Peter

I've been waiting for words to come all day, and I don't think my emotions have entirely sorted themselves out.  I got a message this morning on Facebook. I had to check the news reports to make sure it was real. It still hasn't managed to feel real. You were 25 years old. Your car hit a retaining wall and caught fire, but we know little more than that.
Throughout the day, I've been getting hit with memories that have made me smile more than frown, and the most incredible thing about this experience to me is that just as you had this unique way of bringing together groups of friends from vastly different social circles in life, so you have been able to bring so many of us back together to celebrate the beautiful person you were, even though you have passed from this world.
I know I will never be able to capture in words all of the memories with which I am left. I'm not even sure about the exact day we met. I feel like you grew into a bigger and bigger part of my life as I began to grow into myself and open up to people who had been trying to get close to me for months or even years. You grew into such a big part of my life that I remember spending almost every single day with you and never wanting to be apart. You were the one to help me pick up the pieces when I thought my life had fallen apart, on more than one occasion, during the most difficult summer of my life. You always had this way of turning tragedy on its head. You made me feel much stronger than I thought I ever could be.
I remember how you, James, Joseph, and I were the Golden Girls, and you were Blanche, of course.
I remember finding a box of bagels and cream cheese with you on the corner across the street from the Cathedral, as well as being curled up in pain with you on the floor of the Rainbow office after deciding it was somehow a good idea to eat them.
I remember dancing with you at Kelly and Chance's wedding this summer and how we both laughed because we couldn't figure out who should lead.
I remember the random summer walks, playing board games on your floor in the blazing summer heat when you had no air conditioning.
You loved mugs. You had the best mug collection I've ever seen, and I fondly remember our trips to Goodwill where you'd buy about five or six at a time.
I remember that time where we lived together without actually living together and how we only had that apartment for about a month. It still felt like home. I think that's because we both wanted it to be so badly.
I remember that you didn't own more than one pair of shorts. You insisted on wearing long pants all year round. As Melissa said, this is because you are a hipster. But you always denied it. Proving the point.
Speaking of which, that night we decided to scale a fence and go tagging was one of the best nights of my college life. It felt like we were in Stand By Me. That was way better than studying for finals ever could have been.
I remember walking along the train tracks with you and Kelly in the summer of 2010, taking a ridiculous picture of the two of us biting the same piece of meat on a stick after already having taken so many absurd pictures before heading to Pride in the Street that same year.
I remember how you talked often about how you talked with Paul McCartney when you were in London, and I thought this was the coolest thing ever.
I remember how much you desired to find someone with whom you could start a family and have children. We both agreed you'd make an awesome dad.
You also loved hotels. And now I totally understand why.
I remember the time you carried me out of my house and into your car when I was too sick to even walk.
I remember how you always slept with a fan going because you just couldn't fall asleep otherwise.
I remember the way you used to hold me in just the right way so that the tension just melted away. You made me feel safe and loved. And you were one of the first people in my life to truly see me for the man I am. You were one of the few people whose understanding of gender made me sigh with relief. For this, you were an invaluable asset to the transgender community of Pittsburgh.
I remember how valuable an asset you were to the entire queer community of Pittsburgh. You seemed to know everyone. You've touched the lives of so many people. You always brought people together. Every time I look back at pictures of us out on the town, we are surrounded by at least a dozen loving friends. Even when you were going through your own periods of darkness, you somehow managed to spread light wherever you went. You had this way of making people happy and bringing out their love for life whenever you came near. I wonder if you knew just how important to our community you were. How many people will never be the same because you were a part of their lives.
 You helped me discover and grow into the person I am today, and you will always be a part of me. I miss you so much, and as I fight through this sea of conflicting emotions and struggle to grasp the reality of this situation, I think about what you would have wanted your closest friends and family members to do. As much as we must mourn the loss of a truly great and inspirational human being, we must also do you the honor of celebrating your life and continuing to work for the equality you believed we all deserve. It was tattooed on your hand, in plain sight, because you believed something so important should not be hidden. You were unapologetic about what you believed. And that made us all a little more comfortable with ourselves. You helped us learn to carry our spirits like you carried your tattoo. You helped us understand that we were not put on this earth to hide.
I think that is the most difficult part of all for me to handle. We were put here to live. And you embodied the idea of living life to the fullest more than anyone I knew, really. It seems cruel that the world has lost someone with such a zest for life--someone who had so much life left to live and so much more left to give. I haven't gotten all of these feelings sorted out yet, but this is what your memory has helped me learn in just the last half a day or so.
I had no idea that that dance this summer would be the last time I would ever see you. But it is truly one of the most beautiful memories with which you could have left me.
 Even though you might have laughed at me in life for saying this, I do believe you are here with me, helping me along the way in this process of grieving. I want to thank your spirit for staying with me, and I want to thank all the friends who have reached out to me with phone calls, messages, and comments just to let me know that they are here. We will help each other through this because we are family. I love you all, and this whole experience--being completely new territory for most of us who have never had to deal with the loss of a peer so early in life--has made a lot of us realize how precious these friendships really are and how valuable our time together can be. <3 p="">

Home Improvement

I'm prepared for this to be excruciating. My heart is heavy. My brain and body are equally troubled, tortured, and are becoming useless. No one ever wants this, of course, but I still feel the need to say that this is the last place I ever wanted to be, though I may have suspected it at various times in my life. Still, it's one of those things you never actually think will happen to you, like a heart attack or cancer.

