Nothing

Do you ever want to facepalm so hard because you’re such an incredible idiot?

But of course, thoughts at 1:30 in the morning will do that to a person.

I’m having an imaginary conversation in my head with someone I know and I begin to explain how I’ve been feeling more and more genderqueer lately. But not like I go back and forth between male and female anymore. I never really get the want to present female. I guess it’s more non-gender.

Like nothing.

Nothing.

When I was younger I wanted to be nothing.

I didn’t want boobs, but I also didn’t want a dick. I couldn’t explain even to myself how or why I felt like this.

It sounds negative to say you want to be nothing, but to me it’s liberating.

Freeing.

Like a Ken doll.

That’s what I want.

To present male, but still be somewhere in the midst of the labels. Because I’ll never be manly. I’ll never be Ron Swanson.

I’m an effeminate, masculine presenting human.

And I want to be nothing.

Adult This Situation

I’ve had a hurricane of thoughts rush my mind within the past 36 hours of a breakup. Just a whole lot of being hurt, pissed off, understanding, angry at being understanding.

She said it felt platonic. I wish it didn’t.

It had only been 1.5 months, but I really like her. I wish it could’ve gone further than it did. I’m trying to be an adult about it and think rationally. She’s only the first girl I’ve dated, what was I really expecting? Maybe she was supposed to be the first few steps into the water before plunging into the deep ocean.

We had fun, but I guess we weren’t connected on as many levels as I thought we were, looking back now. I’m grateful for her. Each new relationship brings me closer to someone I really want to spend my time with, maybe my life with.

I cried. She cried.

She wants to be friends, but I’m not sure. I’ve only ever been friends with one person I’ve slept with after breaking up and with him, it took a lot of distance and time and patience.

I was texting with that ex as I walked home from class and I confided that I feel like I’m so desperately trying to be somebody’s person, that I’m not finding the person who wants to be my person.

He thinks that person is here in Vancouver, but I don’t know. The queer community here is so tight knit and it feels like they all hang out at the same clubs and hang with the same people. It feels difficult to become a part of that. Especially when you’re not a night life person like me.

But I can’t be the only queer person in this city like that.

This is a Rant

Because I hate my sorry ass right now.

I fucked everything up tonight and I only have myself to blame for it.

My roommate and I were supposed to watch Les Miserables and the Book Thief tonight and be depressing human beings because, well it explains itself. But then the girl I’m seeing, Sparrow, texted me after work and asked if I wanted to hang out. Being the asshole friend who thought that he’d get to cuddle and have sex with this hot girl, I took a raincheck on the movies to see her.

I took a shower and got ready as she drove from work. She was going to pick me up, but traffic was bad so she went home to wait it out. The heat here in Vancouver has been ridiculous. You can’t walk anywhere without figuratively melting your face off and I’d already been out earlier walking around for an hour so I didn’t feel like walking, taking the train, and then walking some more to her place.

She texted me when she got home and said it wasn’t as hot any more. I knew this was her hinting that I should get my ass on the train so she wouldn’t have to drive. She mentioned she had errands to run after she’d come get me so I ignored it and hoped it’d go away.

After some time, she said she was going to run her errands and then we’d see what was going to happen. By the time she’d gotten back, she texted and said her and her roommate were probably going to go out dancing.

“Are you kidding me,” I texted her. I didn’t even add a question mark. I was waiting around. I showered. I got dressed. I put on a fucking binder, which is a hell of a lot of fun to wear…

I was pissed that she’d cancelled plans with me. I was pissed at her, but I was more pissed at myself.

I freaked out and told her that I didn’t have time to waste with people who go back and forth with me. I knew that I was getting emotional over this girl I’ve only known for a few weeks and that didn’t feel good. I figured she’d think I was ridiculous because of it and would realize that I wasn’t worth the stress of it all so I said that this is probably it, which in my own head, meant that I didn’t want to see her any more. Really couldn’t be farther from the truth though.

