Trying to Decide if I Should Perform This

Do you know what it’s like when your eyes hold their breath?

I’m sitting here in this blue box built for a boy who’d rather build his own--perfectly pink, plastic-people-populated and perched perpendicular to my past, our lives intersecting where mine became his. Where pink became blue before either of us had ever been born.

I have fumbled my way through a series of pendulums, dodging left and right, falling face first in the mud and failing to see them swinging right for me each time I rose my head to breathe and I breathed in genderqueer and choked on an indecision that felt like sitting on the fence.  With a post up my ass.

And I wiped the mud away and fell backwards in time through the dirt and the dust of trying to forget years of looking at my body betraying every move I made and every pound I benched and every mile I ran, and I coughed up the night I first saw my chest flattened against my skin with her by my side

And before I could inhale that moment one more time the smell of my past caught up with my plans and I puked up the five-year-old, naked and peeing outside

And in the puddle before me I saw the second-grader who didn’t understand why her middle name couldn’t be Matthew and the fourth-grader with a rope around her neck and a knife in her lunchbox and the sixth-grader with a pen in her cheek and a face that never saw the light of day again, throwing fists and throwing chairs, and locking doors and running away into the seventh-grader who found music and got lost in the notes of sad songs, black clothes, and the chorus of “You’ll grow out of it eventually”

“You’ll grow out of it eventually”

Eventually. Eventually.

Eventually if you say a word enough it stops sounding like a real thing at all, like the sound of my birth name

bleeding out the mouth of the boy whose ex-girlfriend’s lips bleed for no one not even God anymore.

(Because she’s a man now.)

I lay there night after night, sweating out the years I spent as a genetic fraud, broad shoulders tucked tight, sleeping tight, breathing tight and then

I swallowed the pink and blue and white flag-shaped pill with a capital T on the back and a blank slate on the front,

Hoping to finally be able to fall asleep with a blue blanket pulled over my head and an empty needle in the can

but then came the side-effects.

I woke up in the mud again, just like now, coughing it all up, layer by layer

Unexpected expectorant, the not-this-again guanifisan,

Warning: Never change gender on an empty stomach.

Mucus covered labels no longer stuck to the inside of my lungs, no longer clinging to my alveoli like the child who became the girl who became the boy who became the man who clung to a blanket of blue and shut out a world of rainbows

And there they were, covered in snot, just lying there.

Genderqueer. Freak. Shim. Faggot. Sped. Retard. Butch. Twink. Nerd. Woman. Princess. Liar. Tranny. Female. Male. Lesbian. Gay. Asexual. Bottom. Top. Girl. Boy. She-male. Dyke. It. Masculine. Feminine. Nothing. Everything. Whatever you want already as long as you stop asking me what’s in your pants,

 does your family hate you?

 so what are you really?

What’s in your pants?

When are you going to get surgery?

What’s in your pants?

What’s your real name?

Oh and by the way what’s in your pants?

I’m tired of picking up snot-covered pieces of the people I tried to become—the identities I snorted so that I could just learn your name before you said you only dated real men and too bad you don’t have a dick and well I can still see the girl in you and you know

Sometimes it gets really old doing trans 101 when all I want from the woman whose name tag says becky is my fucking chicken quesadillas.

That’ll be 8.66. Please pull ahead to the next window and have your genitals ready.

Here’s your receipt.

So what’s in your pants?

Fine.

Four years and a lot of awkward conversations later, I can tell you that It’s pink and blue and people-shaped. No. Pink. Blue. A mixture of the two. Somewhere in between like the infinitesimal cracks between visible and invisible light, indivisible, no gender, under God, with liberty avenue and gender justice for all. A man. A-fucking man. Fucking men. Sometimes. Fucking women sometimes. Fucking sometimesmen and sometimeswomen and sometimes no times fucking at all.  

