I am mostly okay, most days. I find joy and beauty and pleasure in the world, which is a massive improvement from how it was a few years ago. I have the ability to form true, authentic connections, which at one point I thought I would never have again. I count these things as a victory. 

I also count it as a victory that when I am sad, or upset, or feel absolutely nothing (which is the worst feeling in the world), my first response is not to harm myself, but rather to express my emotions and deal with them (mostly) appropriately. 

But I do have major clinical depression, and that means I spend a good portion of my time and mental energy fighting monsters in the dark. It means I am often sad and over-sensitive to perceived insults, like I have no emotional skin. It’s been flayed off by the slow and agonizing process of keeping my head above water when everything feels like I’m drowning, even when everything is going really well for me. It means I often don’t feel the things I should feel–even when I know I should feel them. It means that the creative energy that pushes me through my day gets spent pushing me through my day instead of creating poems about the world around me– and then I get down on myself for not writing, which just perpetuates the cycle. It means that getting up, showering, and brushing my teeth seems like an unfairly heavy burden some days, let alone going to work. It means that I do not, and cannot, be vibrant all the time because I can feel the color leaching from my personality to stain the walls around me and further highlight how I have become just a shadow of the person who used to walk in my skin. 

I need help. I’m seeking it, and I don’t want you to feel sorry for me– but I do want to be candid about the nature of clinical depression, and what it is like for me to live with it. 

On the surface, I’m normal, if a little odd. I crack jokes, and have an amazing girlfriend who somehow puts up with my moodiness, and post random facebook statuses and interact with people and dress myself and feed myself and keep my house at a livable state of cleanliness. Behind that, I’m fighting monsters. I’m doing battle with dark, ugly thoughts and trying to avoid falling into the gaping chasm that yawns behind me, threatening to overtake my life–not just the day to day stuff, but the essence of me. 

The duality is exhausting. The fight to keep the ugliness at bay is exhausting. The ugliness, when it wins a battle, is exhausting. Depression is the state of being exhausted, only sleep doesn’t help. 

There are no answers in other people’s arms,
there are no answers in overfilled schedules and
days so long you aren’t sure when one day stops and the other begins,
no answers in nights spent watching hours tick away by seconds,
the glow of the clock mocking you,
your wallet empty enough that your belly is too,
you know you can’t do this anymore but you don’t know how to change it
because there are no answers to be found,
only question after question that rip at your soul and shred
your sanity
your peace
your happiness
your hope,
your chance,
you just want a second chance but you’re the king of second chances,
you’ve had so many second chances they should name it after you,
and still no answers just the burning questions that immolate your sense of self,
just questions, questions, questions you have to ask
you shouldn’t ask
you have to ask,

I’m so glad You’re big enough to question.
After all my seeking, after all my fun and games,
while emptiness consumed me, sucked me so far down I knew I
could never raise my head, you were big enough to reach into
the void and pull me closer to the light,
you were big enough to find me in the dingy and depressing
interior of a greyhound bus,
you were big enough to handle me thinking I was big,
you said welcome home when I had been gone oh so long,
you were big enough to welcome me in when I did not deserve to be welcomed in,
you said it was here all along, what were you waiting for?
You found me and sat with me, patiently,
waiting for the tears to stop and the questions to come tumbling out one after another
like they just can’t wait to be answered,
you heard my screams, you heard my prayers,
you celebrate me, you celebrate the return of this prodigal,
because you’re big enough to love even me.
You saved me, when I accepted I could no longer save myself.
You filled me when my hunger was overwhelming,
you opened the door when I was unworthy even to knock.

stolen from the internet

A few days ago, I posted a facebook status/poll asking about this scenario:

Poll: Lets say you were introducing a friend of yours, and you used their preferred pronoun, which conflicts with their biological sex. If the biological sex is apparent, do you proactively or reactively offer an explanation of trans status, or do you stay silent? Why or why not?

Many people commented or messaged me stating that reactive explanations are necessary;  I know at least two people in my life who proactively explain that I identify as trans every time they talk about me; and several other people stated there was no need for explanation.

