moments of clarity - a journey, a letter, or a meandering mess
sometimes there's a moment of clarity, reflection, better-than-perfect hindsight. (content warning: remembering past self-harm ideation)
i think a lot about my transition, for obvious reasons, and with that comes comparisons to past-me and future-me. past-me was an enigmatic hot mess. i'm not completely divorced from that yet, but one thing that i was struck by was:
i was never really a boy. i was told that i wasn't a girl.. but i knew i couldn't be a boy. i didn't want to be, i wouldn't be.
before i even knew what i was doing, i started cutting away at my masculinity. i don't even remember the number of times i came very close to removing parts of my anatomy with a knife. especially after puberty started. thankfully, it's an idea that has long since faded in intensity. i remember being obsessed with lorena bobbitt - i didn't really care about the story or the trial, just.. i think i secretly wished to freed of having male genitals in a fashion that couldn't be blamed back on me as being my own idea. wrap your head around that shame-spiral-möbius loop for a moment.
more recently, i guess at some point i realized i wasn't really an effeminate man, so i picked the next closest thing: femme-leaning/non-binary. i told myself that obviously i was an enby. i've been told i came across as androgynous, effeminate, gay, unknown. often i reveled in these descriptors, because at least they weren't the "m" word. and they all made sense within the framework of what was left of my gender identity after i had eviscerated it. but at some point in my speedrun of all the new conceptual space opening up and being discussed in gender identity spaces, i decided:
i'm obviously non-binary, with some fluidity, but i'm on the wrong side of the fence. this problem feel solvable with the help of hormone therapy. i can resolve everything by fixing my neurochemical imbalances, because it's possible that my body has been running on the wrong set of chemical command structures. i'm so close to the center divide between gender identities anyway, i may as well just hop the fence.
so i started gender affirming hormone therapy. and in starting to connect more fully with myself and my skin, i began to realize... i wasn't hopping the fence i thought i was. i wasn't even in the right fucking pasture. as things become more clear, i'm realizing those qualities that made me come across as androgynous or effeminate were me not having a gender anymore. i had cut away nearly everything. and now, in among all of the other wonderful new things about my skin, there's color seeping into this grayscale void.
i had been agender masquerading as non-binary, but now.. i want it all.
in a way, it's amusing to re-read everything i've written recently, as i come up on the 6 month mark. i can see the pain and frustrations melting away and re-forming into new desires and eager grasping-at-straws analysis of what i'm experiencing.. even as i know that future-me is going to look back on this a year or so and probably snicker at my current understanding as probably naive. especially the silly line that i opened this entry with, while i was feeling supremely confident in myself.
so that brings us to the present:
i am transitioning from being mostly genderless to womanhood. or at least, that's my current understanding of what is going on.
to past-me:
heya doll, we are fucking doing this. thank you for seeing us that night. there's very few things that we credit ourself with as positively changing the course of our life - we were much closer to the end than we would like to admit - but this.. this. this. you saw and you believed and we love you so much ~ XOXO
fuck, now i'm crying like crazy.
to future-me:
hey babe, you fucking got this. we saw and we are coming to you - we probably wouldn't have made it without your brilliant light that night. cya soon ~ XOXO
to jenn:
without your help we wouldn't have started down the path where we met her. you watched this whole mess unfold in near-realtime and poked and prodded at just the right spots. we really owe you everything; it's a debt of gratitude that we have no idea how to even begin to repay. we are, and always will be, here for you. we love you so much ~ XOXOXO
to melissa:
i doubt that you'll ever see this, but.. please don't give up on us, we need you now more than ever. i know you hate feeling like a surrogate mother for your partner-being-reborn, but you are strong and beautiful and you inspire me and you are an important part of our life. i love you ~ XOXO
ok, there... i'm done with the crying for now. well, that escalated in mushiness pretty quickly. haha, whatever.
i think a lot about my transition, for obvious reasons, and with that comes comparisons to past-me and future-me. past-me was an enigmatic hot mess. i'm not completely divorced from that yet, but one thing that i was struck by was:
i was never really a boy. i was told that i wasn't a girl.. but i knew i couldn't be a boy. i didn't want to be, i wouldn't be.
before i even knew what i was doing, i started cutting away at my masculinity. i don't even remember the number of times i came very close to removing parts of my anatomy with a knife. especially after puberty started. thankfully, it's an idea that has long since faded in intensity. i remember being obsessed with lorena bobbitt - i didn't really care about the story or the trial, just.. i think i secretly wished to freed of having male genitals in a fashion that couldn't be blamed back on me as being my own idea. wrap your head around that shame-spiral-möbius loop for a moment.
more recently, i guess at some point i realized i wasn't really an effeminate man, so i picked the next closest thing: femme-leaning/non-binary. i told myself that obviously i was an enby. i've been told i came across as androgynous, effeminate, gay, unknown. often i reveled in these descriptors, because at least they weren't the "m" word. and they all made sense within the framework of what was left of my gender identity after i had eviscerated it. but at some point in my speedrun of all the new conceptual space opening up and being discussed in gender identity spaces, i decided:
i'm obviously non-binary, with some fluidity, but i'm on the wrong side of the fence. this problem feel solvable with the help of hormone therapy. i can resolve everything by fixing my neurochemical imbalances, because it's possible that my body has been running on the wrong set of chemical command structures. i'm so close to the center divide between gender identities anyway, i may as well just hop the fence.
so i started gender affirming hormone therapy. and in starting to connect more fully with myself and my skin, i began to realize... i wasn't hopping the fence i thought i was. i wasn't even in the right fucking pasture. as things become more clear, i'm realizing those qualities that made me come across as androgynous or effeminate were me not having a gender anymore. i had cut away nearly everything. and now, in among all of the other wonderful new things about my skin, there's color seeping into this grayscale void.
i had been agender masquerading as non-binary, but now.. i want it all.
in a way, it's amusing to re-read everything i've written recently, as i come up on the 6 month mark. i can see the pain and frustrations melting away and re-forming into new desires and eager grasping-at-straws analysis of what i'm experiencing.. even as i know that future-me is going to look back on this a year or so and probably snicker at my current understanding as probably naive. especially the silly line that i opened this entry with, while i was feeling supremely confident in myself.
so that brings us to the present:
i am transitioning from being mostly genderless to womanhood. or at least, that's my current understanding of what is going on.
to past-me:
heya doll, we are fucking doing this. thank you for seeing us that night. there's very few things that we credit ourself with as positively changing the course of our life - we were much closer to the end than we would like to admit - but this.. this. this. you saw and you believed and we love you so much ~ XOXO
fuck, now i'm crying like crazy.
to future-me:
hey babe, you fucking got this. we saw and we are coming to you - we probably wouldn't have made it without your brilliant light that night. cya soon ~ XOXO
to jenn:
without your help we wouldn't have started down the path where we met her. you watched this whole mess unfold in near-realtime and poked and prodded at just the right spots. we really owe you everything; it's a debt of gratitude that we have no idea how to even begin to repay. we are, and always will be, here for you. we love you so much ~ XOXOXO
to melissa:
i doubt that you'll ever see this, but.. please don't give up on us, we need you now more than ever. i know you hate feeling like a surrogate mother for your partner-being-reborn, but you are strong and beautiful and you inspire me and you are an important part of our life. i love you ~ XOXO
ok, there... i'm done with the crying for now. well, that escalated in mushiness pretty quickly. haha, whatever.