Some more texts were exchanged and I had a change of heart and began apologizing for being a complete and total psycho about everything. I told her I’d cancelled plans with Alicen, and she freaked out on me and told me I shouldn’t do that because of her. I asked her if she was mad at me and she said she didn’t know. I asked her to tell me when she figures it out.

I was sitting in my room when Alicen came to the doorway and wanted to talk. Seeing that I was a miserable mess on my bed, she asked what was wrong and I started with apologizing to her about cancelling our plans and went on to explain everything that had just happened in the last couple hours. Turns out she wanted to see if I was mad that she was disappointed. We ended up on the couch as we had’ve done and watched Marley and Me, which turned out to be awful, but I felt like crying to a dog death. We never even got to the end of the movie because the DVD player hates us.

So I’m mad that I cancelled on one of my best friends. I’m mad that I couldn’t bring myself to say no to this girl. And I’m mad that I couldn’t have just taken the train to her place, had I gone over. I’m mad that she cancelled plans with me in the end.

But it serves me right because I got what was coming to me. All in a very short time frame of this after school special.

The frustrating part is that I really like Sparrow. I’m not thinking about forever. She’s been married before and has said she doesn’t want to do it again, and she doesn’t want kids, and anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows that I want both of those things some day. Not soon, but some day. I’m keeping my options open to whoever else is out there, but I like being with her right now.

I just hope I haven’t fucked everything up with her.

With Hands on Shoulders, We Sway

If there’s a joke about introverts, it’s me. I’m happiest by myself in a safe space with this laptop, music surrounding me, while simultaneously trying to write and play Sims. Even being with a few good friends I can only manage for a certain amount of time before my energy levels have dropped and I’m useless to the world and need to recharge.

One year is not long enough for school. This year has been incredibly informative and enriching for me. However, I feel like I’m just now putting myself out there and getting to know the people in my class. It takes me so long to become comfortable with large groups of people that by the time I’m on my way to achieving that, it’s over and it’s too late.

We had four days off between terms this weekend and I let my introvert lie by the wayside as I actually went out and did stuff.

Wednesday night, after a late Adaptation class, my roommate Alicen and I went with our class to a bar for a trivia night. During class, I was watching the other adaptations of famous films being cold-read by classmates and had nerves running all through my stomach. Bars are an obvious red flag to introverts like me. They’re loud and crowded and you turn around and lose people. There’s alcohol and money involved. One thing that I still feel inexperienced in, and another that just gives me nerves.

But after my adaptation was read, and shockingly for everybody, acted out by classmates who played Samwise and Frodo, I felt better, and the nerves went away when I heard all the laughter around the room. This was a very much fanfiction alternative ending to The Return of the King with a full on make out session with Sam and Frodo and it was pretty amazing.

So we went with the others and actually had a good time. We ordered drinks and competed in the trivia challenge in small groups and I actually let loose for a few hours. It felt good.

Friday, Alicen and I put down a damage deposit on an apartment we’ll be moving into August 1st. I can’t describe how excited I am to be only living with her. Never again will we have three people in one living situation. It just did not work out for us. We were forced to move out of our current place that we love so much because the universe decided we weren’t meant for a third roommate, but it’s going to work out because we only need each other.

That night we hopped on the train and bussed it to a classmate’s house party with beer in tow. Our inexperience was proven when we got to the sidewalk in front of his house and saw everyone inside and thought, “We could still go home. No one will even know that we tried.” But instead we dug deep down and found some courage that was hiding in some arteries.

You know you never show your face anywhere when people are literally shocked that you actually came out. We drank a few beers and observed a game of table tennis. We chilled outside and talked to our class and pet the cute dog that was making his rounds. Again, it was fun, and we didn’t combust or die of anxiety. We took the bus back at midnight and I left Alicen at Commercial before walking through East Van to the house of the girl I’m currently seeing.

Saturday, the girl, we’ll call her Sparrow, and I met up with Alicen and went to East Side Pride on Commercial Drive for a bit and then chilled in the shade in the park with another friend from school before going back to Sparrow’s house. I mashed up avocados for the first time and made guacamole while Alicen and Sparrow’s dog got acquainted. The four of us played Cards Against Humanity before heading out at 11 to Man Up: a queer dance party and gender bending drag show.