I’ve been going back and forth on this. As a friend to other trans people, I’ve never felt the need to explain away their pronoun choices. It’s never seemed like that big of a deal, and their identity has never, in any way, regardless of relationship to me, seemed like it should conflict with my identity. For instance, I’ve dated a couple people who were male, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a lesbian. It just means I dated a couple guys.

Not everyone shares my view. In fact, while I was dating one of the guys, he insisted that I could not be a lesbian–(worth noting here: he also had a problem with my genderqueer identity)–and date him. It didn’t last very long. While I was dating another guy, many people in my life outright attacked my lesbian identity, stating that I must not be lesbian, because I was dating a dude. As if I don’t have the right to define myself how I see fit. As if the world isn’t big enough for us all to have space to be who we are. Which, can I just say, is ridiculous. There are 7 billion people on this planet. I promise there are other lesbians who have dated or are dating dudes, and gay men who are dating women.

Anyway, back to pronoun choice and whether or not it’s okay to offer an explanation. Here’s the deal. I’m very out. I’m out at work, in my personal life, at church, on my blog, in my relationship, to my family… I’m out. So for me, personally, it’s not a huge deal if someone says I’m trans. I am. And I’m okay with that. I am a non-binary trans-identified genderqueer individual who prefers neutral or masculine pronouns, and I have a stereotypically feminine body type. It rarely ever hurts or endangers me or my relationships to be outed– but I’m the exception to the rule.

A person’s identity is their personal information, to share or not share as they see fit, not as  you see fit. You get to decide if you get outed or not– you get to share your personal identity at a time you feel comfortable, or not share it at all if that’s your choice. And your trans friends and relatives deserve the same respect. A person is their identity– and explaining away their identifier erases their agency as a person.

It is ONLY okay to out another person if you have their express permission to do so. Otherwise, you may endanger them or their relationships, including their ability to work, live, and play free from harassment.

That being said, I have run into a situation where a trans friend has been misgendered, and  they’ve made it very clear that they wish to be referred to with X pronouns. At that point, it is  entirely appropriate to say “So and so is a X” and leave it at that. NOT “so and so is trans” NOT “so and so identifies as… but is biologically…” NOT “So and so identifies as….”

Just, so and so is.

I am genderqueer. I am a he (or a sir, I tell people). And that means I’m a partner, a boi, a boyfriend, a friend, a buddy, a dude, etc– and that’s all anyone who is not sleeping with me needs to know.

Don’t be weird, don’t be strange, just fall in line

 pay your dues
 purge your feelings away
starve away your thoughts,
 grow your hair
 shine your smile
fake it til you make it
don’t you dare be real,
 don’t you dare be different,
don’t step out of line,
 line up, take your meds,
buy your plastic placebos and electronic gizmos and inject your happiness because
everything is flat unless you’re riding high on the envy of other people.
Don’t be different.
 Don’t speak up.
 Don’t speak out.
Don’t be strange.

Don’t be queer.

 If you step out of the lines we’ve drawn for you since birth, laid out in neat pathways for you to follow, we have the right to correct you using any means necessary.

Any means necessary.

We can beat you we can shame you we can shun you we can shoot you we can stab you we can we can we can because you can’t because we can’t understand if you are different.
Don’t be so different.
 Don’t break the rules, because the rules are there to make everything easier
for us.

Set yourself apart but not too far apart
 because if you break formation you must be broken and that
means you must be fixed and you don’t like what it takes to fix someone like, well, you.
 Learn to be hard,
 learn to be silent,
 learn to accept,
learn to shut up,
 learn to take it all and say
 thank you for the poison we’re pouring through a funnel,
learn to make it trickle down,
 if you bark at a child who barks at a dog he’ll bark at the moon you’re barking mad.

And then you.

And then, you.
You came to me and told me you wanted something different.
 Made me on purpose.
Made me strange made me a stranger
 made me feel made me real.
 You promised if I’d speak up you’d give me words,
 give me a voice, you said, well, you said screw the lines.
You always did talk to me like regular people.
You said break the rules, I’m not about the rules,
 I’m about reality.
 You said break formation, run your heart out, run to me, run my way,
 I’ll call out the steps as you go.
You said gentle, you said soft, you said here’s a place to hide when they want to
beat you shame you shun you, you know they won’t like you if you follow me but
 change needs to happen and I picked you so change the world by changing yours.
You said, authenticity, you said, do you really think I didn’t know what I was doing?
You said, you said, you said hello
I love you just the way you are,
 if you bark at a child who barks at a dog he’ll bark at the moon, so let’s not bark at the moon, dog, or child.

