A Trans story - Imagination

A Trans Story – Imagination

Well I just had a random thought, but what else is new, I am full of random thoughts. This one is on imagination. Where does it come from? Why is it so much more developed in some? Does anyone else remember getting lost in their imagination? I know it happened to me a lot when I was younger, and actually still does. In fact getting lost in my imagination got me through some hard times when I was younger. It allowed me to live my life vicariously as my feminine self, so I guess it served a purpose back then. But my imagination was so much more than that.

When I read a book I could completely lose myself in it. My favorites were fantasy. I loved reading about Magic, Dragons and battles and I lost myself in the pages. But it was more than that. Quite often I injected myself into the story. I became a character of it and in my mind I interacted with the characters, even coming up with new scenes involving me. It was my way of escaping reality I guess, and also of being the woman I always wanted to be.

My imagination led me to remake so many stories in my mind. I used it to idle away time during the day, either in class, at home, on the bus, or driving to and from college and work. It was also a favourite past time before going to sleep. I would imagine interacting with the characters of the current book I was reading. I always hoped that this would help me dream about it and ofcourse there was always the wish that my dream would become reality in the morning. It helped me escape my circumstances, but waking up to find I was still me was never fun.

Using my imagination I decided that the character I had created – the alternate me, the me I wanted to be deserved to have her own stories and so I began developing her saga. This ultimately led to my book the Chosen One, which got re-written into Deanna – The Chosen One and Deanna the beginning. The story is ever evolving and right now I am in the middle of tweaking both books a little. But essentially they are all about the me I have always longed to be, and my imagination is what helps me develop them.

I have had a couple of reviews over the years, not completely favourable, as there are aspects of my writing that are not brilliant. For one I am not too great at dialogue – it’s a work in progress, lol. But most people, including professional reviewers, do say that my action scenes are really good. I can agree with that, I love writing action. I can visualize it in my mind perfectly and know every single step of what is going to happen, before I write it. And basically all I do is describe what I see in my mind. Plus given that my character is essentially me, I can act out the scenes too, just so I don’t have her do anything too improbable, although for that I can always resort to my character using magic J - a very helpful mechanism.

But what I still don’t understand is where this thing called imagination comes from. Some people think it’s a waste of time. I have had friends past and present that just don’t understand imagination, see no point in it and cannot comprehend where all my ideas come from. That’s a question I have been asked from time to time – where do your ideas come from? Well the only answer I have is they come from my imagination. My imagination created my character, but in a sense it also created who I am today. It created my stories and it gives me my thirst for learning. You see I love abstract knowledge. I love reading about philosophy, religious beliefs, myths, legends and the sciences, particularly physics – although I don’t understand anything but the basics when it comes to things like particle physics, but I find it all fascinating and I have noticed that my imagination integrates all of that into who I am.

Imagination is not all I wonder about. I wonder about creation, where we come from, what, who made us, made the world and all the living things. And I wonder about the point of it all. Why does life exist? What did it form our particular shape, our world, why did it form the laws of nature. What made all the particles form everything around us? What is the point of our existence and does our society actually serve a purpose. I mean when you get right down to it, the human society is really silly and a waste of time. We build cities, destroy the environment, use up natural resources and for what. All to make money and accumulate stuff that is useless to us when we finally move on to whatever is next. So what is the point in this stage of life? And then I wonder about what comes next. I figure something has to, since this stage of life has no real meaning. And since our society and existence are almost meaningless what and why are there Transgender people? What is our purpose in life?

These questions and more plague me all the time, and they stem from my overly active imagination. I wish I could find some kind of answer to some of them. Oh I know I will never know all the why’s, but understanding some would be nice. I wouldn’t want to have the answer to all questions, cause then life would be really boring.

But I know that many people don’t care about these random questions and to be honest I cannot imagine a life where I am like that. I cannot imagine why some people don’t ask questions and wonder about things like this. I cannot imagine why some have closed minds, just like I cannot imagine why some people find one belief and grasp it to their chest, never letting go and closing their eyes and minds to everything else that is out there. Why do some people not want to know anything beyond their few beliefs? Why do they think their beliefs are the only correct ones? Why do they think they are right when it comes to gender? Why do people not wonder and ask questions all the time? And why am I constantly questioning everything?

It is possible that without advanced imaginations we would still be a hunter gatherer species. I believe that it’s the imagination of the human race that forces us forward, to change and grow. But right now it has also caused us to create a pointless existence. I mean, lets look at our daily lives. I go into work 5 days a week, helping to pay invoices for a large corporation – what purpose does that serve? It helps the company stay in business and it helps others stay working too, but to what end. Money is meaningless, beyond pointless, and everything else this society do has no overall impact on the Universe. Surely there must be more to life than our society. I see very little purpose in it at all. Oh don’t misunderstand, I am not in any way depressed or suicidal, I love life too much for either of those, but I am also looking for a purpose and a point to it all.

In some regards I am so very thankful for my imagination and my constant questioning, for it made me who I am. It set me on the path of realizing the true me. It gave me my desire to be a writer and it gave me my character. It gives me a thirst for knowledge, but in some ways my imagination drives me nuts, because I know I will never be satisfied with the answers, because if I find an answer, I know I will question it, lol – its who I am. My imagination helped me get through my teenage years. It still helps me get through things today. It is active all the time, in my dreams, when I am driving, when I am working, making dinner, or doing anything, and it does help me pass the time, particularly when time is moving slowly. But in a way it’s a curse, because I am always wondering what could have been different.

What would my life have been like if I was born a cis gender male? What would my life have been like if I was born a cis gender female? Both of these questions I ask myself all the time and I know I will never understand the answer, or understand why I was born Transgender.

But the other curse of my imagination is the character of my stories. Deanna is my salvation, but she is also the biggest curse I have created. She is the epitome of all that I desire to be (ok maybe not the magic, cause I’m on the fence on the existence of that, lol) but her bravery, her desire to live life to the fullest, to help people, to have a purpose in life, her being a genetic female – basically everything that I am not. She was my escape for so many years, but part of me hates her, because I know that I will always fall short of that dream. And that’s the biggest curse of an over active imagination – I dream HUGE, and I know that I will never ever reach the heights I set for myself.