Turning Twenty Seven: A Year of Connection

[Each year, around my birthday, I review the previous year. e.g. 24, 25, 26, etc. Here's 27.]

It’s hard to describe what it’s like not to have your own body for most of your life. I’ve used various metaphors (“wearing a sheet instead of clothes” “feeling like a shadow instead of a self” “a thing that only exists because a mind can’t exist alone”), but they’re all inadequate. For at least 24 of my 27 years, I have felt like a mind without a body. And even in years 25 and 26, as I’ve started to find myself, the constant fear and anxiety have kept me profoundly alienated.

But, without question, this past year has been a year of connection. I have discovered so much of myself and gotten so much closer to others. It has been immensely difficult, but it’s also felt very healing too. My dry existential cynicism aside, I am fundamentally a hopeful person. And this year is further proof that though so many days (and weeks and months) are so hard, my life as a whole keeps getting better.

You guys, I have cried so.much. this past year. And not just on my own: I have cried in front of other people. I have cried in front of groups, in front of strangers, with friends and peers and supervisors. In classes, in offices, over the phone, in bedrooms. And it has been wonderful.

Well, that’s probably poor word choice. It’s been painful, but it’s been a real, connected pain, not the grinding, isolating pain I’m used to. Crying, for me, is a sign that I am connected with myself. And crying in front of others is a sign that I can trust and be vulnerable and let others in in a way I have never been able to do before.

And it’s not just crying. I’m learning to be angry, learning to beaffectionate, learning to be present. I’m gradually developing the ability to “listen” to my anxiety, to hear what it says, and to answer it in ways that are affirming and kind (where, not so many years ago, I would have been violent and cruel). I can take a walk and just admire the colors of the sunset. I can, rarely but sometimes, really taste food. I can connect with others, not just cognitively but emotionally.

Perhaps all of that sounds odd. But I have lived inside of my head for so long that it’s all I’ve known. The physical, embodied world is just so new to me. And although I still feel like I’m stumbling more often than not, the increasing moments when I feel connected are truly revelatory.

More on that later. For now, here are some example of positive growth in the past year:

-          I’ve taken a lot more emotional risks with my friends, and as a result I’ve gotten much closer to many of them. Building my capacity for platonic intimacy has been a really significant part of my growth this past year.

-          I’ve become a lot more ok with being single. There’s still a huge part of me that wants a relationship so badly, but I’m learning to make life good and meaningful without it. I’m learning not to wait for my life to get better but to, instead, find ways to make it better now.

-          I’m learning how to identify and manage stress. Sometimes, I can actually relax and let some of it go. I held on too tightly in Spring13 and it blew up on me, so I’m learning to pace myself and take care of myself better.

-          I feel more confident in my counseling. It’s still quite often a trial, but I’m beginning to see some of the value I can offer my clients. I’m also getting much better at just being present with them instead of trying to fix them.

-          There are multiple people at the Counseling Center who I feel are challenging me and supporting me. Working with our “Diversity Committee” has been a huge source of community, esteem, and inspiration. It’s probably been the best non-friend thing that’s happened to me this past year. I feel part of a supportive team that gets shit done in a way I’ve never felt before.

-          I’m developing a bit more sense of my “style.” Growing into myself helps. It’s nascent, but it feels a lot less amorphous and confusing than it did a year ago.

-          I started a short story reading group and have been involved with a few feminist discussion groups, helping to challenge my mind and connect more with friends new and old alike.

-          I got more involved in psychology professional organizations, giving me a pathway to stay involved and grow post-graduate school.

-          I’ve traveled a fair amount and actually gotten a feeling for different places (which is new for me). In the past year, I’ve gone to Austin, Nashville, Asheville, Honolulu, Houston, and Dallas (4 times). Most of my travels have been alone, which has been intimidating but has also helped me feel like I can handle myself in new situations.

-          I was able to make some progress with my procrastination habits, getting work done on self-determined schedules. Significant emphasis on some.

-    I did a lot of processing with one of my exes which was really painful but really healing, too.