You can imagine that if small bars heighten my social anxiety, a floor of profusely glistening twenty-something’s dancing without a care as to Monday can really have me immobilized. As was the case as Alicen, Natasha, and I stood in our enclosed triangle, them too sunburned to move, and me too busy watching the others and wondering how their give-a-fuck metres were so low, and mine, well …

It was fun to have this girl I like coming up to me and kissing me with a cold beer on the back of my neck through out the night and holding me while we stood in the crowd and watched the performers on stage. I realized that when I’m not drinking, I want to dance like a fourteen year old boy at his first eighth grade dance with his hands hovering an inch above female skin and swaying back and forth. Not all this grinding, twerking shit that the kids do nowadays. I’m an old, ancient fuck.

I was totally good with the space I was in until halfway through the show when something dislodged in me and left me feeling a little uneasy. I always have the hardest time deciphering for myself what’s wrong when I’m feeling strange so trying to convey that to another human is near impossible. She took care of me though and took me away from the crowd to the fresh air of Main street. I tried explaining how I felt, needing to say that it was disphoria, but not even knowing it at the time. I guess seeing the transguys on stage did something to me. I’m still working through it. I’ll always be working through it.

It was an unusual weekend. Our current/previous roommate lied straight to our faces about her living and relationship situations and claimed she is unable to pay her part of July’s rent, even though she’s in a contract until the end of July. So Alicen and I learned what a horrid human she is and will never make that mistake again. She can have all the fun she wants moving in with her first boyfriend and see how long that lasts until they’re broken up and she’s paying all the rent or she’s knocked up and there goes her life. Rent is due at the end of the month and she better believe we’ll be taking her to the landlord and tenant board if her portion isn’t sent via e-transfer.

And end rant.

So interesting weekend. A shit-ton of new explorations to write about. Eight weeks left of this course with these humans that I’ve grown to like being around, and I’m not ready for it to be over.

But this awkward dancer must grow up.

I Want to Grow as a Human

My hope is that someday, I can look back on past relationships and think that they were useful. Every encounter I face should be a learning experience and I want to take away something from every person I date to better myself.

On my birthday back in March, my first ex sent me a Facebook message wishing me a happy birthday. I didn’t want it, and I wasn’t expecting it. In the past 2 1/2 years since we broke up, I think we only “spoke” five times. By spoke I mean text because we were purposefully excluding each other from our lives. It had taken me a year to finally forgive him for the way he ended things with me. I’m a bitter, spiteful human, and I wanted him to be miserable without me. I didn’t want to see him happy and I didn’t want to see him with anybody who wasn’t me.

But after all this time, and knowing that he has a girlfriend who he cares about, and seeing that he’s happy and having a good amount of time pass, I finally want him to be happy too. And I think he truly wants the same for me.

I thanked him for the birthday wish with a smile emoji attached and went on with my life, but the notion that I’d have to reciprocate the gesture plagued me until his birthday rolled around at the end of May. I didn’t want to wish him a happy birthday, because I didn’t want to have to keep up with the charade for the next 40 years. But I didn’t want to be mean either. After all, I loved this guy for a third of my life at one point.

So I messaged him on Facebook the day before his birthday and told him how I felt. I told him we didn’t have to keep on doing this. I wished him happiness in life and a happy birthday, but we don’t have to hold on to this old memory and drag it through the future. He replied with a thank you and told me he felt the same way.

And so that’s it with him. It’s over. Honestly, I’ll probably never see him again in my life. Different cities, different friends, different lives. And I’m okay with that. I finally have peace with that Dutch boy from grade 9 and I can breathe free and clear knowing that I hold no hard feelings on him or us.

My third ex and I took a hiatus from being friends for a couple months. I moved away, he found someone else, we attempted an open relationship, I freaked the hell out, and everything broke. But we reconnected over Christmas and since then everything has been okay, and I don’t really question it. He’s one of the most important people in my life and one of my best friends and I don’t ever want to have him out of my life.

