metaphorical bungee jump

I'm feeling guilty alot these days. My moods, exacerbated (or as I like to term it: set free ) by the hormonal wars going on inside my body, swing to and fro and up and down wildly. And this is not only for all the good fortune and positive turns my gender and relationship journeys have taken recently and the fact that the same can't be said for many of my fellow trans-sisters and brothers and fellow humans. I also feel guilty because the world around us seems so thoroughly fucked and full of hate and conflict and greed and violence and yet I still feel exceedingly happy and content.

It also seems that the more perceived good that comes into my life, the more stress I feel about losing that good; the more I worry about it all crumbling away and revealing the naked and shivering little girl I feel like in my most vulnerable and fearful moments.

Certainly the fact that I'm doing my tiny little part to further the cause of some of my fellow down-trodden TLGBQ brethren through our wonderful and burgeoning local community center helps. But I keep asking myself how my own self-contentment can so easily co-exist with my exceedingly pessimistic outlook on the future of our way of life, our nation and the ideals it once stood for, and the world as a whole:

• Our weapons keep getting bigger and more destructive and more widespread.
• Our apathy and feelings of powerlessness as citizens of a democracy keeps growing.
• The mainstreaming of increasingly radical, militant and elitist christian bigotry and messianistic world views continues unabated.
• Acceptance of shameless greed and open corruption into all aspects of society grows.
• And all the while our life-sustaining natural resources and delicately balanced and interated ecosystems continue to be exploited, polluted and destroyed by this short-sighted greed and spreading conflict.

In the end I guess what I'll continue to do is what I consider myself reasonbly good at (although I have no illusions about the reach of my communications): getting the word out, getting people talking, and pointing out the inconsistencies and falsehoods of the status quo. And hopefully some of you will continue to point out my own considerable shortcomings. Maybe I, WE! can even contribute to some real solutions to these seemingly intractable issues.

But I refuse to carry the whole weight of the world on my shoulders as I once did when I thought about these intertwined and "larger than our own individual lives" issues. I figure I can only deal honestly with and contribute positive solutions and outcomes toward these wider problems if I can first do the same for my own smaller but no less important personal issues. Afterall, our sense of self as well as our sense of community/nation/species will always be a work in progress and perhaps having that recurring and almost ungraspable guilt, as long as I don't let it take control of my life, serves the purpose of reminding me that I'm not alone in this struggle to live life sustainably, peacefully, and to the fullest.