I met Dana back in January. She reached out to me interested in learning more about Ruthlessly Hopeful. After exchanging emails, we agreed to meet for lunch. During lunch, we talked about our kids, where we grew up, our professional lives and what we did for fun. As I talked about Ruthlessly Hopeful, she responded to something I said with, “Sometimes hope is all you’ve got.” The way she said it, and the look on her face as she said it, made me think that this is someone who has or is going through something really hard. I didn’t ask her to say more, because having just met her, I didn't think it was right to inquire about something that was probably deeply personal. At the end of lunch, we agreed to get together again in a few months. In early June, I saw a post where she again said, “Sometimes hope is all you’ve got.” So I reached out to Dana, we got together, and she shared with me how it was she came to have nothing but hope and how it helped her to move forward.

Too Much

Dana grew up the youngest of seven kids. Her dad worked a lot, while her mom was left to care for the kids, which was no easy task. Dana was too much for everyone. She was too loud, too active, too talkative, too needy. She would irritate her siblings by playing music by ear, even though she didn’t even know how to read music at the time. Dana would be considered gifted and talented if she were in school today, but back then, a lot of her teachers were annoyed and frustrated by her. Luckily, there were teachers who saw something in her. Her piano teacher, Mrs. Evans, and her 5th grade teacher, Mr. Higgins, who told her, “You can do anything you set your mind to.” Life was hard, so Dana created a universe of her own where she was safe and treated well. 

As she got older, she learned to be happy go lucky, because that is what her family and friends wanted her to be. She also learned to be a very good caretaker and meet other people’s expectations of her. She got a good job and got married. Dana took care of everything for her spouse and anyone else who needed it. Alcohol fueled her ability to keep showing up as her happy-go-lucky self and be the person everyone wanted her to be. But she was living a life where there was a gulf between who she showed up as and who she really was. It was a hard way to live.

Psychic Drag

One day Dana found herself in a big deep pit of despair as she faced the poor decisions she had made in her struggles to find herself. Ending her life was a very real possibility and that terrified her. She hadn’t lost all hope that things could be better, though. It was like a rope was dropped to her out of the darkness while in the pit of existential despair, so she could climb out of it. And she did. She realized that if things were going to get better, she had to stop doing the things that were dragging her down, and more of the things that would lift her up. That meant not drinking, getting the rest and exercise she needed, and focusing on showing up in a more honest way. She also got into therapy to get help making sense of how she got to where she was and figure out the path forward. Therapy helped her see more clearly her marriage and the relationships she had with her parents, siblings and friends. It helped her start to close the gap between who she was showing up as with her true self. Dana is a pilot, and one of the many things she has to be aware of when flying is drag, which slows a plane down, and ultimately leads to stalling out and not making it to the intended destination. The work she was doing in therapy was about stripping away the psychic drag in her life.

How Did I Do?

Dana transitioned five years ago. Her family and friends saw this change as her once again just being too much. They were furious. They wanted her to go back to being who she was. Her ex-wife struggled with Dana’s transition and distanced herself from her. She lost friends, because they didn’t understand. In a fit of rage, one of her siblings accused her of being a selfish, inauthentic, lying narcissist. Her therapist told her if she wanted to have a successful transition, she needed a network of people that would support her, beyond her existing family and friends. So she went and found one. She built friendships with people who, like her, were in the sea of despair but in a different boat. She also had her two sons.

Today, Dana works to be present in the moment. If she could, she would quit her job as a senior level manager working in sustainability to focus on writing and playing music. But a costly divorce and other constraints keep her in her current position. In her free time, she writes music and performs at different venues. She is a flight instructor, which covers most of the cost of her flying. She also runs fix-it clinics where people bring broken lamps and small appliances to learn how to fix them. As a teacher, she loves helping people experience joy when they realize they know how to fly a plane or fix a toaster. Her music and time spent teaching others is her chance to put light and love into the world.

Dana’s parents, who are in their 90s, and siblings tolerate her. But she hasn’t distanced herself from them, because she and her siblings care for their parents. She has learned to set boundaries with her family, and she is learning to practice detached love with them. Dana and her ex-wife are polite to one another and good co-parents. Just as Dana has moved on with her life, so has her ex-wife. Both her sons are beginning to make their own way in the world. Her youngest just graduated high school and would like to continue living with Dana while attending a local community college before transferring to a four-year university. She is ready to have a place of her own, so they are figuring it out.

A few months ago, Dana and a friend flew to Texas. She was a little nervous, because Texas isn’t known to be a hospitable place for transgender people. But they went. They were outside of Houston flying out of an airport where a lot of very wealthy people keep their planes. As Dana walked into the airport to return home, shiny and very put-together people looked at her as if she was some exotic creature, perhaps an aging rock star. She wondered what was under all of their polish and shine.

Dana estimates that she lived 10,000 days not as herself. She has done the math and figures that if all goes well, she has about 9,402 days to go. She keeps moving forward and understands that the only way to get through something is to go through it. Life is still challenging, but she is learning to live with joy, peace and hope. She also lives with the faith that an unseeable loving force is guiding her. At the end of every day she asks herself, “How did I do?” People think her transition is “the story,” but she says it is but one detail in the much bigger story of her finally getting to live life as herself. 

Learn More

Trans and non-gender conforming people are under attack by many at this time. But there are many who are working to create a safe and just world where they can simply be who they are. Here is a small sample of organizations working to create a kinder, more hope-filled world for trans and non-gender conforming people: Grace Now , Transgender Law Center, The South Dakota Transformation Project and Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition.

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