Continuing challenges/areas for growth [it’s interested to read how many of these I’ve actually addressed from last year’s post; better make these count!]

-          I eat really poorly. I exercise by walking some, but I definitely need to take care of my body better.

-          My cleaning habits are pretty bad. I need to set aside more time for taking care of things instead of escaping into my computer so often.

-          I’m getting better, but I still have lots of anxiety and avoidant coping strategies. I’d like to move through those more instead of running away from them.

-          I would like to practice being kind more. I hate being kind to myself, but I am continually learning that it’s really difficult to be kind and love others if you’re not kind to and love yourself.

- I want to keep practicing being “present” and not stuck in my anxiety, isolated from myself and others.

Finally, there are two themes developing which I most want to nurture: I want to continually strive to become more connected to myself, to others, and to the now; and I want to continue discovering and becoming “my self.”

Becoming the person I want to be and becoming more and more connected feel like the core of my life’s work. It’s work that will never be done, but I’m learning that’s the only kind of work that brings enduring satisfaction. I’m sure what these things look like will change with time, and I know I will always struggle in reaching them. But I want to live authentically, to live each moment so that if I die in the next I will not regret it. And I feel like this the path to get there.

So much of twenty-six was so hard. And yet, given how far I’ve come, I must admit I’m a bit eager to look back at this post a year later and see how much more I’ve grown. Here’s to getting older.

Discovering Myself in Paradise: A Trip to Honolulu

Late Friday night, I was invited with some other Counseling Psychologists to an informal party in the division's Presidential Hotel Suite. My exhaustion told me to say no, but I decided that going would be a good exercise in spontaneity. When I arrived, I found maybe two dozen people chatting in the beautiful rooms, perched atop the hotel overlooking the churning darkness of the ocean against the Waikiki Beach. I could not bring myself to join in their conversations; the small talk far too draining for this point in the night. So I gravitated towards the balcony and stared off into infinity.

It was beautiful. And haunting. Throughout my trip, it was the ocean's vastness and solemn, persistent rhythm that arrested me. How large it was, stretching towards the horizon as if literally the edge of the earth. It made me feel so small, so full with wonder. In the night, the black waves had the feeling of an endless army throwing itself against a stolid foe; a war of attrition that slowly but surely the waves would win, even if it took millions upon millions of softly violent iterations.

I was afraid of the height, afraid to stand at the edge and look over the railing. I was wryly amused at this fear, given the countless number of times I've given so much careful thought to killing myself. And it occurred to me, in that moment, how easy it would be. All I need do was quickly put one leg over the other to escape the rail, and I would crash lifelessly below. I considered it. I thought of the risk to those I might land upon, thought of the grizzly scene everyone would see. Thought of how many others might be dead and dying in the vast hotel hives of the city. How impactful to some and yet ultimately small my death would be in the scope of the thing; a curiosity, a grotesque, maybe a trauma for a small few. How ironic it would be, to dive at a party of Psychologists trained in mitigating distress. Would someone see me in the 2 seconds of my movement, yell "No!," throw a "no suicide" contract like a shuriken to strike me on the spot, wonder for the rest of their lives what they could have done to stop me?

Then I looked again at the sprawling ocean. And in its movement and its immensity, I found some solace. Drawing upon its beauty, I asked myself "What are the voices saying, those small piercing cries that push you towards this task?" They are screaming "YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH. YOU ARE WASTE. YOU HAVE NO VALUE. YOU OFFER NOTHING." And I sat with their sharp sounds. And as I sat, I felt a kindness bubble from inside me. It flowed through me and in the soft insistence of the waves, it overcame the voices. Softly, truly, I whispered "I *do* have value." I began to cry. And I decided, at least for the moment, to live. To live, and so deciding, to step away from my thoughts and go about the joyous task of absorbing the beauty of the moment. The waves crashed on, and so did I.

