against a neutral background, and it’s really
wonderful happening against the alternative of moping regret.
So,
I’ve been thinking about this reframing as I’ve pondered my response to the
conference. First, let me tell you a bit about Creating Change. During the conference, some very engaged, very
vocal, very dedicated folks basically claimed the conference stage and the attention
of about 4000 people in the name of causes about which they were passionate.
The first such event happened during the opening gathering, when a large group
of trans activists spoke for about half an hour
about the need for the movement to recognize the dire plight of trans people,
especially trans women, especially trans women of color, who are being murdered
at a terrifying rate and largely outside public awareness. Or even the
awareness, they pointed out, of people in this progressive wing of the LGBTQ movement. The next morning, another
large group—this time people from Ferguson, joined by other people of color—similarly
claimed the stage and our collective attention for a large chunk of time, this
time with a plea for the movement to pay more attention to the plight of people
of color, especially (but not solely) queer people of color.
In
each case, the conference organizers granted them time and space, uncontested. In
fact, subsequent speakers, including the mistress of ceremonies (comedian Kate
Clinton) and the ED of the Task Force, thanked them for demanding our attention. (As an aside, can I tell you how great it is to be affiliated with an
organization that so totally walks its talk, that actually wants to be held accountable, that wants to grow with the
movement?) But the protests were only one part of Change. There were also workshops on all manner of topics from intersex identity through inclusionary language and strategies for responding to anti-LGBTQ rhetoric to the role of faith in queer lives and of queer people in communities of faith. And then there were the colorful, performative gatherings in the lobby, the excited greetings and comfortable chatter among folks who likely can rarely be so open about their identities and their preferred manners of being in the world.
In
all of these—and, in fact, throughout the conference—the buzzing energy of
young LGBTQ people was rich and commanding. For one thing, they simply have more energy! Heck, their masqueerade
ball was just starting about the time I crashed for the night. But beyond that,
they are so alive with the enthusiasm of being relatively new to the movement,
of being in a place where they could be fully themselves, whatever that means,
surrounded by people who will accept that. A place where their voices were
actually being heard. I, on the other
hand, was aware that I wasn’t part of that energy—much as I respect and delight
in it. My days of being at the leading edge, the surf in front of the wave,
are (comfortably) behind me. This is partly because of changing priorities, movement fatigue, the physical realities
of my particular aging trajectory, and likely a bunch of personal
peculiarities. But it’s also because I’m simply not that wave. I’ve never been and will never be a queer youth coming of age in 2015,
an era of same-sex marriage and growing emphasis on trans issues, diversity,
and intersectionality. That experience—the experience they’re having that is
constructing the movement and their place in it—is not an experience I’ve had.
For me to presume that my particular take on the meaning of the movement should
somehow shape its direction now, in a moment so startling new, would be, well, bizarre.
That's not to say that old people like me (and the many others who were there …
although definitely not as many as the young people who were there) have nothing
to offer. That, too, would be a misrepresentation of the vibrancy and depth and
texture of this movement. But it is to say that this time is youth’s turn, youth’s
wave, not ours. They are the ones who will live out their lives in this shape-shifting movement and in this world so ambivalent toward their realities.
So, instead of bemoaning how the movement has “passed me by,” I choose to take
pleasure in their joy in this moment and mine in recalling my time in the heart of the movement—and that includes lots of years of
feeling like my cohort was hot stuff. Moments as a queer lay person and a queer
professional when I felt like what I was doing would matter, big time. Now,
other folks get to have that feeling—and they can do it partly because we did, when
it was our turn.
None
of this is to say that I can’t be actively involved, still productive in moving
LGBTQ equality forward—just as I can continue to have life adventures, if in a
different way. Heck, I contribute to a weekly radio show on
these issues, I occasionally do professional writing about them, and in my daily life, I still talk and write about these topics at the drop of a hat. But
the edgy stuff I saw at the conference—including the protests, but also the creative
self-presentation, the linguistic complexity, the comfortable ease with
things that still feel awkward to me, all of that—is theirs, not mine. And I’m
fine with that.
For
me, part of taking pleasure in my life is recognizing that the struggles of old age—or any other age, for that matter—come with a flip side. I’m not talking here about the
silver lining school of aging. I don’t mean (only) that growing old has its
merits and its particular strengths, although I do think that’s true. Instead, I
mean that even the flat-out losses of aging can be signals for joy, cues to recall
and celebrate the things that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing in my life.
I would never have noticed that I can’t backpack for days in desert canyons any
more or travel hundreds of miles through the mountains by bike if I’d never done it. And
I would never notice that the queer movement has wonderful new, sparkling
treasures to reveal if I hadn’t been involved enough to be at this conference
and notice the remarkable changes we’re now witnessing. Considered this way, recalling those now-past experiences isn't sad; instead, it lets me smile through them again, gives them another spin in my mind, invites another spark of joy. It's like a bonus ride.
Sometimes I think the view from this side is so expansive because it lets me see the
other side, my younger years, with such heightened clarity and gratitude. A fringe benefit of watching the movement grow, right on past me, bearing the mark of its generations of forebearers. Knowing I've been there, too.
© Janis
Bohan, 2010-2015. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to
the post.
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