For B, Who Has Been Waiting

Peter came into Rainbow without really knowing me as Elise. (That seems so strange to write when it isn't on a medical form.) But he told me that he always perceived my energy to be masculine, and he said this and acted in ways that really made me believe it. There weren't many extraordinarily detailed conversations about the process: no Trans 101. Peter was the kind of person who educated himself on these details so that he could enter into a conversation with a trans person as an informed ally. He focused on me when he was with me, not my transition or my trans status. But what impressed me more was the he embraced genderqueer concepts in his own life. As a cisgender gay male, that's not an easy thing to do without facing some sort of backlash. The gay male community is full of bottom-bashing stereotypes and pressures of its own. I've grown to fear some of them myself.
He told me a few times how he knew there was a bit of woman inside him. That he didn't really care about his penis but found it quite useful. Peter had his own sense of style, both internal and external. The best part about that was that these things hardly ever had to be discussed. Two people who know themselves never have to defend their identities around each other. That's what was relieving. No walls.
I didn't have to prove my masculinity any more than he did. Or femininity. Or gayness. Or anything.
And that allowed us to approach both public and private interactions at a much lower level of tension.
He made me feel safe because of this. Not necessarily in a physical sense, but in every other way.

Off the Bench

I want to write about drag for so many reasons now, but I need to wait until I have all the right words about all of the pieces. These pieces are all somehow connected, and I want to see those connections clearly. I want to write about how being a drag father is an amazingly rewarding experience--how I am somehow the person people turn to when they want "expert" advice. How people know who I am without ever having met me. To be that kind of influence and feel so removed from it at times. About how I am very proud that I still believe you can never take yourself too seriously.

I want to write about autism and my job. And I want to write about my past. I have this goal of revisiting every journal entry I have ever written, typing them all out in chronological order. I've kept pretty consistent records since the seventh grade, though there are a few scattered entries before that. But I want to write in a way that exposes some of the events that made me who I am today. It has recently occurred to me that most people I know have no idea about the life I had before. I always have to remind myself that the entirety of my story cannot be read in the lines on my face. Life would be all too convenient otherwise.

I want to write about the realization I had last night. It wasn't exactly an epiphany, but I understood something in an entirely new way. They weren't just words to me anymore. I had a face to go along with them. I made a connection that just didn't exist before. Having good intentions does not make you a good person. Good actions make you a good person.

I went through my phone the other day and wrote out the hundreds of names and numbers in my phone, just in case it decides to die one of these days. I'm aware that there are ways of recovering your contacts should such a thing happen, but I like my way better. I got to revisit my relationship with each person as I went down the list, and I went through quite a range of emotions, from anger to fear to elation to grief. I saw his name in the middle of the pack. I lost my breath. I stared at the phone, then at the page. And back again. I wrote it down anyway. It was somehow important. The right thing to do.

There were living people on that list that didn't make it onto that paper. That also seemed important and like the right thing to do.

I'm looking for better words to describe what it is like four years later. More than four if you count the pre-T days. I made two videos. Neither one is good enough right now. I might need to be in a different place to get it right.

I am revisiting the idea of pursuing physical therapy/physical therapy research. I have so many questions. I have so many things to say. But again, the words aren't ready yet.

My mind is getting ready for something big. Every day, I am growing more confident overall, even with the occasional flashes of panic. I am ready to rejoin the world.

Catching Up

I miss when things used to be simple--when I would come home from school as a little kid, knowing that there would always be a bowl of chicken noodle soup waiting for me (yes, EVERY day). I miss knowing where I was headed in life, and I miss that feeling of invincibility. I miss believing that nothing could stand in my way.

Tonight, I feel a kind of miserable I don't quite understand. I know I am not reacting like I am used to when I am devastated. I'm being calm, and I am able to do other things, and I am not an emotional wreck. Somehow, I am in control, and it doesn't feel normal for me. I'm not complaining. This is just new territory for me. 

