#cis partner

Me: Pants, what gender are you in your dreams?

Pants: A man. I'm cis.

Me: Princess, what gender are you when you dream?

Princess: I've always been a girl. Except lately people have been misgendering me, even when I have long flowing hair.

Me: Huh. Well dreams are for processing daily trauma.

Pants: What about you?

Me: It changes.

Pants had a family emergency 1,100 miles away. Being good, true 'Mericans, this is obviously within driving distance, especially when taking into account the cost of last minute plane tickets to small town Texas from Chicago.

Family emergencies are, of course, when emotional bonds matter, when we lean on our partners. Pants needed company on this trip and this might one of the only chances I have to meet some of the people closest to him. I had to come. Family is important, knowing family is important.

With Princess, any regrets I might harbor sit in the knowledge that in our 13 years together, I never had a good chance for Princess to meet my grandmothers. That we never made that chance. Besides, Pants is almost 40, and while he may have been able to drive 16 hours by himself 16 years ago, he is definitely no longer in his 20s. In order to make this drive in one day, he needed another driver. Me.

Now, anyone who has ever driven 30 minutes with me knows I suffer from carcolepsy. Bad. I'm not a good copilot. I'm not a good navigator. And I'm definitely not a good snack master. (Sorry about eating all the grapes.)

Princess is all those things. We needed Princess in the car if we had any hope of making this work. Now, bringing Princess and her delightful trans pagan self definitely had some very uncomfortable moments. And moments that were just fine. And some moments that were very surprising. But importantly she was the sanity we were able to lean on.

In this crazy, there and back again road trip, we did get to do a proper comparison of Memphis and Texas Barbecue, ordered Whataburger, and visited Buck-ee's. We saw proper long horn cattle on the drive and walked around the Arts District of Dallas.

Since you were wondering, Princess prefers Memphis-style ribs, I love the brisket in Dallas, and Pants is from Texas, so his opinion doesn't matter (but he did fill up cooler with sausage to take home.

After these 51 hours of travel, we are exhausted and have all slept wherever and whenever we could, but my soul feels calmed and I got to enjoy 51 hours of chaotic adventuring with both my loves.

We value you.

We see you.

We love you, not because of your gender.

We love you, not despite your gender.

We love you. Full stop.

We love loving you.

hahaha