They said, he could never love you because of how you love,
because you love at all, because you breathe and bleed and feel and
 cry and want the world to be a more loving place,
You said how could I not love a heart modeled after mine?
You said, how could I not love you, I made you, I shaped you, I called you and I am training you,
don’t you love your family too? You said all these things, and

I’m barking at the moon, I must be going mad,
but you promised Abraham descendants like the stars and
 I’m counting stars and can’t count all of Abraham’s line, so I think,
given the choice, I’m going with what You said,
because you said welcome home, it’s been so long.
They said, they said, but it doesn’t matter anymore because
 your voice drowns them out, because then you.

And if you, then it all makes sense. 

Take a girl who’s carrying a few extra pounds. Now, I personally tend to find that incredibly physically attractive, but not everyone does, and that certainly doesn’t fit the societal image of beautiful. So these bigger girls are constantly told that they have to “make up for it”–dress nicely, do their hair and nails, basically hyper-feminize themselves in order to fit as closely as they can to the model of feminine beauty presented in advertising and clothing stores.

THAT IS RIDICULOUS.

Here’s the thing. If a girl is beautiful, she’s beautiful in jeans and a t-shirt, naked, or a pretty skirt and leggings. If she is ugly, she’s ugly no matter what she’s wearing. Because what makes a person beautiful is who they are. My girlfriend is absolutely 100% physically gorgeous. From the minute I met her, I’ve thought this. But what makes my heart stop every time I see her, what makes me fall in love with her all over again every time I talk to her, is the way she smiles at me like I’m the person she most wanted to see in the world when I walk in a room. The way she grabs my hand or makes me hug her and be still when I’m stressed out. The way she goes above and beyond–way beyond– the call of duty to make sure that I’m loved and taken care of. The way her mind works. The way she makes me laugh and reminds me how to play. THAT is what makes her beautiful, the most beautiful girl in the world–her heart and mind and soul. And THAT is what will endure long past the time when either of us are considered “physically beautiful” by the world around us.

The same principle holds true, or should hold true, for everyone. But instead, we’re sold this image of beauty that is so narrow, less than 2% of people even come close to fitting in– and the ad campaigns that attempt to reach people outside of those confines? Condescending and trite. Actually, most ad campaigns focusing on body image are condescending and trite–and just a drop in the bucket compared to a raging ocean of contradictory messages.

I salute them for trying, really I do, but what needs to happen is this– there needs to be a paradigm shift to seeing people as beings of spirit and substance, rather than seeing bodies. Body positivity is great and should be a regular part of life– but being positive about your beauty at the expense of someone else’s body shame isn’t going to help the issue. And being positive about bodies only goes so far if we can’t also be positive about the people those bodies house.

So I guess, the thing I’m trying to say is, it makes me sad that people are told they are ugly, by other people who have never even taken the time to get to know them– just for not fitting into a temporarily popular notion of what makes a person attractive. Ugly people are people who hurt other people. If you’re not one of them, you’re one of us– the beautiful people.

Picture me, the picture of me you have in your head and know I will never measure up.

There’s not enough photoshop to turn me into your ideal image of my binary body, zero or one, there’s never an answer for point four oh one way, point six the other, never a box to check that says other but really I’m just your average fill in the blank here you certainly won’t allow me to fill it in for you I have no right to define my space, no way to say that this is who I am except by decorating my blank canvas in the way you have prescribed it to be decorated for the other and for the one and for me there is no prescription but that doesn’t mean you don’t think I need to be drugged out of my mind because clearly something is not right in there, something not quite right upstairs, after all,