The final rejection letter came from Pitt's School of Education. So now I feel like I have to start all over. I feel lost, hopeless, useless, aimless, etc. And I'm tired of it, really. I do not want to be an endless wanderer. I want a home. I want a life. And I want a purpose. Or some idea of what mine should be. I know what I want to do, but what if I never get the chance now? What else can I do? I don't know any of the answers yet. And while that is tearing me apart inside, I am somehow still okay. Still doing what needs to be done, helping where I am needed, and trying to better myself and my circumstances regardless of the pain. 

But if Friday hadn't happened, I probably would have had a much worse time with that news. Last week was beyond stressful. Illness, not sleeping two nights of the week, having to spend the majority of one in a parking lot with my mother, routine changes, overwhelming days at work, late night pageant preparation, phone calls, late paperwork and write-ups, worries about moving and school and jobs, a shutdown situation,and the thought of seeing my brother for the first time in four and a half years...plus the usual things. A seven day battle to keep my head above water. 

And I lost on Friday morning, during a supervision meeting. Everyone knew something was up. I could tell by the way that everything began to get louder and more intense--by the way I just kept focused on the pattern in the carpet and by how I twitched and had to fight not to scream and fall out of my chair--that it was coming, and there was no turning back.

So I wrote a note to my BSC, who was sitting right next to me once I realized this: "I am very, very close to having a meltdown, and I don't know what to do." 

I was able to at least sit through the rest of the relatively short meeting, and I suppose it was convenient that I work in an office full of therapists. The main boss came to help. It took about 45 minutes after he came in for me to fully calm down, but I talked a lot after the first 20 minutes. Needless to say, I didn't make it to work that day. But no one seemed to mind. Now I am waiting on a call for actual therapy sessions paid for by work, which I think have been long overdue. 

I don't think I would have been able to handle the news had I not come that close to exploding. I needed a fresh start, and as shitty as it was to experience and have others witness, I needed it. I knew it was coming, just not when. 

So I made it a point to arrive to work early, and I came out to the teacher. Not as gay. Not as trans. As an autistic person working with autistic children. And the twenty minute conversation that ensued was also something that I needed. I wonder why it is so much harder for me to come out about this than anything else. And, yes, it really is a coming out process. It changes how people perceive and treat you. 

I still don't have too many words about my visit with my brother. I am not sure what to say yet because I am not sure of those emotions yet.

Jumping back to today, I've been fighting the feeling I always get when big things are coming up: I always want to quit everything and drop off the face of the earth. I end up asking myself why I am doing any of it at all. But I usually get my answer after it's all over. 

I still have so many fears. But I have a different answer to how I think things will play out. I may not always believe it, but it wasn't an idea I was willing to entertain this time last year: that I'm going to be okay, even if bad things continue to happen. 

Also, yesterday was my four-year T anniversary. Two people remembered without my saying, and I am okay with how quiet I was about it this time around. Maybe next time I will celebrate in some way, but for some reason, I feel that this was the way things needed to be done this year. 

I can survive this week because I've already made it this far . 

Revisiting Previously Incoherent/Incomplete Thoughts

Having just come back from the gym, I can feel the difference in the way I experience myself and everything around me. Before coming to write, I did a little research to prove to myself that my perception has some basis in reality, finding a few articles pertaining to how exercise benefits people with autism spectrum disorders. Though I was unable to access the full articles, the abstracts alone confirmed some of the notions I have long held about how such activities can lead to improved executive functioning, as well as increased bodily awareness and sensory integration. Let me put that into a more personal perspective.

I try to go to the gym at times when there aren't too many people around. I'm not as focused when I am working out around people I don't know that well, and I feel that a good deal of my mental energy is taken up trying to deal with their presence. When I am nearly alone or around people who don't set off my internal alarms, I can concentrate on the movement of my own body parts, the way it feels to have the blood rush to the active muscles, the feedback I am receiving from each and every moving part of the artfully crafted machine that I call myself. In these moments, without entirely realizing it, I am learning to separate the internal world from the external. Perhaps it is more about making these distinctions than "losing oneself" in the workout. It is as if I am truly finding myself as my brain integrates sensory information in an endorphin-saturated physiological environment. Self and other become more clear following a workout. Since so much less energy needs to be devoted to negotiating the space between me and the rest of the world, the necessary energy can be routed to the parts of my brain that deal with planning, organization, and just getting shit done in general and living my life the way I intend to live it.