***

Hawai'i was lonely. I met no other trans women at the conference (out, at least). Five or six trans men, but no trans women. Indeed, one trans man who had long been active in APA was heartened that I, as a trans woman, existed. "We've been waiting four years for a trans woman to show up." And veiled behind that assertion lie a million questions as to why there aren't other trans women. What barriers have kept my sisters away? What forces have crushed them as they've approached? Likely, I assume, the same ones that weigh upon me now.

I am the only one of me in every space. In some ways, I know, this is true of all of us. But I feel it poignantly. No space was explicitly welcoming of me; few knew of the unique challenges trans women encounter in the world. There were many good intentions, of course; when I came out, most people were pleasantly surprised. It was clear that many were more than willing for spaces to be better (if someone else would do the work). Yet I think part of me hoped for more, hoped that even more of the work would have already been done. It does feel good to feel special and unique, to have one's very existence spur change. But it is lonely all the same.

I hoped for more on a smaller scale, too. There were some women who I tried to flirt with, but it was faltering, platonic. I think one has to believe one is desirable to create that dialectic of desire, and neither I nor my culture believe that of me. Even on a broader interpersonal level, everyone else seemed to know someone else, to have come with family or friends; most did not seem as if they really wanted to make new friends. They were there to network, to get professional contacts, to have fun with those they already knew. Our needs were different; I did not fit in the spaces they provided. I realized that perhaps I am unusual, to be so often alone. I felt no small amount of envy for their intimacies, for their companionships. As with most everywhere else, here too I felt alien.

***

On Saturday, I woke up sick. I had tried to do too much, and my body was rebelling. I insisted on going to some conference activities, but by midday I gave in and returned to my hotel room to sleep. I let myself feel my exhaustion, and it flooded into me, the force draining me even as the release nourished. I woke off and on, eventually deciding to forgo my planned evening activities in the hope of rebuilding myself.

As evening approached, I went downstairs to check my email and get a sandwich. I decided that eating in the hotel would be a waste, so I ate on the beach. The sun was already outside my view, setting someplace else, but I always enjoy the vibrant pinks of dusk. I sat on a small wall, watching the people and the waves, eating. As I sat, I acknowledged that I hadn't physically touched the Pacific since my arrival, hadn't felt those waters since a high school trip to San Diego more than a decade ago. I realized it might be now or never. So I put down my things, took off my socks and shoes, rolled up my jeans, and started walking.

Surrounded by tourists, I felt cushioned and safe. I appreciated the feel of the sand on my feet, the ocean lapping in and out, tasting the land before retreating. I liked the way the waves softly buried my feet in sand, briefly taking hold of me. I liked how impermanent my footprints were. How impermanent everything was. How small I felt. And yet, how cohesive too. I was alone and yet surrounded by people, alien and yet organic. I thought of how I had felt so little in my 27 years, thought of my recurring fear of a life lived without feeling alive.

But the same force that prompted me to touch the ocean sprang to life, saying "If not now, when?" I was in a beautiful space, dipping my feet in infinity, safe and secure and tasked with nothing but the necessary mechanics of existence. Why not live now?

So I did. I practiced letting go of my thoughts and seeing the ocean. I smiled at children playing in the surf. I let myself feel a fierce, gracious joy. I let myself live.

Not only did I live, I embraced myself. Certainly, I found myself envying the couples on the beach, walking hand in hand, and I wanted that. I wanted it so very much. I wanted to share my experiences, to find meaning in the presence of others. I acknowledged these thoughts, and they felt true. But beyond wishing was the now, and the now was that I was with me. I could share the beauty with myself, I could converse with myself, I could tease and play and love myself. I could spend a lifetime waiting for another to unlock my heart or I could open it myself. So I did.

When I finally returned to my hotel room, I sat on my balcony for a long while, overlooking Honolulu. In the past, it would have been madness for me to simply sit and be, but now I cultivated the feeling. I loved the city. I loved myself. I playfully chided myself that 24 hours before, I had seriously been considering denying myself this moment, denying myself all future moments. And when I blew the city a kiss goodnight, it was like the end of a loveletter to it and all and me.

