Open Letter to an Ex (Part 1)
Sorry I didn't reply sooner. I'm still recovering from my chest surgery. That shit hurts like hell. Good thing is that I now have scars from the surgery that'll never really go away so I'll get to have cool tattoos to cover them.
It's a little bit weird for you to know, isn't it? I thought of letting you know first because, well, you were the only one to whom I had truly opened up about my dysphoria and gender confusion and all that jazz. I was too pussy to really accept it then, I guess, as I was trying so hard to overcompensate and "be a real girl". Which sometimes reached ridiculous heights like the times I convinced myself that I absolutely must get married and have children to be really considered one. I was so obsessed with stability because I knew deep down I wasn't very stable, barely holding it together in pieces. Now that feels like a bad dream that ran on for too long. As it turns out, overcompensation isn't really just a guy thing.
Anyway, the moment I really accepted that, the rest became easy. It was like losing a chip on your shoulder, one that you have grown accustomed to carry like a crouching Atlas. I started loving myself a little more (not much more anyway, and I know I still have a long way to go on that department), and it was easier not to internally cringe anymore when I was linked to gendered activity. I'm a pretty decent cook now, by the way, and people actually pay me for my cakes and chocolates and other bakery items. (That's my part time job and I love it. I'm also a pretty good bartender.)
Turns out I have PTSD from being sexually assaulted, which manifested as major depression, anxiety, and frequent panic attacks. (Yep, I was diagnosed with those.) Anyway, I'm being treated for them. My plans for a career are on hold now because my psychologist advised putting them off for at least two years till I'm somewhat stabilized and done with my surgeries and name changes, because I was way too unstable to actually function in any kind of long-term engagement without harming myself. It's a good thing that my state (no longer the Orwellian dystopia) has been providing for free sex-change surgeries for transpeople. (Seriously, google it, it's amazing).
I guess the reason I'm telling you all this because I have you to thank for all this, in a way. I guess if I didn't have the world ripped out from under me, I would have kept on clinging to the remnants of a false dream to stay afloat on a wave of turbulent emotions, swinging between mental states like some demented pendulum. To put it simply, I had problems, and as long as I had you I could ignore them. Which isn't a good thing, not recommended. After that, I was forced to confront them head on, forced to ride out the wave, no, the storm of suppressed angst, the kind that had accumulated for exactly one badly-spent puberty.
You were the glue that held me together, as those old teenage break up songs would say, but the fact is people are not glue. That would be oversimplifying it. Humans can't stretch like elastic gel, they snap and break and tear down the middle. If you try to act like glue, the pieces would fall apart sooner or later, and they would also make you messy. Which happened between you and me, and I'm sorry I messed you up. I had no right to do so.
I'm sorry I'm bringing up old, buried facts none of us want to remember, but it's important that I tell you. I have a responsibility in this, as I still feel I treated you poorly, and even if you deny it, it's still true. I don't really deserve forgiveness, and you deserve more than an apology, but I guess I owe it to both of us to come clean.
I'm sorry I clung to you so hard that you could not breathe. I'm sorry I smothered you with my pieces to stick together, instead of letting myself go and having the courage to pick them up myself. I'm sorry it went on till you had to let my weight roll off you. I'm sorry I was that little heartbroken girl who sent you letter after letter, dripping in rage and guilt and teenage angst, like a barrage of bullets while you were still healing. I'm sorry I blamed you. I'm sorry I gave you scars and bad experiences.
What I'm trying to say is that I'm thankful whatever happened between us happened. It was inevitable, if you ask me. I wouldn't be me right now if I hadn't met you and then lost you. I started discovering myself after that, knowing myself, loving myself little by little, looking up little treasures that had stayed buried for so long, emerging at long last from a cave (pun intended). Even though I'm going through a second puberty (they pumped shitloads of testosterone in me, no joke, a shot each week for a year now), I've grown far more than the first one. And I wouldn't have done those things if I didn't have to rebuild myself back up again.