This brought me to thinking about choice. Ordinarily, I don't think I have the ability to relinquish choice. Every response is a decision to fight against instinct, however automatic that response may have become over time. Routine is an escape from the never-ending responsibility to live a calculated life.

And since my brain has a funny way of connecting everything to everything else, routine became connected with change, as one might expect, but change got me thinking about time. And my body. And learning to be okay with age. I am certainly beginning to show signs of age in my face, and my hair is looking pretty pathetic these days, and while I sometimes stare at what has happened to me for embarrassingly long periods of time when confronted with the mirror outside my bedroom door, I am learning to love the look of having known the world.

And through this thought I have reached the topic of love. These are the most intangible of the words to me, slipping down through the ever-deepening cracks between my fingers and falling gently to the ground. And as I have learned to accept that I am falling with them, I appreciate the significance of these words, however trite they have come to be in modern usage: Love, actively and unconditionally. It is not so much a process of learning for me as it is a processing of letting go--of unlearning the bitterness with which we are taught to respond to anger, pain, and mistakes. It is at the same time the biggest and smallest thing in the entire world.

And as I begin to relax for the night, the thoughts begin to swirl again--a clear display of my brain trying to fight against the abominable notion of relaxation, of doing anything other than trying to solve every known (and unknown) problem in the universe. The concepts start to merge, and I think about falling in a whole new way like falling into your gender as if you stumbled over it in the middle of the street and maybe it looked so miraculous and revolutionary that you just had to stay down there on the ground and take it all in.

And I think of the conflicting emotions. Feeling connected and alone at the same time. Loved but terribly hopeless. Wanting to cry and boiling inside.

Ready to fly.
But I want you there.
Always.

Routine

After having so much time off this month due to my own illness, my client's surgery, and snow from the sky that keeps on shitting, I am really not adjusting well to being back at work. Today was one of the hardest days I have had, not so much in working with my client--though that was difficult--but in being able to recover from the day in general. I felt dizzy leaving. Hazy even. I could barely manage eating when I got home because I felt so lethargic that I could not move. I passed out for a few hours, woke up with a fever, but still found it very hard to move. Now I still have the fever, but since I passed out earlier, I'm awake now. I still feel mentally exhausted, but I know I will have serious trouble sleeping again. My stomach has been bothering me all day. Today emptied me out completely.

Let's just say that working directly multiple disabilities special education will probably not be a long term career option for me. I know the kind of work that energizes me instead of drains me. But for now, I'm doing a good thing. And it is helping me build a different kind of strength.

I am working on finalizing my plans and telling the ones I love. I am afraid in much the same way I was afraid of coming out the first time (and the second). I know I will be met with rejection at first. People will try to tell me that I am not ready, that I should not leave. That I am making a mistake.

But I'll never know unless I try.

I still want to know why I am so scared. But perhaps being scared is a good thing. I am much more scared than last time, and we all know how that ended.

Clarity

I don't have many nights like this, when all the parts of my brain figure out how to sync up with one another, slowing the passage of time enough for me to view my life with unparalleled clarity, as if it were spread out like a treasure map across my bedroom floor. I can see the routes that lead from one experience to another--the exits I have taken along the way. But there are things that I don't see.

Dead ends.

Because I am unable to focus on (or more accurately, obsess about) any one occurrence, I can literally FEEL the connections amongst them all, from the day I first visited the Warhol museum with the Rainbow Alliance my freshman year to the day I was "baptized" in the River Bradford to each and every sleepless night of writing until I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. I can see those stifling summer nights in the smallest bedroom of the Crew House, the hours I would spend as a child playing in my own intricate universe of meticulously developed characters, and the overarching theme of confusion that defined my social self for the majority of my life. From this distance, it has become obvious that there was always a next step. Not an escape or a way or even a destination. Just something else.