***

On Monday, I ate alone at a small vegan restaurant and then walked to downtown Honolulu. I passed numerous parks, and the trash and the homeless people in them seemed a metaphor for a paradise still scarred by colonialism and inequity. Closer to the Capitol, the parks became cleaner. Eventually, I reached 'Iolani Palace, "the only royal palace in the United States used as an official residence by a reigning monarch."

I didn't go inside the Palace. But just being on the grounds and visiting its statues of Queen Liliuokalani and Kamehameha the Great had a solemn, resilient power that nourished me. The lawn had large trees interspersed, and I sat underneath one for awhile. I felt breezes warm and cool, watched the tourists take their pictures, stared up into the sky through leafy filters. There was nowhere to go, nothing to be but here and myself.

Like the Saturday evening balcony, the calm was new for me. It was not "relaxed," not exactly. It was connected. With the space, but also with myself.

I have spent my whole life hating myself. Wishing I was different, wishing I was more, thinking of all the things I should be doing that I have not will not can not. But on the beach, on the balconies, at the palace, I let go of my regret and resentment, set aside my anxiety, and I let myself live. I felt strong and I felt beautiful and I let myself live.

***

I'll write more in a few weeks about the changes I've made in the past year. Hawaii was not so much the answer as it was a catalyst for processes that have been in motion for many years. And it is an ongoing process. There is an ebb and flow, still; I felt the terror return anew the moment I reentered work on Wednesday. As the stress of the new school year builds, I will retreat into more anxiety and be enveloped in more fear.

But more than ever, I will have the strength to set those feelings aside. A quiet confidence is growing inside me, a fierce joy spreads its leaves. I am maturing into the vision of myself I saw when transition was more a question for the future not a description of the past. I am becoming that tall, willowy woman with the strong sad eyes and small fierce smile, who is passionate and compassionate, wryly playful and empathetic, driven by a vision of a world that includes, affirms, and empowers everyone. I am, as I have been doing for the past four years, becoming myself. And the more of her I discover, the more of her I love.

For My Self

Sometime in early April, something weird happened: I scratched an itch. For years before, I had desperately wanted deep, intense conversations because their realness was the only time I felt genuinely connected to someone else. I wanted them all the time, any time. So when I started seeing clients, at first, it was positively joyful. I was finally getting what I'd been craving.

But after awhile, at some point, the craving seemed to shrink. It's not that I stopped enjoying the work; I still did/do. It's just that omnipresent desire was no longer... omnipresent. And I've found myself at a place, now, where I don't really want much of anything (aside from, you know, a girlfriend). I'm not working towards anything, not building anything, not growing. I'm just waiting for something to happen. Waiting for surgery, waiting for the fall, waiting to start practicing psychotherapy again, waiting to leave Knoxville, waiting for "The One" (or, rather, "A One"), waiting waiting waiting.

In many ways, it's like I'm waiting to feel alive. Much of that, certainly, has to do with not being in a romantic relationship. But there's not much I can do about that here and now that I'm not already doing. And besides, I want someone to complement me, not complete me. And having someone else "help me feel alive" seems to dip decidedly into the "completion" category.

But what else is there to life, aside from work and relationships? What else is there of value besides, well, what and who you are for others?

The only answer seems to be "who you are for yourself."

It's an answer I don't like. And don't want. But I'm increasingly finding that living for others, that basing so much of my self in others makes me angry and anxious and self-conscious. When others so strongly inform my sense of self, I have to control them if I'm to control me [e.g. their failures become my failures, so I have to stop them from failing or I fail]. And that's not right or healthy.

So I need to work on myself. More specifically, I need to use the next few weeks well. I'm going to write more often, and I'm going to identify concrete aspects of my self I want to work upon and then plans to do that. And, if you don't mind, I need your help.

Part of the magic of therapy is how just having someone listen to you makes a difference. Just so, if I know people are paying attention, I'm more likely to follow through with this. But to make this less of a "respond to me" kind of thing, I'd like to ask salient questions instead.

So, first question:

What are some aspects of yourself that you've wanted to change and how have you done it?

A Question Wanting

It hurts to want. It hurts, and when the want seems this sound, the only way to stop it is to stop the imperfect self. “I cannot have, so I cannot be” goes the refrain.

