Pouring Out My Brain

Today is a heavy sigh kind of day. It's Friday night, and I'm a little worn out from a double session at the gym today, preceded immediately by 6 hours of torturous work in a retail environment. I'm not in the mood to go out, but I wouldn't really be opposed if I were to get invited tonight. But that call will never come. I have a few things that need to be done, but it seems so late already that I'm afraid to actually start anything. And maybe I'd just like to relax and enjoy some time to myself, though not really to myself since my parents are upstairs, and I don't have a door, meaning I can hear everything that's going on up there anyway. I don't think I get a chance to really be alone very often, and maybe that would help me to feel less lonely. It sounds strange, but being by myself gives me time to recharge and to process what has happened. I feel like I can't keep up with my life when I don't have this opportunity. There are other things that interfere as well, but this might be the most troubling one. I seemed to be doing a lot better when I had my own place and could make my own rules about my living situation. And I didn't have to worry about someone being there when I didn't want them to be. I could know what to expect when I got home, recharge for even a few minutes or an hour, and be ready to go about my evening. Public transportation here is almost non-existent, so I literally always have to get a ride to go anywhere other than the shopping plaza near my house, which is still probably a little over a mile away.

There is no sense of community here either, not in the way that I need it. It's weird not having any trans or queer friends. I have what I would consider gay friends and acquaintances, but they don't quite get the concept of queer. As far as I can tell, I might be one of the only people in the county who does. Probably multiple counties. I miss being able to talk about queer things and am just bored by conversations and jokes that rely on stereotypes about men and women. And yet I am sometimes forced to use this same stereotypes to make connections with customers when I could honestly care less.

I think I lied. I forgot to mention something, so I didn't do it on purpose. The other day, a transwoman came into the store. I needed to use her ID to look up her credit card and complete the purchase. The ID was still in her birth name, and I treated her just like I would have any other woman coming through the line. I know she may not have noticed. She might have prayed for things to go smoothly, to not get any weird looks, to just be able to get in and get out without having someone questioning her identity or mocking her as she walked away. I know the look that someone gets in these situations. I wish I could have told her that I understand. I wanted to have some way of sharing with her that I got it and that there was someone else in this fucking shithole town who deals with the same thing on an almost daily basis. But I didn't want to draw attention to her. And I don't think she would have wanted me to do that either, but it still might have been nice for both of us. This is what I meant about losing my queer visibility. Not being able to make that instant connection. Not being able to look at another short-haired, obviously female-bodied person and exchange stories without saying a word. Just blending in and exchanging glances with people whose eyes have no stories to tell, who don't want their eyes to have a story to tell.

Without a whole community of transmen and people who get them, I find myself very lost up here. I'm all about education, but I don't want every interaction I have to be a lecture on gender theory. Sometimes I just want to be in a room full of people who get it. It's like trying to play a game of basketball but stopping all the time because your teammates don't really know the rules. There's no flow. No rhythm. And it's awkward.

It's not even ten o'clock. If I were in Pittsburgh, I'd be with my trans friends, most likely, or sitting next to the boy who wouldn't have broken up with me because I moved away. Because I wouldn't have moved away. I hate doing this to myself. If. It doesn't exist, so there isn't much point indulging in fantasies about a life that doesn't exist, at least not anymore. I would probably be having an easier time if I had been ready to leave. But there was so much that I didn't get to do. I was in the middle of so many important things. And I got blindsided. I had to leave against my will and with virtually no time to get my shit together. Maybe leaving home for college was so easy because I had all that time to get ready. Maybe planning to leave was easy because I would have been ready. I would have found a way to become ready. That never happened, and I still don't know how to handle it. I don't know how to get past what I assume is the feeling of regret/loss. I have a hard time letting things go. And an even harder time letting people go. I don't want this to be the end of things. But it just has to be. And it hurts every single day. I keep seeing and thinking about things that remind me of my friends and my old life. And I don't even feel like I could possibly be the same person, with the life that I am living now. I get tastes every now and then when I visit. It feels like the city is calling me back and telling me that everything is waiting for me to pick up right where I left off. It feels like everything will be the same. The comfort of a warm blanket and the arms of people who know you intimately, who can know you when you are unable to know yourself. I wonder if I will ever have that again, but more importantly, I mourn over the fact that I will never have anything like it ever again. Because each hug is different and each person radiates something different into my life. I can still feel the ripples, but they are fading, and I fear that I won't remember how beautiful it is to be loved.