He has a trans boyfriend and sometimes he comes to me for advice when said boyfriend is feeling down or confused about things like transitioning. I highly doubt that his boyfriend knows or cares that he does this, but I like that I’m the one he comes to, and I like that he knows he can. Even though it’s weird sometimes, I wouldn’t want another trans person to feel alone in this. Things with him will only continue to get better and I know he’ll be around for a long time.

I have this suspicion that I’ve been thinking about my second ex lately simply on the basis that I’ve been watching American Dad on Netflix the last couple days. We had a lot of shows, but that was our big one. There’s so many lines that I still hear in his voice and I know all the scenes he’d laugh at. That relationship wins without a doubt for giving me the least amount of closure. I haven’t had a word of contact with him since it ended and I had to force myself to be okay with that.

Eventually it got easier and I forget about him a little more each day, but the pain still remained because he hurt me so badly and I didn’t want him to be happy without me. I still don’t, really. I’ll wait for the day when I can finally breathe that one off, but it isn’t today. Some days I just wonder if he still thinks about me.

My fourth ex isn’t really my fourth because we were never really a couple. Even though I wanted to be, he didn’t want anything serious. I knew that from the start, but I’m a masochist so I let myself get so close to being in love with him until it almost destroyed me. If it wasn’t for the wall that I had to remember was built between the dimensions of our minds, I could’ve.

But so many stupid decisions and mistakes on my part that I still can’t forgive myself for. I put myself in danger because I wanted to think that it’d be us for longer … I just wanted to be his.

I went almost a month and a half without contacting him. I unfollowed him on Instagram, but still kept him on Facebook, though I turned off the notifications so I didn’t have to see his life. I wanted him to see mine though. I posted photos with old friends and new friends so he could see what I was up to. I wanted him to think that I was okay without him around.

But I’d only been repressing it. I probably still am. I haven’t even cried over him yet, though I feel it in my head behind my eyes, I want to, I just can’t. I don’t know why.

Yesterday morning as I lay in bed, I wrote a thought out and precise text of how I feel about him. I told him I couldn’t be his friend any more. Even though I want to be the good person and support him through his transition, I can’t right now. The pain of being without him, and the hatred I feel about myself in only situations he’ll understand, is still too raw. I told him I thought that I was falling in love with him. Feelings that I think he knew himself, but I’d never expressed outright. I told him I want him to be happy and I hope he figures out what he wants to do with his life. And I said “I love you” because it’ll be the only time I ever get to say it to him and I needed to get it out of my system. And it’s funny, as soon as I wrote it out on my phone, that stupid weight was lifted off my chest. I told him I was unfriending him on Facebook and deleting his number, and I did.

A part of me still wants him even though I know he isn’t healthy for me. I just want him to want me the way I wanted him.

I know it’ll take a while longer before I can fully form thoughts about him that don’t end in me wincing and shutting my eyes tight, but it’ll come. In the meantime, I’m meeting new people and going on new adventures, and learning that there’s never just one person.

There are so many people.

I just want to be a person that I can love and respect for the decisions and actions that I make in my life with the relationships around me.

Happy Mother’s Day. I’m Totally Bi.

And I don’t really know why it took me twenty-five years to fucking figure it out.

Don’t worry, I’m still very much into men.

Transmen.

There’s something riveting about finally admitting this to myself. There was a hint of attraction to girls when I was a teenager, but not much thought ever went into it. Probably because I was trying to figure out the state of my gender identity. But now that I’ve got that sorted, I feel like I’m able to explore other areas of myself.

Dating another transman the last three or four months opened me up to new opportunities I’d never thought I’d try. Activities in the dark that I can’t believe I thought I wouldn’t like. But man, was I wrong. That relationship is over now, but I’m still in a state of discovery.

I feel like my parents missed the lesbian daughter phase. I feel like I missed it. To think I could’ve come out twice. I’m looking back at my life and thinking about how it could’ve all been different. I wouldn’t change it, obviously, but I missed a lot, not exploring my sexuality as a teenager the way that many others did.