I want a love worth living, but all I have is a life wanting love.

“all I have.”

As if a life is small change, scrounged from a blue jeans pocket and carelessly left as gratuity for someone who might give a fuck. As if lives come and go, but loves last forever.

I have been asking the wrong questions. I have been wanting her to come and be the person I want to be instead of being her myself.

Who am I? Who do I want to be?

If I met me, would I love me?
I do not know the answer.

But I do know:
it needs to be yes, it needs to be yes, it needs to be yes.

Playing the Long Game

[As a reminder: I write very similar entries, since there are a relatively small number of things that I'm really working on/that affect me emotionally. Part of writing so many similar entries is a catharsis and part is to keep a record of how things evolve and change. And this entry is definitely more evolved than some in my past]

My anxiety, in a nutshell:

1. I want to be in a relationship.
2. I am not.
3. My father is the most miserable person I know, and perhaps his most fatal flaw is a lack of introspection and action to try to make his life better.
4. I am terrified of becoming unhappy like my father, so I take personal responsibility for the things going wrong in my life, such as being single, and constantly strive for ways to remedy the situation.
5. Every moment I am single is *my fault* and evidence of *me not doing enough,* yet another step in the long, hard path towards becoming my father.
6. Anxiety.

Five of my six clients are in relationships. Most of my friends are. And, on the face of it, it really makes me wonder what, exactly, is wrong with me.

Of course, talking to my therapist, she points out that most of the folks in relationships she knows aren't exactly happy and healthy. She herself had a 25 year marriage, only 10 years of which were any good. And those ten years were mainly products of drugs and alcohol. I'm at the stage in my life when people start getting into significant long term relationships, but there will likely come a time when the nasty divorces and perpetual dissatisfaction and feelings of being "trapped" and "settling" start to arise for many too.

Indeed, I tell myself I'm playing the long game. Short term patience for long term results. I'm not a serial monogamist, my loneliest does not prompt me to force things that I know aren't right. I've only really felt comfortable as Juliet since last July (nine months), and I didn't fully get over my last star-crossed love until probably December, if then. Since August, when I started internet dating, I've talked to two people significantly and had sex with/kind of dated one of them for a few weeks. For some people in bigger cities with better queer populations, that's not much, but it's not nothing for a neo-lesbian in Knoxville either.

And truly, increasingly, my angst is not a matter of "am I good enough." I incrementally believe more and more that I'd make a really good partner for someone.

Instead, it's mostly a matter of finding someone I fit with. I've written before that so much of this anxiety is about the uncertainty. I've asked myself "if I knew I'd meet someone and fall in love (not a "forever" but at least a "love now" kinda thing) in a year would that be ok?" In two? In four? Is this a matter of faith and patience?

And, so too, there are questions of whether I'm putting myself out there enough, of whether I'm going to the right places and doing the right things. Is this a matter of approach?

I think I know the answer. I'm one of the more active people I know. Dating is slow, but it's not nonexistent. And sometimes it just takes a really long time before you meet the right person. But staying open to her and being honest about one's self are the best ways to find each other when the time's right. In other words, it's faith. Something of a gamble, certainly. But I think the reward's too great to not bother playing.

Yet Again.

I feel like every post I write is the same. And it's been like this for ever.

Yet, every time, it seems new as I the first.

It's always been this. My hatred of myself, my desperate need for someone else to love me. I've been journaling for seven years, and it's always been this.

At church today, someone I was sitting with at lunch mentioned how one of his friends had been stabbed 16 times in "The Fort" (the mostly student housing area where I live, adjacent to some lower SES areas). I've known friends to be shot at, raped, mugged, and so on just walking through it back to their homes.