Either way, real men don't hold grudges and I need to burn old bridges and settle old scores before I go take a crack at the future. Ah, that ever elusive whore of a future.
It's a little bit weird for you to know, isn't it? I thought of letting you know first because, well, you were the only one to whom I had truly opened up about my dysphoria and gender confusion and all that jazz. I was too pussy to really accept it then, I guess, as I was trying so hard to overcompensate and "be a real girl". Which sometimes reached ridiculous heights like the times I convinced myself that I absolutely must get married and have children to be really considered one. I was so obsessed with stability because I knew deep down I wasn't very stable, barely holding it together in pieces. Now that feels like a bad dream that ran on for too long. As it turns out, overcompensation isn't really just a guy thing.
Anyway, the moment I really accepted that, the rest became easy. It was like losing a chip on your shoulder, one that you have grown accustomed to carry like a crouching Atlas. I started loving myself a little more (not much more anyway, and I know I still have a long way to go on that department), and it was easier not to internally cringe anymore when I was linked to gendered activity. I'm a pretty decent cook now, by the way, and people actually pay me for my cakes and chocolates and other bakery items. (That's my part time job and I love it. I'm also a pretty good bartender.)
Turns out I have PTSD from being sexually assaulted, which manifested as major depression, anxiety, and frequent panic attacks. (Yep, I was diagnosed with those.) Anyway, I'm being treated for them. My plans for a career are on hold now because my psychologist advised putting them off for at least two years till I'm somewhat stabilized and done with my surgeries and name changes, because I was way too unstable to actually function in any kind of long-term engagement without harming myself. It's a good thing that my state (no longer the Orwellian dystopia) has been providing for free sex-change surgeries for transpeople. (Seriously, google it, it's amazing).
I guess the reason I'm telling you all this because I have you to thank for all this, in a way. I guess if I didn't have the world ripped out from under me, I would have kept on clinging to the remnants of a false dream to stay afloat on a wave of turbulent emotions, swinging between mental states like some demented pendulum. To put it simply, I had problems, and as long as I had you I could ignore them. Which isn't a good thing, not recommended. After that, I was forced to confront them head on, forced to ride out the wave, no, the storm of suppressed angst, the kind that had accumulated for exactly one badly-spent puberty.
You were the glue that held me together, as those old teenage break up songs would say, but the fact is people are not glue. That would be oversimplifying it. Humans can't stretch like elastic gel, they snap and break and tear down the middle. If you try to act like glue, the pieces would fall apart sooner or later, and they would also make you messy. Which happened between you and me, and I'm sorry I messed you up. I had no right to do so.
I'm sorry I'm bringing up old, buried facts none of us want to remember, but it's important that I tell you. I have a responsibility in this, as I still feel I treated you poorly, and even if you deny it, it's still true. I don't really deserve forgiveness, and you deserve more than an apology, but I guess I owe it to both of us to come clean.
I'm sorry I clung to you so hard that you could not breathe. I'm sorry I smothered you with my pieces to stick together, instead of letting myself go and having the courage to pick them up myself. I'm sorry it went on till you had to let my weight roll off you. I'm sorry I was that little heartbroken girl who sent you letter after letter, dripping in rage and guilt and teenage angst, like a barrage of bullets while you were still healing. I'm sorry I blamed you. I'm sorry I gave you scars and bad experiences.
What I'm trying to say is that I'm thankful whatever happened between us happened. It was inevitable, if you ask me. I wouldn't be me right now if I hadn't met you and then lost you. I started discovering myself after that, knowing myself, loving myself little by little, looking up little treasures that had stayed buried for so long, emerging at long last from a cave (pun intended). Even though I'm going through a second puberty (they pumped shitloads of testosterone in me, no joke, a shot each week for a year now), I've grown far more than the first one. And I wouldn't have done those things if I didn't have to rebuild myself back up again.
Either way, real men don't hold grudges and I need to burn old bridges and settle old scores before I go take a crack at the future. Ah, that ever elusive whore of a future.