Grieving What Might Have Been

Photo from: arfa-ezazi.blogspot.com

For SOFFAs (Significant others, family, friends & allies) of people in transition, the process can feel like it's moving very quickly and there may be a lot of doubts or questions.  Something I have found with talking to my partner is that this process of transitioning is not new...the thoughts of physical changes and name changes and lifestyle changes...many of them have been recurring thoughts and dreams and ideas that never seemed possible or were never said out loud.  It's not new to him, it's new to me.

Transitioning is a huge process for everyone involved.  For me, the life that I had imagined or day dreamed about now has a different feel.  My partner will still be there but when I introduce him to family and friends he hasn't yet met or when we travel together and explore new lands or when we move into a new community ... it will look different.  This isn't better or worse for me, just different.

For others, this process can be much more difficult.  For instance, my partner's family has known him for 25 years as she, as daughter or niece or sister...this comes with ideas about what the future will look like.  Although the person they love is still there, in some ways they are losing a daughter and gaining a son.  Visions of wedding dresses and pregnant bellies and sisterly bonds and strong female lineage are now shifting and changing into something new.  With that there is pain and sadness and confusion and that is completely natural.  

For SOFFAs, grieving the loss of what might have been 

must happen in order to fully and truly accept the process.