In a way, it’s much more fun now. As an adult.

I feel happy. My heart hurts a little from the end of that relationship, but I wasn’t completely blind to its truth. I feel okay because there are opportunities ahead. And I don’t think that they exist in a dating app. I think I’m going to explore this realm of humans in person and see who I find. Starting tomorrow with a trans social group on Davie.

Discovering new life at a quarter century never looked so good.

Keep Yer Head Up

You are a flower and you get trampled sometimes. And sometimes it’s even definitely your fault and you’re forced to look at the course of your actions and be a real live grown up.

You want a lot out of life and out of people and it doesn’t always work out the way you wanted it to.

I let myself fall into a situation and now I’m hurt, but it’s my fault because I knew the circumstances and the boundaries and I didn’t listen to my gut. I knew that it wouldn’t work out  to the high points of my expectations and hopes, but I was having too much fun to care. Maybe I thought things would change. We all want to be the one to someone else.

But I’m a flower, and I have roots deep in the ground that keep me alive and growing, so I’ll be okay even though my petals lay in the dirt and my stem is crushed and broken. I’ll find something new. Something that wants what I want and I’ll listen to both of us.

But I wish it didn’t hurt this much.

---

Tonight this transguy shaved for the first time since starting T almost three months ago. I’d noticed a few hairs growing on my face and didn’t want to look like an awkward 15 year old boy any longer.

It was daunting at first. Most boys have their dads teach them, but I think a lot of transgender boys have to learn it on their own. I watched a quick video on YouTube and went with it.

I was surprised at how natural it felt once I had the first stroke finished and I’m stoked to have more experiences like this one.

Life is fucking hard sometimes. It wrenches your heart and forces you to make adult decisions when you don’t want to. But I’m growing and I’m sure I’ll be a better human for it.

Two Months (and two days) Post-Testosterone

And it feels good.

Or it would if I felt anything at all. The first six weeks, I pumped my body with 25mg of T and was getting used to sticking sharp objects into my body. It’s still awkward to do my left leg with my right hand, but after a demonstration for the guy I’m dating, this past Tuesday, I managed to not hit a spot that would require extra pain and a tiny hobble.

I think I experienced a tiny adrenaline rush after the shot, feeling restless in bed and laughing over nothing as I cuddled him and he tried to sleep. So that was pretty awesome.

That past Tuesday I got the OK from my doctor to begin 50mg injections. My Testosterone levels went up from 4 to 4.5 within those first six weeks. I forget what’s normal for a cis guy, but I’m on my way to that number!

I haven’t really noticed any significant changes yet though, and I’m impatient about it sometimes. When my doctor asked if I’d noticed any changes, I wanted to say that I had, but it’s been rather boring so far. The only side effect I’ve been experiencing is increased acne, which is totally fun to deal with, and the combination of facial wash are so not drying out my skin at all …

I’m super stoked for this increase though. It was worth the three vials of blood that pinched my arm at the lab and need to be taken every three and six months to keep my levels on the right track. Just means I have to watch myself more closely to really track if changes are happening. Cause one day I’ll look back and I won’t look like this, and I’ll wish that I had paid more attention.

I just want my voice to change. I’m tired of laughing and hearing this high squeal, and talking to people when all they hear is a feminine voice. I’m fine with being feminine though. When I’m two years post-T, I’ll still have feminine features in my face, and I’ll still have my quick feminine walk, and a feminine voice, but it’ll be different and good. I want to grow my hair out long again. It was gorgeous and I’ve been missing it lately.

This post isn’t really about much. I just need moments to look back on to remember how far I’ve gone and will go.

Saying Goodbye

It’s been 824 days since I came out as transgender to my sister. 824 days that I’ve been trying with failure to get her to accept me as the brother I am.

Until a week or two ago when she made her point.

She’s getting married in five months to a guy that I don’t approve of. I don’t think he’s right for her and I think she’s making a mistake getting married at only twenty-three. But that’s her mistake to make and I’ve accepted it. She can do what she wants.

