Truly Madly Deeply

Something very strange happened to me on Friday night.

Let me give you the proper lead-in.

On Thursday night, I was working (bartending) and it was a very slow night.  One person was sitting at my bar. Late in the evening, around 10:00 or so, a transgender woman came in with a growler to fill.  I've seen her around the neighborhood I live in.  Now, I consider myself to be a broad-minded, liberal person.  I use my votes to support gay rights, gay marriage, gay everything.  I swore off Chick-Fil-A.  I am devoted to watching RuPaul, and I've danced with gorgeous men at drag shows.

And yet I'm ashamed to say that I've laughed to myself when I've seen her walk by.  Hers is not a particularly convincing illusion of womanhood.  I wonder now why that should matter at all.

Let's say her name was Alice.  Alice was not what we might call beautiful.  Her hair was thin and wispy, and one eye wandered ever so slightly inward.  She wore very thick glasses and her forearms were too large for the lovely pink cardigan she wore.

I don't know when I've ever met anyone so lovely as Alice.  

She asked for a beer while she waited.  I poured it for her and filled her growler.  I gave her the bill, and she gave me her card.  Let's say the name on it was Adam.  Then I asked if I could get her anything else.  She had yet to try one of our house beers so she stayed and sampled a pint.

There was live music upstairs, and I had to deal with drunken barflies wandering down.

Alice finished her beer, and I asked if I could get her another.  She answered...

"I wouldn't hate you if you poured me a Russian River."

I love Russian River Brewery.  We had their Damnation beer on draft.  It's delicious, a creamy Belgian ale with lots of alcohol.

"I hope you don't have anywhere to be in the morning," I said.

"I don't," she answered.  It was fun, flirtatious.  We talked about beer, mostly.  Not much else.  I told her about meeting Vinnie and Natalie, who run Russian River.  We talked about the house-brewed beers, and her plans for the growler (long since filled).  Though I had seen her credit card, which betrayed and called her Adam, I asked her name.  Perhaps because I was looking for it, I saw a moment of hesitation, then the warm and brave pronouncement:  

"I'm Alice," she said.

We shook hands and chatted some more.  Nothing particularly important, or profound.  Just beer, really.  It was nice.  I liked it, and I felt self-satisfied.

"Hey everyone, come and see how open and loving I look."

Then it came time to close the bar and the encounter faded from my mind.

And then the next night, the strange thing.

I went home.  I picked up an Xbox controller and played Call of Duty.  In the midst of blasting my fellow man to smithereens, I remembered Alice.  Then I started to cry.  I'm not sure why, but I couldn't stop.  I started thinking about Alice's days.  Possibly full of uncomfortable stares.  Glares?  Empty, cruel laughs?  I don't know.

Maybe.

Probably.

Had she ever noticed them?  Almost certainly.

Had she ever noticed mine?

...

I'm sure that there are ways in which Alice's life is no harder than yours or mine.  I'm also sure that there are ways in which it is much harder.  And why is that, exactly?  I can't pretend to know, but I know it's not fair and I know it wasn't her choice.  Why on earth would someone choose to be mocked, belittled, reviled?

But if being outside the hetero-normative experience makes Alice's life inordinately hard, then I hope (so very profoundly) that her life is also inordinately rewarding.

I hope that she does work that she loves, and that it pays her more than enough to live on.

I hope that she has a family who is as loving and supportive as mine would be, if I'd been dealt her hand.

I hope she has someone who loves her.  Someone to fall into bed with, and wake up next to.  Someone to make her laugh, make her angry, make her proud.

I hope that she came into my bar late at night because she was in the company of beautiful and caring friends earlier that evening, not because she was afraid of being gawked at by the dinner crowd.

Most of all, I hope that I made her feel like she was special and beautiful.  In the moment I hoped for that so that I'd feel like I'd done an oh-so-good deed.  Now, I hope for it simply because Alice deserves it.  Because don't we all deserve it?

Two days later, thinking about Alice still makes me cry.  Maybe it always will, always should.  The thing I've realized is, I love Alice.  So deeply.  And what I'm wondering is, why does it take something out of the ordinary to make me love like that?  Why isn't that my initial response?

I don't know.  There's so much still to process.  Why this only occurred to me during Call of Duty, I may never know.  But I am so grateful that I suddenly saw her as Jesus sees her: spectacularly beautiful and worthy of love.

I do know that if you met Alice, and shared a growler with her, that you'd love her like I do.

Because you couldn't help yourself.

Because she's beautiful.