"Notes."

Tonight while reading an email I encountered a person who put his pronouns in his signature. While this is a thing I admire and hope becomes a normalty in today’s society, when I went to write mine I discovered that I didn’t know what to put. In the end I left it blank. 

I’ve self-reflected a lot and I’m just too tired, so I went to google and started taking pronoun/gender identify quizzes, to which these were the results: - Transmasculine - They/Them - Genderfluid - He/Him - Genderfluid

Now, I’ve often just considered myself agender - I don’t care what people think I am. I used to. I used to get mad when people assumed I was male just because of a haircut, but then again...I used to think I was straight, too. So here comes the thought...what is my gender? 

The answer is I don’t know. A quiz can’t tell me - I’m not that dependent on technology yet, and it’s really something only a person can decide for themselves. I’m AFAB. I have sometimes severe dysphoria over my body, especially when it screams at me that I am female and I scream back that I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want this. I can’t help this because I’m too young and no doctors would help me. 

I want to be neutral. I don’t want to be either male or female. Does that make me a ‘they’? I present in a feminine clothing style most of the time because it’s comfortable. Does that make me a ‘she’? I prefer being called ‘sir’ and experience disgust followed by dissociation being called ‘ma’am’. What does that even mean? 

Gender to me is as wild as an idea as the range of emotions I feel from 2:56 to 4:30 in Sinbad Returns and Eris Pays Up. 

It’s an hour later. I’ve watched stories of how people knew they were non-binary. Feelings of not wanting to be either female or male. Of feeling trapped in their bodies. 

We’re gonna start off calmly because there’s a lot going on. I just saw Love, Simon and, before I say anything else, let me say that it was one of the best movies I have ever seen. Seriously. I laughed, I cried, I was angry, and when I got to my car, I full on bawled. We’re talking ugly crying. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. I pulled my seat up so I could hug the steering wheel. I started driving home and had to park again about 10 spots down because I started hyperventilating. 

There was so much. My thoughts were racing, and I will tell you what is not helping - eating my feelings in flaming hot cheetos and ranch dip. The first actual, concrete thought that reached me through the motional mess was that I lost my chance for me to be Simon before I even knew it was an option. It wasn’t until halfway through college that I saw that gay relationships were actually a thing, and that that love could exist. Thank you, conservative Christian upbringing. That person who came out in their teens is something I never even had the choice to experience. I’m sure there will be a time in the future when I will not be bitter about it, but it is not this day. I left the theatre bitter about it, and angry, and wishing I’d been born ten years later. 

I lost years. Years of self-discovery I could have had. Years I could have been out to my family. Years I could have found love. At least a decade. More than that. 15 years at least. I came out to my brother a while back and he said he had a feeling since about ten years ago. I get why he never brought it up. Why bring it up with someone who’s going to deny it and not even consider it an option? But...ten years. A couple of friends who know have said they knew soon after they met me, which didn’t hurt as much, but still. It was before I knew.

Almost complete strangers knew more about me than I did. I didn’t know I had so much emotion that had been left unexpressed. I ugly cried again when I got home. Curled up in the car with the rain pattering the roof, in the dark, just sobbing. 

The second actual, concrete thought that got through the mess was that I am so fucking tired of being afraid of coming out. I once came out as asexual to a house of women I lived with and not a single one of them said anything like, “Thank you for telling us; that was brave. We accept you. We love you.” It was just questions on top of questions. It just put me back to square one. Now I’m here, I’m at a point where I want people to know, and I’m frozen in fear. I’m scared what my mom will think. I’m scared I’ll lose friends I’ve had for years, friends I’ve lived with, because of their hard hearts.

I know, I know, “If they don’t accept you they were never truly your friend.” Well...no. They were. They were just friends with me before I knew myself. Dear friends. I hurt people when I was hard hearted that I’m terrified to apologize to. I thought I wouldn’t ever get the gumption, but here I am texting them. Maybe this is the beginning of a train of truth. I’m tired of living a lie, everyone. Self-hatred and self-doubt have kept me down for too long. I’m tired of being afraid of what others think of me.

I can’t control what others think, so it is better not to care what they think. I know my truth. If they don’t like it, they can get right out of my life. Hey everyone, I’m gay. 

Getting thoughts down is hard. Thoughts fly faster than fingers and then text on a slow laptop takes too long to appear on the screen. By the time the writer finishes a sentence their mind has already moved on to the subject six subjects from now. Let’s start with what’s going on. 

I’ve made the unfathomable mistake of rereading both The Dresden Files and The Raven Cycle back to back, and have also just gone back and read some posts on this blog. Going back and rereading a couple of entries - I mention these book series, and I still feel the same. I haven’t changed, I just don’t bleed on the outside as much. Where is the Michael to my Harry, the person I can just stumble up to and say, “I think I’m lost,” and have them invite me in. 3/4 of the way through the second Raven Cycle book (Dream Thieves) I was again thrust into an unrelenting existential crisis. 

I explained it well to one of my actors and to a friend of mine the other day, because this state lasted three days. It’s like all the rest of reality is running on Frequency A (Freq. A) and while I am usually there too, there are these times when my mind fazes out of sync and starts running on a parallel frequency (Freq. B). I scramble and scramble in the middle of it all, trying to claw my way back to Freq. A, but it’s fruitless, like trying to grasp air. 

On the other hand, I feel more authentic on Freq. B. I feel more true. Not more solid, but more authentic. I don’t know why and I believe it may be one of the greater mysteries of my life, that I feel like I’m living truer to myself when I’m mostly dissociated and separate, aloof and numb. 

Where does it say you’ve gotta live and die here? Where does it say a guy can’t catch a break? Why should you only take what you’re given? Why should you spend your whole life livin’ Trapped where there ain’t no future, even at seventeen Breakin’ your back for someone else’s sake? If the life don’t seem to suit ya, how bout a change of scene? Far from the lousy headlines, and the deadlines in between? Santa Fe, my old friend I can’t spend my whole life dreamin’ Though I know that’s all I seem inclined to do I ain’t gettin’ any younger, and I wanna start brand new I need space, and fresh air Let ‘em laugh in my face I don’t care Save my place. I’ll be there. Just be real is all I’m askin, not some paintin’ in my head ‘Cause I’m dead if I can’t count on you today I got nothin’ if I ain’t got Santa Fe

That song just came on shuffle. There’s a reason that song makes me cry all the time, except my Santa Fe is a place, a thing, an idea, a concept that won’t and can’t exist. It’s a place of escape, where dreams come true, where the stresses and harms of life can’t touch anyone. It’s Cabeswater, a place of dreams, or an alternate Chicago, or a mythical school in Scotland, or The Heights of Mt. Olympus, or a place where shadows are peoples’ friends, the lands of Oberon and Titania and Mab, where fire can be manipulated by a person’s will and trees can come to life and teach you the meanings of things.

I’m stuck in a constant state of disappointment that none of these things will be real. One could even call it ennui. I’d go that far. I also told my friend that I feel questless. Not purposeless, but questless. Like there’s something I’m supposed to be looking for, or creating, or discovering, or somewhere I’m supposed to be going, but I don’t have the details. I know it’s out there, but I can’t find the quest giver. My friend said I need a new goal, but it feels both grander and deeper than that. My Santa Fe is also the world of my novel, which seems a bit like self-flagellation. 

I mean, honestly, creating a world that could be my perfect escape and writing its stories, knowing this world can never be real except for in my head and, with any luck, the hearts of its readers? Geez. What a joke. Will I stop? Absolutely not. 

Wish me luck finding Santa Fe.