We’re not close. We haven’t been close in years, and it extends far past 824 days. I don’t know what happened or what went wrong, but I guess some siblings just don’t have a strong bond. I accept that. It is what it is, and I have other people in my life that I make my brothers and sisters.

Despite all this though, I was still expecting to be in her wedding party. Silly me, to think such an honour could be bestowed upon me.

I had to find out from my parents that I was only going to be a guest at her September wedding. I texted her right after that and received confirmation the following morning that I wasn’t included in the wedding party.

My heart sank. I was devastated and pissed off. Out of everyone else in her wedding party, which I might add, includes my ex boyfriend of seven years, I have known this girl the longest. After a text conversation between us that was going nowhere, I decided I was finished with her.

I’m tired of trying to win over someone who is never going to see my point of view. She’s never once tried to understand my side of the story because she doesn’t want to. She’s too wrapped up in her religion to see the destruction that she’s causing in the people closest to her.

So I cut her out of my life. I don’t want anything to do with this person that I don’t even know any more. No birthday cards, no texts, no Facebook, no Christmas. Just nothing.

I love my sister so much, but I don’t like her. She’s not the good person that I was trying to convince myself she was. Gone are the days that I defend her actions to my friends. She has hatred in her heart, and I no longer have room in mine for negativity and people who don’t respect the person I am trying to be.

I thought that I had broken my mother’s heart when I told her what I had done, and I probably have, but she took it well and understood why I had to do it. My mom knows that it isn’t fair how she’s been treating me these past two years. She’s seen me time and time again try to get my sister to come around and see that I am still the same person I have always been.

If my sister can’t see it, then that’s her fault. I am going to do amazing things with my life, and she can watch it all from the sidelines.

I am almost two months on T and though I don’t see any changes yet, I’m proud of the struggle I’ve fought through to get here today. I can’t wait for April 7th to get the OK from my doctor to go from 25 mg of testosterone to 50 mg, though it physically hurts to have to get three vials of blood taken every 3 and 6 months. But it’ll be worth it once I look in the mirror and see someone I know staring back at me.

I want to say that it hurts not having her in my life, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel any different because she had already taken the steps to be gone from it.

Okay, Universe. I’m Listening.

Last night after posting, I was trying with some sort of success, to fall asleep, while thinking about everything I had rambled on about, and a song popped into my head.

But it was only the thought of that song, because I couldn’t remember who it was by or what any of the lyrics were.

And it’s dumb, and strange, that the song would cross my mind at that time because I hadn’t listened to it for years, and I was obsessed with it when I was sixteen or seventeen.

I’d heard it on the OC and played it on repeat for hours while singing along. It created a picture in my head of being alone in the forest in winter. All the trees are dead and bare, it’s some time in the afternoon, falling into dusk, and there’s a fresh bed of snow on the forest floor. It isn’t very cold, but I’m alone. Not lonely, just alone, to my thoughts, in this serene setting.

It’s sort of enchanting.

So last night, after the thought of the song figuratively played across my mind, I decided that I would just let it slide on trying to find out who it was by because it would be kinda hard, in a world of a trillion songs, to find this one that plagued me. So I went to bed, settled on my decision.

My roommate and I are on an OC binge at the moment that started over the weekend. She’s never seen it before, and it’s still one of my favorite shows. It didn’t click with me that the song was on the soundtrack to the show until I heard the first little bits of guitar play.

As Seth clumsily climbs onto the coffee cart at school and declares his love for Summer, I pulled out Notes on my phone and began typing in lyrics, as one does. I wanted to watch the scene unfold, but my heart was too busy running cold to the craziness happening in my own moment.

The episode ended and I found the song on YouTube and couldn’t believe I had let that song get away from me. I’ll continue listening to it while I edit this post and peruse Facebook ’til I fall asleep.

I think my point, is that, last night, and my whole life, really, I’ve never been able to just let things happen. I need to know what’s happening and where my life is going, and if I don’t, then I begin to panic a little. So I need to learn to just let things happen, and know that I can’t control everything, and just enjoy the moment.

Because life will take care of things on its own. In a way that we want it to, or not. But it will, regardless.