Rite of Passage

I've been thinking a lot about culture--in general, my personal culture, and how the ways I carry my personal culture were brought to my attention when I moved to Olympia.

Thinking back now to the rejection and loneliness I felt when I was in community with those folks, not many of whom I interact with now, I realise there was a lot of queerer than thou bullshit going on (qtpoc policing and regulating the way the identity of 'queer' and its definitions), anti-Black racism, and internalised racism. It was hard and it hurt and I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone.

I think of it as a kind of hazing and I see it a lot in 'social jusitse' "communities"--the alienation and Othering that goes on by folks who are already in the community. It's a really warped, fucked up 'rite of passage' and I'm really over that kind of gate-keeping. Like, really really over it.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the ways I embody community and how the people I share community with embody the values of community--love, respect, safety, generosity--and how I, as a person who has been on both sides of the community hazing, can work toward tearing that fucked up shit down. It's not benefiting anyone and only serves to drive marginialsed communities further apart.

How can 'community' take on a truer representation in my world? How do I currently build community? How can I stretch myself and those around me more to be more open and vulnerable, with members of our community and those who want to be? How can we be compassionate and gentle with one another and while also being accountable?

After all, "we have to be careful with each other so we can be dangerous together."

Better Left Unsaid

I've spent the last week thinking about how much is said by what I don't say and the consequences of what goes unsaid.

What keeps me from saying certain things? Fear? Rejection? Actual understanding?

What does it mean when I withhold certain things/decisions/activities from those I love? How is their view of me limited or effected?

What is said in our silences?

Romantic Expectation

I've been thinking a lot lately about romantic expectation, and how society expects everyone to--at some point in our lives--engage in a romantic partnership. It doesn't matter how brief or torrid or badly it ends--every single person has the script shoved on them and shoved down their throats from an early age.

And I am so completely done with that rhetoric.

I've been realising more and more how much i've been frantically scrambling to find what page of the script I'm supposed to be on because it feels like I'm reaching the point in my life where I'm supposed to be engaging in a romantic relationship, one that will lead to children, the purchasing of a home and all hat 'happily ever after' mess.

And I am so completely done with that shit.

I don't often experience romantic feelings, and I'm finding that I mistake romantic feelings for deep platonic friendship.

This isn't to say that i won't ever experience romantic love--I'm saying I am so through with trying to transform friendship love into something akin to a 'happily ever after'.

I am way happier when I'm not in the throes of a supposed 'crush', I love my friends and I have plenty of warm, cushy feelings about them.

Why am I trying to force romance when it clearly is not present? At least in the 'traditional' sense which, by merely existing, I am actively challenging.

I feel like me throwing this romantic love script onto the fire is me taking a huge next step in my process of unlearning.

Emotionally Vulnerable

There are few things that scare me more than being emotionally vulnerable.

It's not something I learnt as a kid--in fact I learnt the exact opposite. It was seen as weak to show any type of emotion. Of course, this lead to me crying a lot in my room at night.  And as I grew up it made it nearly impossible to recognise and process any of my emotions.  Other than anger, sadness and frustration. I was really good at maybe not understanding them, but certainly recognising them.

Fast forward to 2010 and I arrive in Olympia. Little did I know the emotional metamorphosis I was embarking on. I would not only learn to recognise and understand my emotions, I would be forced to talk about them. Well, maybe only forced in certain occasions, but certainly encouraged to express and articulate them. Encouraged to dig around and find out what is causing me to have these emotions. Encouraged to learn to anticipate and communicate my emotions.

It's a rough, messy ride. I've been dragged kicking and screaming, always cursing (sometimes myself for being so stubborn, sometimes my family for not giving me these tools and always to Society and Colonisation which has taken so much from me and those like me caught up in this Diaspora). Nevertheless, here I am on the other side (kinda, not really), ready and willing to articulate my emotions.

But that doesn't mean it's easy.

In fact, I find it gets a little harder as time goes by--like with family and romantic potentials--to actually say how I feel. I'm a quick thinker but slow articulator and it takes me a bit of time to find my words.  It doesn't help that I'm a writer and it takes me forever to find the 'perfect' word order.

Woe.

Something i've never been able to shed is the fear or rejection/failure. Failure at what? Still trying to figure that one out. Rejection by whom? :eyeroll:

But every once in awhile, my... SuperEgo? I dunno one of the bossier Auriens get really, really fed up with complacency and paralytic fear and makes the decision for all of us that we are going for it. Because doing something is better than doing nothing at all.

I like to call this my Mollett Fever. And I am currently in its throes.

Sexual Confidence v Sexual Experience

I've been struggling with this concept of sexual confidence for the past few weeks. A friend of mine has been mentioning it and I've been thinking a lot about what it means, because my friend didn't define it or give examples.  Today I finally got something to go off of.