So I went home this evening and I thought about it. Because, see, I walk home alone in the middle of the night in The Fort. It's one of the self-harms I allow myself, the risk without actually having to hurt myself. I've fantasized about being attacked a fair amount. But today was something new. I wondered "What would make me finally feel like I've atoned?" A scare definitely wouldn't do it. Sexual assault would probably just make me hate myself worse. I settled on paralysis below the waist; above it I'd probably just prefer to die anyway. My mind drifted to being deaf, blind, mute. And I think I could do one, but if I was deaf and blind I think I'd feel as if I trapped in some kind of tomb. It would be terrifying. And I sat with that a few moments, idly wondering if perhaps I'd be in the process of being mugged when somehow I'd manage to either run into or get pushed into an oncoming car.

These fantasies mostly make me feel better (although the blind/deaf/mute combination just left me terrified). I either want to die or be significantly damaged while not being a burden on others. Because I need to keep working, keep trying to make my existence worthwhile to *someone*.

This, of course, is nothing new. What is new, though, is how increasingly I seem to have it together externally. I'm a smooth-motherfucker when I want to be. There's an elegance, an empathy, a light joy and positive regard to me that just seems *good*. I'm the person that people with trust issues talk to. I'm the person who listens not in a "passively absorb what 'other' says" but "actively engage in communicating self."

And I could be this person constantly if I had a consistent source of validation. But I am fucking hard to reach. You have to make a conscious effort to burrow, to fling yourself at my walls and keep trying til you make it in (you will make it in, though). But, of course, that's rare. I've met two people who can do it consistently and a handful more who can do it if they try.

And that makes everything really lonely. Fuck, I just want to talk to someone who cares about me. Like, reaches out for me to get to the place where things actually hurt. I don't need my problems solved; I know how to do that. I want *love*.

But because I hate myself, I can't get it. I'm stuck as an ancillary companion, a third, a fifth wheel. And, increasingly, I'm realizing that until the hate changes, the lack of love won't either.

The Last Girl

Without a doubt, my favorite genre is the post-apocalyptic. I include dystopia in that, because dystopia encompasses the same kind of widespread destruction of humanity in a spiritual form, even if the people will likely survive into the future (and may move to a non-dystopic phase within their ontology).

In the abstract, it's romantic. Youth, desperation, terror, and unquenchable need all lend themselves to the "fucking like they do in art films" mentality (and support the "hot/crazy" positive correlation). The apocalypse lends itself to those emotions directly.

In the immediate, it's, of course, not romantic at all. I've had conversations and long periods of time with someone I desperately loved when I had reasonable expectations of her not surviving or not making it to safety and those months (crystallized in a few particularly intense weeks) are some I never, ever want to relive.

But what that experience and genre do convey is an immense sense of meaning. It's survival. Except, in most of the better media involving the apocalypse, it's rarely the survival of the individual but the survival of the community. It's love, it's family, it's human as a quintessential social animal and the struggle to not let that spirit of humanity die lends a sense of importance to every moment that is largely absent from modern, middle-class, Western lives like my own.

In the apocalypse, there is literally a struggle between Being and Nothingness. Whereas we are interchangeable and expendable (outside of our communities) in modern life, in the end of the world we *are* life.

Or that's how it often seems, anyway.

In truth, there is so much "quiet desperation" even in this world of comforts. One need only go to a "Take Back the Night" rally and listen, for an hour, to every single person who comes up and says "I've never told anyone this before, but..." and you find that spiritual survival is very much an ongoing and contemporary struggle. And, indeed, those struggles are what make me feel real and vital.

The lives of others, as it were. In an apocalypse, I would survive for someone I loved. But I wouldn't survive for myself. And the same's true now. I find meaning in the meaningful struggles of others. I'm only safe when I'm ensconced in another, only happy and joyous when another is embracing the all of me. It's all other other other.

It's the same way in apocalypse too. I write this same post again and again and again. Because it's the fundamental tension in my life. I have no (or minimal) worth in and of myself. And I'm not entirely sure if that's a bad thing. After all, I rather doubt most people would want to be the last person on earth. But one of the last of a select two? That would make all the difference. Why not in life as well?

"I'm not single, I'm alone."

