#vent>

have i told you guys i know exactly why im so depressed? and i know exactly why i stop myself from dating and getting to know people even platonically? and that i know just why i avoid going out?

its such a painful realization too. my therapist is trying to help me "understand" but ive told her i know why. i know it, but im not gonna tell her. i am transgender (to whatever extent + whatever label) while liking both men and women in a queer way. and im catholic and i live in a small town and my mother would never let me live too far from her. and im catholic and i participate at church and im catholic and the little kids know me. and im catholic and i cant transition and serve at the altar. and im catholic and i cant date people the way i wish i could. and im catholic. and im catholic and i love my faith, i really do, i genuinely do. and alone at the church is one of the only places where i feel seen. do you see the issue?

it was never about the faith (though its in part because of it, for obvious reasons), but mostly because id have to die and be born again, in a different body, a different world, to live and not just survive. even if i was born a boy id still be an anomaly, you know? id still like boys and like girls in a different way. its maybe the realizing that that made it so heartbreaking. dying while thinking youre fine is cool, you don't see the blow coming. maybe id notice this when im 60 and lived a passively sad life. but then im 19 and i cant bear to think of turning 20 in a body, a persona, a version, an act of me that isnt mine. everyone brought this puppet to life, and im the little soul that stayed trapped in it. there is not a version of me that isn't painfully lost in the music. im not in any guitar string, im barely a violin, im a #G that finds itself played over and over to fit every melody. i am nothing! i am . literally nothing. no matter what career i take, no matter the bus stop i wait in, no matter the hair or the clothes or the age, im still gonna be preceded by "girl", "woman", she, our pride and joy, my brother's sister my mother's daughter, my father's helper and just that.