Even now, the feeling is fading. This is the perspective I have always desired, and it seems to come at the strangest times. For a few moments, I was not miserable. I wasn't particularly happy. I was just...aware. Aware of the present. Mindful, if you will. I somehow understood exactly how all of my life experiences--from the most instantaneous to the ever-present--have come to make me the person I am today. I understood how they would continue to take me into my future. I understood and accepted that this--THIS right here, right now--is IT. No dress rehearsal. Not preparing for something else. I saw the world, my world, for what is was and still thought it was beautiful enough to keep going. My pain was just as beautiful as the sweetest triumph I have ever known. For a little while, I could not feel loss. I could not feel regret. No guilt or shame or longing for anything more.

The feeling has mostly subsided. The fears, lists of things to do and things forgotten, worries about what comes next and what could have gone better, feelings of loss and feelings of worrying about loss that has not yet occurred are all coming back to me. But somehow, having had that brief respite, I feel just a little bit better.

I feel that I am slowly growing less afraid of what is to come. I feel more secure in my ability to regulate my own life. It is frightening to know that I am 100 percent responsible for the decision on What Comes Next because I was equally responsible for the decision that took me on a six-week journey into Maryland, followed by a six-month journey into severe depression. At no other time in my life could I have claimed to be in complete control of my fate. I ended up going to the first and only college I ever visited, I halted my application process to medical school at the urging of my adviser (though financial circumstances also played a significant role in that decision), and I ended up having to leave Pittsburgh against my will entirely.

The fear is taking over again, it seems. Mingled with the childhood fears of never being anything worthwhile and failing at life in general are fears that this next step might not be quite right for me. However, a strong feeling seems to be developing within me: the feeling that, even if everything turns out to be horribly wrong--this move is necessary in order for me to discover the right thing to do. I know I will not be able to figure it out as long as I still feel stuck, and there seems to be only one way for me to shake that feeling.

Very soon, I'm about to give up everything I know. Again. It's fucking terrifying. But I feel that the time has come to stop living like I am an accessory to someone else's life and start figuring out what kind of person I really am when I am forced to stand on my own two feet. I got a glimpse of that last summer, and I started to really like the person I was becoming. I felt feelings that I hadn't felt in so long that I thought they had long since died. And that's exactly why it was so crushing to have to leave. Because I felt like I would never get the chance to feel them again. I really did think that was the end of everything good.

Then something even worse happened, which oddly enough made me realize that there was still a fuckload of good left to experience in this world, even if the price to pay had to be intermittent misery. One of the best friends I have ever known died a few months ago. He took his own life at a time so close to when I was considering doing the same. And I got to see all the people who knew the true value of his presence--all the people who would never be the same because of him. The people who were better because of having known him. I got to see 30-something people brave absurd winter weather conditions to squeeze in elbow to elbow around a table in a church basement following his funeral service...and LAUGH. Just be happy about all the wonderful things that we got to do with him while he was still here and marvel at how, even in his death, he was able to bring us all closer together. If happiness can be found in spite of death and even through it, then it can surely be found anywhere.

I know I will struggle. I will doubt myself and feel like a failure. I will feel scared and alone, even when nothing could be further from the truth. But I am finally getting ready to allow myself to take the risk to experience the good. I am learning that the fear and sadness do not have to be more important than the excitement. I am starting to really believe that I AM one of the strongest people I have ever known. It's almost like I feel like I've got this. And I have so many people to thank for allowing me to come to this realization, albeit very slowly.

"I'm so excited. I talked to the guys a lot about this last night. And I feel like people are genuinely excited for me. Things are going to be awesome. It might be really hard at first with my family, and I'm not saying that I have chosen a path that will be easy. But I know that I am making the right call. My life is just beginning. I'm excited, but I'm scared. The unknown. I have so many anxieties/questions that will soon be addressed. And I think I am ready for this. Almost born. Almost there." (March 7, 2010)