I can't tell whether online dating is killing me or keeping me alive. It's a ray of tantalizing hope, certainly. But it's frustrating and fraught with perpetual disappointment. Conversations are abruptly dropped with no warning why. There's no real way to evaluate why some people respond and others don't. I fall in love with someone's profile and she lives in fucking Toronto. I've exhausted the supply of remotely compatible individuals within at least 200 miles. And there seems to be little chance of things getting better any time soon.

As someone [the only one] I've been messaging off and on on okcupid said,

 "you continue to be hilarious as your emotional investments in this website's prospects fall away like so much overstewed tallow from the bone. "

 The conventional wisdom is to learn to love yourself and love will eventually find you. I'm improving on that count. I am continually surprised at my confidence and assuredness, knowing what I want and taking active steps to try to make it happen. I still have something of a fundamental lack of self-worth, but I'll find the suicidal ideation creeping back in and part of me shouts at it that even though things aren't great, they're encouragingly positive. It's progress.

But as one of my friends said, quoting tumblr, queer dating is like applying for jobs: you either do it online or through referrals. One can hope you'll meet someone socially, but especially in Knoxville that just doesn't seem feasible any time soon.

And that's quite discouraging. I put myself "out there." I go to all kinds of events, talk to all kinds of people, look for what I want and don't get too beat down when I fail any one individual time. But I worry that it really is a matter of place. In Asheville, in Atlanta, in some big city elsewhere, in some *progressive* college town, maybe there'd be a thriving queer community. But here there just... isn't. And although many of us are making efforts to advance that cause, it's not like lesbian graduate students are just going to pop out of the woodwork.

So. I keep staring "3.5 years" in the face. And part of me feels like that's insane. Surely I'll find *someone* eventually. And even past that, I have a lot going for me in my life otherwise. If only what I have felt like it was enough.

Fear and Loving in Nashvegas

[11/15]
Last Friday, I went to see a sex therapist in Nashville as part of the requirements for me to get letters for Sexual Reassignment Surgery. I'd seen her two weeks before and taken some assessments, so this session was primarily to go over the results and talk about some of the difficulties I might face both related to the surgery and for life in general.

I'll state, for the sake of clarity, that I was and am quite irked at having to go through this process. The cost, the patronizing way the process is handled, the blatant ciscentric measurements, etc. all made me come in rather angry and mistrusting. But my therapist at home suggested I just try to make the best of the opportunity and, politics be damned, see if I can get something real out of it.

Overall, I think I did. The sex therapist told me the results of my tests probably wouldn't be surprising, and they weren't: I had significant degrees of anxiety and depression, with a fair number of indicators that I might have depressive personality disorder. I am very guarded, prone to intellectualization as a defense mechanism, and sociopolitical minded. In other words, I am, you know, me.

There were a fair number of points that she made over the course of the three hour session, but the one that's perhaps most salient to me is this: I often allow my emotional needs to compromise my judgment. As she put it, I am able to well argue most of the decisions I make. Providing rationales is not difficult, and it serves as a particularly solid defense mechanism. However, such capacities also mean I can rationalize to the point where I convince myself of various courses of action which, while having degrees of logic behind them, are ultimately unhealthy regardless of their ethicality or rationality. That's not particularly unusual, of course. But it can be quite dangerous to a person with my particular self-destructive proclivities.

As should surprise no one, this manifests itself most poisonously in my relationship choices. The "relationship" I was "in" (and it is so complicated as to justifiably merit scare quotes) was started with someone I knew I couldn't trust who I found myself completely falling for anyway. My desperate need for someone who fit me as well as she did caused me to rationalize my way through various warning signs and pertinent obstacles to the point that I signed myself up for a year of violent uncertainty, terror, self-loathing, and ultimately heartbreak. The kind where you lie sobbing in bed wishing that pain alone could kill you because it hurts so fucking bad to lose so much of yourself. The kind that haunts you like the dead, that leaves you replaying everything over and over and over and wondering why why why?