I am losing my understanding of the experiences of love/intimacy because I live without them. I'm afraid that I will be so damaged by the experiences of the last few months (and years) that I'll never be able to fix myself, meaning that moving to a new city will leave me feeling exactly the same.

I'm still toying with the idea of going out tonight. But I'm leaning towards no because if I were to go, I'd really like to be able to do it myself. Maybe this thought kept coming back to me because my brain is trying to tell me what I need to do. But not all of my brain is telling me this. Other parts are afraid of going out. Am I afraid of going out because I have no connection or because I don't want to have a connection to this place? Will not having one make it easier to leave? It's ironic that misery can be comfortable. Or at least more comfortable than some things, like the unknown.

I just want to have a real conversation with someone again. To feel like we are really communicating something to one another instead of exchanging pleasantries and talking about things because we are afraid to be silent around one another. I won't go out tonight. Maybe I will next time, but I think I always say that. I don't want to have to pretend when I go out. Maybe I don't have to. But I'm always worried that a problem will arise, and I won't be able to get out of it, and no one else will know what to do. Or maybe I'm just fishing for excuses now. That last part sounds like something my brother would say.

I'm worried about stopping the writing again. Silence. Nothingness. Moving on to doing nothing. At least this might serve some purpose. I can't even tell if I am more or less agitated by doing this, writing when I can't stop thinking and/or when there is nothing else to do.

"do" is a word that made the list of jobs/career paths I've considered in the past year and a half flash in front of my eyes. PA, teacher, pharmacist, doctor, researcher (in different fields), personal trainer, businessman, entertainer. over and over again. i'm pretty sure art school was in there somewhere too. Social work. You name it. I have probably considered it. I don't know what the fuck to do. I wonder if I am any closer. I need to do something soon. If I don't, I may never do anything, and I would like to believe that doing something is better than doing nothing. Something queer. That always comes up as well. I wish I knew what made the most sense. I wish this were a decision based on logic or some magical equation. But life just doesn't work that way, or maybe it does and I don't know the equation. I suppose most people factor in money. And maybe time. But then everything kind of ends up the same when I think about it. I need to stop thinking about everything, all the time. There's no time to live with all of this thinking.

There's no time to live with all of this thinking. Interesting.

I'm terrified about having to take the bus tomorrow because I think I will miss it. And I don't know which route it takes or how early I need to be there. What will most likely happen is that I will leave ridiculously early and still be paranoid. And then I'll be too stressed out from the ride to handle a 5-hour shift on a Saturday night. I wish I weren't able to predict this. At least buses here are cheap, even if they only run until 4 PM tomorrow. I don't exactly hate this place. I just hate the way it works. And how people are morons. There seem to be way more of them here than anywhere else I've ever been. I'm honestly not surprised, but I wish I didn't have to deal with them every day. Morons with a lot of money, talking down to me. At least I treat them with respect. Even in real life, I treat idiots with respect. Idiots can still be nice people. (Please see the sarcasm here. I'm not really this much of a jerk.) I think I only use these terms when the combination is mean AND stupid. I suppose I get upset when people yell at me because of THEIR OWN dumb mistakes. It's fine if you yell about mine. Well, no it isn't, but at least I can understand that.

I have that feeling in my chest again. I think it has been there all day. But it's like something is sitting on my chest or compressing my insides. All the fucking time. And I know this isn't normal because I have a fading memory of the few weeks where I didn't feel like this. There were probably other times years ago, but those are difficult to recall.

I don't understand my own feelings all the time. I spend a lot of time trying to figure them out, and I get worried that this means I don't really know who I am. Then I think to myself, who does? This is really all over the place, isn't it? Makes sense to me.

I might not even be done tonight, but I think I am for now. Maybe I'll find something else to write about when I can't fall asleep later. When. Not if.