Rammstein's "Zeit"

Rammstein makes some really cool music videos (and music). I've pretty much always liked them, especially the ones for Rosenrot, Benzin, and Deutchland. There's also the video for Zeit ("Time"), which is absolutely GORGEOUS. Seriously, if you've never seen it, check it out. It is pure art and an emotional ride that's hard to forget. Don't forget to turn on captions if you want English subtitles.

Rammstein - Zeit

This video has always been difficult for me to watch, though, and while I rewatched it last night, I started to think why that is. Why does it make me feel sad? Scared? Regretful? Mournful? Like yeah, on the surface it deals with death, and all those words can be associated with death, but I mean on a deeper level. Something in it really gets to me.

My transition from male to female happened in 2011, when I was 28 years old. It remains one of the best decisions I have ever made, right up there with marrying my wife. 28 is definitely not an old age to transition (there actually isn't such a thing as "too old" for transitioning), but I can't help but regret that I didn't transition earlier. High school was actually a really good time in my life, one of the best, yet it also saddens me that I missed out on what I actually wanted out of my high school experience. But the fear of coming out, and the lack of knowledge I had about being transgender, kept me in the closet. I was already on my way to figuring it out, that I was actually female and needed to live as a female. I even had a group of friends who I know would have supported me[1]. But, I kept it hidden, all out of fear and a lack of knowledge.

Now, at 40, I often find myself behaving or speaking more like a teenager, or like one of my early-20s female friends. Heck, I've done this pretty much my entire adult life, and it's never changed. I even used to joke that I was having my rebellious teenager moment at 30. Of course none of this bothers me at all, so it's not like I'm regretting that I'm this way. I just wonder if I do that in an attempt to "make up for lost time", so to speak.

And that's where Zeit starts to get me. It's time that I've lost and can never get back, except in the dreams I sometimes have of returning to high school or early college as my actual self. Time only flows forward, and I can't stop it or rewind it.

But it goes deeper. Although I've fully transitioned[2], and I live my life as a more genuine "me"[3], I still feel like I'm not really living as "Me". I'm trapped in a life where my wheels spin and nothing happens, where my adulthood is stillborn. Time waits for no one, and so it leaves me in the dust. I've become a trapped little girl watching her peers play from her bedroom window, unable to join them because of my circumstances[4]. All I have is an inner life, which is where I've taken to "living" for the most part.

The music video for Zeit seems to bring all of this up with me. It reminds me of what I wish I had, what I've lost, and that I'll probably never "fix" things in my life to the level I want. "Everybody knows the perfect moment", and I fear it has already passed me by.

Footnotes

[1] Because some of them later came out as trans, too :-P And some were still around when I did transition and were perfectly cool about it. I'm truly lucky in that regard.

[2] Well, soon enough it will be "fully". I get to schedule my orchiectomy tomorrow.

[3] As a woman, as a goth, as a Wiccan, as a person who's polyamorous, and as a nerd who's lewd but knows when not to be. That's basically how I see myself, in mostly that order.

[4] Very poor ($8500/year lol), programming and mapping get essentially no traction or income, battling fibromyalgia and severe anxiety attacks, no university degree because I was unable to finish (that's a whole story in itself), no car, and no local friends save for my wife. I have my will and my intelligence, but I'm finding they don't actually help out much the older I get.