Today, I will strap my breasts down so tightly I can’t breathe, compress my asthmatic, bronchitis-riddled chest to the place where I can barely breathe and take a deep breath because perhaps today you’ll finally see me with a question in your eyes, certainty torn away by the slouchy stance of my body, the cock of my head that hides the lack of a cock in these baggy pants you’re checking to see if I’m a boy or a girl and you’ve never thought neither, you’ll never think neither, you need one or the other do I have long hair or short, painted nails or none, makeup or not, is that a swing in my hips or just a limp from an old sports injury, do I even play sports, you need me to be a boy or a girl but

Fuck your gender cues,

And cue ball my head, paint liner on my eyes and polish on my nails, file me under neither or both or I don’t give a fuck just don’t make me pick one or other, don’t make me be your definition of me, as of yet undefined undetermined undecided undifferentiated

Fuck your gender cues, your pinks and your blues, your manly roughness and your womanly grace, your undisguised scrutiny of the craggy valleys of my face.

Fuck your definition of my personality based on whether I’ve got an innie or an outie tucked away where you cannot see, hidden behind the folds of the blue jeans that hang off my hips that exist whether I’m t-based or e-based or neither or both or something else all together.

Fuck your lazy way out of finding out who I am, fuck your easy answers written on college-ruled paper just inside the lines where everything has margins and no one spills over, your rights and your wrongs and yesses and noes and a, b, c, d, fuck you I’m all of the above and then some and if you can maybe handle throwing all of that out

Then maybe, maybe,

Tomorrow there won’t be a kid who is held down in a bathroom and raped by someone who claims they felt lied to because he wanted to pee in privacy. Tomorrow maybe there won’t be a kid who is dragged behind a pickup truck with the rope he would have wrapped around his own neck if the bullying had gone on much longer.

Tomorrow maybe there will be a kid who doesn’t have to answer whether they are a boy or a girl, maybe they can just be a kid.

Sometimes, you meet someone you just click with. Sometimes, you meet someone you just want to spend every minute talking with, because you can’t get enough of them. Sometimes, you meet someone who just gets you, and who you just get. Sometimes, you are lucky enough to have that person like you just as much. And sometimes, if you are really really lucky, the stars line up for you, and you fall in love. 

I am really, really, really lucky. I met this girl, and from the minute we started talking I have wanted to be a better, stronger, more successful, more together person. I have wanted to be the best possible version of myself at all times–and yet have found myself being nothing more than and nothing less than the truest version of myself. I have discovered that I cannot hide from her or lie to her, which is scary but good, and I have rediscovered how to play, how to relax and laugh at the general silliness of the world and the silliness with which she approaches me. 

I have fallen in love, in short. In true, deep, whirlwind love that I want to last. Sure, it’s “the honeymoon phase,” and sure, I’m young and so is she. But who says the honeymoon phase has to end? We’ve talked enough you’d think a cynical and somewhat pessimistic person like me would have had the crush-effect wear off, but I swear she still gives me butterflies like the first time I talked to her. Her eyes still make me centered, found and lost at the same time. I’d do anything I could to make her smile, and I know she’d do the same for me. 

This is a girl who wholeheartedly and without reserve jumped into the business of loving a genderqueer person with a weird personality, and has handled every new revelation of myself as if she’s always known me. This is a girl who sees through me, and won’t let me get away with my normal bologna. This is a girl who calls me on my shit, challenges me to rise above my circumstances, reminds me to relax, and honestly believes I am worth loving just as I am. 

This is a girl worth pouring my heart into, risk be damned. This is a girl who is worth the universe, and everything in it. This is a girl who is what I’ve been looking for. This is it. 

Since then, I have tried to keep this blog semi-regularly updated with my honest thoughts and feelings on the matter of the Christian faith, but I have also kept some of it quiet as I processed– because some things aren’t meant to be shared until they’ve come to fruition. Some things need to percolate a while before they’re ready to be revealed, like cowboy coffee on a cold morning. This is one of those things.

In the very first blog I ever wrote about SJCC, I wrote that I would never take communion with these people. What I didn’t write was that I was scared to– scared to truly become a part, to open myself up to the possibility of being part of a community of believers, scared to take part in a sacred ritual it might be sacrilege for me to attend. In short, I was scared to go back. Also, I didn’t get it– and if I can’t intellectually wrap my head around something, I have a hard time accepting it. Because I’m like that.