And as much as I want to say I've learned, I'm still quite vulnerable to repeating it. I find myself lying in bed wondering if I will be single forever. What if I will never find someone who's compatible with me? What if everyone I meet who's compatible is partnered? What if I'm in the wrong place at the wrong age with the wrong circles and I am destined to be alone for the entirety of the foreseeable future? Oh god it's terrifying. I hate being alone. I hate it I hate it I hate it. I want someone to want me. I want to want someone. I want to be able to wake up sobbing in the middle of the night and have someone there. I want to have dreams of isolation and desolation and be able to have someone hold me when I wake fragmented. I want someone to call when I'm afraid, when I'm angry, when I'm bored, when I'm horny. Someone to touch and fuck and talk to and hold and play and and and and and. And I don't want to be alone. And what if my standards are too high? What if this is forever? What if if if if if if

Yeah. It's so seductive, this narrative. It's like my father taking things that have some basis in truth, cherry-picking the parts that fit his perceptions, and then using that truthful foundation to make the cherries appear just as valid. Why wouldn't a person so scared and alone and needy grasp onto whatever's tossed her way, given the very legitimate needs and the very real uncertainties described above?

Why wouldn't I? Because down that path lies so, so much pain. Grasping for what's immediately available lends itself to heartbreak and waking up at some point wondering where the hell my real life went. I tell myself that I'm playing the long game, laying the foundation for decades of actualization at the cost of immediate sacrifice. And when I have that foundation, I can find someone who does not complete me but complements me. Who adds vibrancy to my already meaningful life.

It's entirely feasible. It's healthy. It ought to be so very rewarding. But it doesn't make sleeping alone tonight any better.

Sitting with Uncertainty

Part of the difficulty in being single is the feeling that you can't quite count on it changing. There's a degree of serendipity involved in meeting a good match that, no matter how much your partnered friends may protest (and it's always, only your partnered friends), belies the reassuring reaffirmations of one's self-worth.

I focus a lot on that uncertainty. It's not unlike being sick, sometimes. You hope you'll get better. You think you probably will. But, right now, it hurts so much. You curse yourself for not fully appreciating how good you had it when you weren't sick. And you worry that it will keep going on, debilitating you for who knows how long with pain, suffering, and energy depletion.

Most people get better, depending on the illness, and professionals can often give us reasonable ideas of what to expect and how to treat it. So too, I can, intellectually, tell you that I've been in some form of relationship for three of the past four years. Although the relationships I had generally lacked maturity, substantive support, and very in frequent physical contact, I've also had a host of my own issues to sort through.

Aside from the major depression, I really can't compare myself to straight cis people. Hell, I shouldn't even compare myself to some of the younger trans people I know. Partially because we all move at different paces. But partially because if I had known anyone like me, like they do, I might have transitioned and been much happier much sooner too. I've been what I consider "real" and "alive" for about four months, and my relationships to this point largely reflect that.

However, just as I can tell myself these things logically, until I'm actually "better" they're just guesses. Educated guesses. But guesses.

Uncertainty pervades so many crevices of our lives. Does she *really* love me? Does what I'm doing *really* matter? Will I ever find a calling in my life that will fulfill me? I've heard before that men aren't as close to their children because they can never be 100% sure that the child is theirs, unlike the mother. I, of course, think that's ridiculous. But when my father tearfully confessed that he sincerely doubted whether I was his biological child (which, apparently, was the difference between him feeling a responsibility to care for me or not), even that uncertainty became rather pointed.

And, for many of us, it's the uncertainty that's the worst part of what ails us. For instance, if you told me I'd have a positive, fulfilling, sustainable relationship tomorrow, would I feel so bad about not having one now? What about in one month? Six months? A year? Two? Because while being single is certainly not optimal (for me), I can definitely say knowing it would end in a day, a month, six months, and probably a year would relieve a great deal of my concern.

Ideally, I think, this would be a good way to live: assume that it will come when it comes and not stress over it. Of course, that's much easier to do when you're straight and cis than gay and trans. And, arguably, worrying allows me to reassess and continually push myself towards a better outcome. But in many ways those are cop outs. If my suffering is not the pain of the present but the fear of forever, that's a fundamentally different question than I've been asking. And, arguably, it's the one I should be answering.