I will interject with this random thought before continuing: I will never be normal. I just want to be capable. Regardless of success or failure, the latter is necessary for me to be (happy).

I don't know where to start, or how. I don't know why I am hurting so badly or why it happened at this particular time in my life. I am tortured by the fact that I need to know everything, all the time. That fact alone is not something a lot of people can quite comprehend. It's hard to understand pain you've never felt before. I suppose it's even harder to understand pain you've never let yourself feel before, for whatever reason. Maybe it was intentional or maybe it was self defense. I've been thinking a lot about last summer and how I could not see what was happening, and I have no idea how I am supposed to feel yet. There's a letter I never answered, and I am not sure I ever will, but the fact that I went back to refresh my memory should tell you something about the way your words have affected me and probably always will, whether I like it or not. Don't take that for any more than what it is.

For the record, "I told you so" is not an appropriate response.

I've slipped into something I haven't been able to control. I deleted the word "can't" from that sentence, so maybe even this is a start.

Transition does not automatically solve all of your problems, for those of you that seem to think unwavering happiness is the natural end to the course of events in the physical process. What I have come to find is that I am just now beginning to deal with problems I could not confront before. Your body tries to respond to the most pressing threat, and so does your mind. Transition was something that needed to happen in order to move forward with my life, and that means enjoying life as well as dealing with its unpleasantness.

It's become clear that I don't know how to do the latter very well. I ended up where I did because every coping skill that I have ever learned has recently failed me. Because I believed (and am still fighting against the belief) that my life--my job, my ability to deal with stress, my ability to be happy, my financial situation, etc--will never any better and that I will be stuck in this place of depression, anxiety, and limited capacity to function...forever.

I struggled to get myself out of bed every morning for weeks upon weeks, maybe even months. And that was until I just couldn't do it anymore. So I didn't. And I quit my job. But I had already checked out of doing things that make me happy because everything I love has now become everything I fear. I am stressed by everything, saddened all the time. Sometimes there is no reason, and this is something that I can't stand.

I spent three full days in the crisis center because I really didn't know if I could trust myself to be alone with me, and I really couldn't take another day of being home. I didn't move from my bed for almost two days, and I barely ate anything at all while I was there. I kept turning over the thought that this is how my brother might feel every day of his life, surrounded by people he cannot connect with and unable to do anything on his own. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and it's only going to get harder. But it might get better. I'm hanging everything on that one little word, and everything in the logical part of my brain is telling me that it's a really stupid way to go about living. But clearly that part of my head has been sucking lately. Or maybe logic just doesn't have anything to do with it.

It's obvious that I can't hold a job right now, no matter how much I want to and no matter how much I need to have money. Sometimes I still don't really believe that this is who I am and that this is what is happening to me. The fact that I can't have a job right now is just one more thing that makes me terrified that I will never get out.

But when you are isolated for three full days, you start thinking even more. And that really sucks if you already think in overdrive all the time. But it's not something I was able to avoid. So I barely slept and I didn't sleep at all during the night. But I thought, and something in my realized that I needed to stop waiting for the people there to make me better. I needed to make the first move or I wasn't going to get anything out of being there. And I wasn't going to get out of there period. I could barely speak when people tried to talk to me, and I couldn't breathe or look at them, but I did what I had to do during those last 36 hours or so. I did it all because I just wanted to go home. And maybe that sounds stupid because you would think that I would want to get better. But going home was part of that. The fact that I WANTED something...That meant everything. That I was doing something in order to achieve something I wanted, and that must have meant that I thought enough of myself. That I thought I was worth the effort. And no matter how miserable or useless I feel, I need to keep thinking about that. There's a part of me that does want to be here, and it's the same part of me that wanted to get out of that place so badly. It's that part of me that wants to want to do things that used to make me happy. It wants things. I want things. I don't always know what they are, but that's everybody, I suppose.

I am terrified about the decision I might be making. It's something I had in the back of my mind, and when someone else made the suggestion when I hadn't even mentioned it at all, I knew I had to think about it again. PA school. And I'm still thinking. But another thing that's really tough for me, which I learned or rather re-learned over this past week, is believing and trusting that I don't need to know everything or do everything or have everything today or even soon.

I am allowed to be unsure. I am allowed to be unfinished.

I am 23 years old, with two college degrees, a beautiful transgendered body, a boyfriend who loves me for who and what I am, a clean and well-organized bedroom (thanks to the boyfriend who loves me), who is going to nationals for drag in a few months, who is going to go back to school, who is going to make big things happen in this city I've learned to call home, who is not going to let depression, anxiety, fear, pain, or a different way of thinking stand in his way anymore.

Now all I have to do is believe this. I will make this real.
I am allowed to be unsure. I am allowed to be terrified. But I will not allow myself to lose this fight. If I can bring myself to think that my body deserves to live, then my soul should have that same chance. Obviously, it's going to be hard. Here it comes again, and I think it's fucking ridiculous how it appears again and again throughout my life. It's like it should be a tattoo or something.

Nothing worth having is ever easy.