To my friend, sexual confidence is "being able to talk dirty and dominate/be domineering and be a tease."  It took me about two hours before the truck hit the wall. This whole time I've been wrestling with this idea of sexual confidence and how it isn't always applicable, but maybe it is and in which situations is I present and is it always present... But what I was actually doing was trying to explain/hypothesise on sexual confidence and sexual experience simultaneously.

And almost breaking my brain in the process.

The two terms are not interchangeable nor are they inherently interconnected. It took a 60mph journey north on I-5 for me to finally realise this.

Sexual confidence is the ability to hold one's sexuality, be comfortable with it and being able to rock it, flaunt it and wield it to one's advantage. Sexual experience is the ability to perform various sexual acts with expertise.

And now that I have realised that they are separate things that can--but are not always--related, I can rest my brain. This is like three weeks of serious bruising that needs to heal.

Labels

I was just talking with a buddy about labels and how they sculpt and influence our perceptions. The abel we were specifically talking about was the term 'crush'.

I have spent so much of the past three years ripping my mind open (unlearning) to new possibilities and new ways of thinking and doing and Being that I forget that all of this work has brought me to a place where I can hold society's definition of 'crush' and look at it, nod, grimace and also hold my personal, ever-fluid definition of 'crush'.

And while I can be mindful of identity labels and that the journey of unlearning and that the ability to be able to have multiple definitions co-exisitng, if not peacefully, then at least civilly, is not where everyone else is at.

Hence, why over-comunication is so important.

Early Morning Questions

Sometimes I'll be getting dressed in the morning and my hand will hover above whatever article of clothing I'm choosing, and I'll pick it up. As I hold it I imagine how wearing this garment will impact people's perception of me. The finally question is always,

"Will I be safe wearing this?"

Today, I wondered how many other people ponder this same question as they get dressed.

Insecure Thoughts

This last week I've been having a lot of insecure thoughts about my desirability. The romantic kind. The kind i avoid writing because they are heavy. So heavy.

There's so much wrapped up in it--being Black, being trans and non-binary, being in this weird place called the Pacific Northwest. The intense interplay of my identities. Sometimes it feels like I'm wielding a sword, or gently drawing the bow of a violin, and others like I'm clutching a worn, over-used grubby plastic bag.

Thoughts that my complexity and density and intensity are... too much.  That I'm too much--too imaginative, too sensitive, too angry, too articulate, too sure of what iI want, too indecisive, too confident, too insecure.

This past week I've been wondering if there is someone (or someones) who arew willing and able to hold all of my complexity and not only accept it but understand and appreciate it.

I mean, like I know there is at least one person out there who will be able to, but I wonder if I'll be able to recognise that person/persons when the time comes. I wonder if I willb e able to listen and trust myself enough....

But I'm going to trust in the timing of this... intersection and just keep bumbling along till then.

I have faith.

Re-Learning Gentleness

Hand-written. Crosspost with FoD

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The other day I was hanging out with Baby Q and I pulled open a kitchen drawer for them. I accidentally overexerted and the glass containers inside lammed against one another with a very loud result. Baby Q looked at me in surprise, I looked at them with a shameful grimace and said, "Sorry. I'm re-learning gentleness."

This has been the case for me since about... three months on T, wen it really started to kick in and cause a sharp increase in my muscle density and strength. For about six week, I was a walking wreck--swinging my arms and knocking things over, leaning against things and knocking things over, tossing things too hard and knocking things over. It was pretty bad.

Starting T is a second puberty--relearning the way my body's strength and coordination work, individually and together. For a short while, I actually refrained from too much physical contact, for fear that a gentle squeeze would actually be a vice grip. But that didn't last long.  I work with kids and they demand constant physical contact . And it was babies who helped me re-learn gentleness and helped me undeerstand this new strength and how to control it.

For the past month I've been going to the gym and it's like Round Two of re-learning gentleness. More than a few times I've tossed Baby Q a little too high when we're playing. Luckily they don't mind, but that's not to say it doesn't matter.

My work requires that I am gentle--not just in manner and spirit, but also with touch. I think it's rather ironic that as I'm teaching a toddler how to use "gentle hands," they are helping me re-learn the same thing.

Oops, I Did It Again....

Yup. I did it. I found another unavailable person and I pursued them.

I sit here in my living room shaking my head. How does this happen? How did I again find an unavailable babe and decide that it was not only probably but possible.

:le sigh:

Well, I have let it go. We can be friends and hang out, because they are great to talk with and hangout with

BUT

I'm not going to hold my breath. I'm tired of hurting my Heart by lingering.

So. Instead I will redirect that energy to making friends in Seattle. There's a lot of stuff going on and luckily for me my roomie AL has their finger on the qtpoc pulse in this place. I'm so down to network and hangout and get to know the fly folks of my community.

Who knows, maybe I'll find the reason I decided to stay in this rainy, foggy, depressing part of this nation.