Re-Conceptualizing Myself

-- By AndyZheng - 11 Apr 2024

Section I: The Creation of a Monster

During one of our shopping trips to the Williamsburg Outlet in Virginia, we walked past a female presenting person, who was likely gender fluid or transgender. You called them a word I haven’t heard in a long time. In Chinese, calling someone trans directly translates to a “human-monster.” You were not necessarily sneering at them, but merely describing them with calculated precision. Nonetheless, the term itself stuck out like a sore thumb. It highlighted that person’s otherness, their less-than-humanity, that they were part human, part monster. The only difference between that person and me is that person was willing to proudly own and express their monster.

Monster comes from the Latin word “monstrare,” which means to demonstrate. A monster is not a pure source of evil, nor is it something inherently repulsive. Rather, it is the messenger of the truth, which is often ugly. In fact, it is so ugly that I have repressed it so far in my life. Instead, I’ve tried to craft the perfect version of myself. One that is independent, logical, and straight.

When people tell me “nobody is perfect,” I ignore them. That is simply because they have not tried hard enough to be perfect, I tell myself. In Chinese, there’s a proverb that translates to, “the ones who cannot reach and eat the grapes will say it is sour.” In other words, people who are not perfect are the ones who say that nobody can be perfect. I believed that I could not fall for that trap, that the trap of being imperfect is too comfortable and alluring to be my destiny. Perfection requires a careful concoction of excellence, humility, and most of all, hiding my inner monster.

Section II: The Path to Redefining my Monster

I painfully learned that to fear the monster under my bed is not an aversion to danger, but rather an aversion to myself. What I feared was the monster within. Monsters reveal an inner truth. The true form of Andy that is emotional, sympathetic, and worst of all, queer. I want to learn about my monster; I want to embrace my monster; and I hope to become my monster because that is better than being a nobody, the elusive nobody who is perfect.

I know how adamant you are about being right, and I’ve not been the one to try to prove you otherwise. Afterall, disrespecting your opinions would stray me away from being perfect. I write this letter to you not aspiring to be perfect, because I don’t aspire to be nobody. Quite the opposite. I hope to discover and understand my imperfection, the monster hidden within. You’ve shaped me in ways I cannot understand. To disentangle the parts of myself from your influence would be to erase myself completely. I want to piece myself together for the first time, and I think the key to understanding who I am lies in our relationship. I think we all have doubts of who we have become and how the voice in our heads came to be.

You’ve always wanted me to pursue a career in medicine. In medicine, I became fascinated by the fact that we are our biggest enemies. The field of immunology revolves around our propensity to hurt ourselves because we cannot recognize ourselves. In some way, I wonder if the body refuses to recognize the monsters within ourselves, and choose to attack it. When people dies from infections, the cause of death is sepsis, which is our own body’s violent and excessive reaction to the infection. Our bodies would rather attack itself than to appear weak by potentially harmful bacteria because death by others is nowhere near as noble as self-inflicted death.

As I write to you, I cannot help but think about the power of our own bodies and mind to deceive ourselves. The danger my body wants to protect me from is the possibility that none of the versions of myself is inherently wrong. I can choose to live the life that is more accepted by you or I can decide to embrace my own truth. I will survive in both scenarios. But I am tired of surviving. I am dying from surviving. I want to live, and living involves me understanding the stories I tell myself. To quote Joan Didion’s title for her anthology, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” It has come time for me to redefining the story I want to tell.

You will be an inextricable part of my life, whether you want to or not. However, it has become my quest to define how I wish to define myself. Once again, you will be an indispensable aspect of that process. I don’t ask for your permission, but merely am informing you of my quest. Some day, I hope you will eventually embrace the monster that you and I created together.

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