But three major things have happened since October that have changed my mind.

The first is that I discovered I do believe in God. On a dirty greyhound bus late at night, I discovered there was a God reaching out to me even if I didn’t want Him to be. I discovered there was enough God to go around, even if I didn’t look like the cool kids want me to look for God to love me.

The second is that, without really realizing it, I did become part of the community at SJCC. I made friends– true friends, authentic friendships, and human friends. I miss it when I skip a service, and I feel missed when I’ve been away for too long. I engage with this community of believers, and it has stopped feeling like I need to believe, and instead feels like I need to belong. And I do.

The third is, I met a girl. A girl who is queer and Christian and passionate about both things. A girl who is sunshine on a cloudy day, and also really human and also really into God. A girl who won’t let me get away with excuses or having a bad attitude about God and church if I can’t give her a damn good reason. A girl who discovered freedom in Christ and, while she would never force it on someone, has slowly and surely been challenging every step I take and thought I have about this whole… God/church thing and making me really think and learn and feel.

There will be another entry about this girl.

These three things have combined to make me really consider the ritual of communion. I’ve wanted to partake for a while but not been sure I should, or could. See above re: it might be sacrilege for me to partake in something sacred, and I don’t intellectually completely get it. Yet I longed for it– to be a part, to have the comfort of ritual, to feel like I was also welcome at the feet of Jesus.

Truth is, as I was humbled and lucky to have pointed out to me– I was overthinking it. Today, I took communion for the first time in so long, I legitimately can’t remember the last ritual I was part of. But today, it didn’t feel like a ritual– it felt like coming home. It felt like I was just, there, accepting my place in a crowd of people who love me, love each other, and love the God I’m relearning to fall in love with. It felt like being invited in after a long time in the cold.

It wasn’t huge– it just was. And it was beautiful.

Sorrowfully, I carried my fallen comrade into Best Buy’s geek squad, only to find out they had to ship my baby off to some sick computer hospital, and I am now waiting anxiously to find out if they can fix it and how much it will cost to do so.

Since I am computerless, and updating from my phone, updates will be much fewer and farther between, if they happen at all. I’m doing my best, but its difficult to make them happen from a two-inch screen.

So. The city has not eaten me, but I’d appreciate your warm wishes for my computer’s health.

After church, many people thanked me for allowing him to use me as an object lesson, and told me it was really “brave” to let him share my story, my identity, and my struggle with a group of people I’m just coming to know. And while I appreciate where they were coming from, I just didn’t feel it was that brave– after all… I write about my life on the internet. I use my real name, and talk about my real life, thoughts and feelings. I tell true stories, and I write absolutely transparently–sometimes too transparently– about what it is like to be me and live my life. 

In the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve written candidly about my struggles with disordered eating, depression, self-harm, faith, sexuality, gender, college, finances, being an adult, politics and relationships. I’ve displayed my messy, crazy, really really normal life for anyone who wants to read it, and invited commentary on it. I’ve tried to create a space where all are welcome and can engage in respectful conversations with me and with each other. I’ve spent a long time writing about my life on the internet, and I don’t intend to stop. In fact, it’s part of the disclaimer for dating me– if you decide to stick around, we will be having a discussion about boundaries, because you will probably be written about on the internet. 

I do this for two reasons. First, because I need an outlet. I have a lot of thoughts. I need a way to express them without overwhelming the people around me. I need to process, and I do that best when I’m writing. I need to see things in plain type to make them make sense. Blogging is catharsis, education, and passion made productive. 

The other reason I write about my life on the internet though, is that I hope that if I am candid and authentic enough, I will make a difference in the lives of other queer people. That there will be a parent who sees their queer teen as just–their teen. Not some wrong or terrible person, but just… a person. That there will be a queer kid who sees that they are not alone. That there will be a bigot who gets to see that queer people are just people. That there will be straight people who learn about the queer community. That the queer community will see straight people who are authentically kind and caring. If even one relationship is not ruptured because I made the choice to write about my life on the internet, if even one person feels a little less out of place– 

Then it was worth it. 

And that’s not bravery, that’s just being part of the world around me.