wonderingwanderingsworld

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Ok. Feeling very shaky and dysregulated.

I’m at a homeless shelter right now. Have I mentioned that. Been here since September. Briefly in another one before this, but here I have my own room. Which is nice.

But it also sounds nicer than it is. I have had to deal with bed bugs, and now I have athletes foot. There are wellness checks twice a day where they come knocking on my door to see if I’m alive and take my temperature. They will come in if I don’t answer. One of the guards, haha the head guard actually, is a bit of a bully. He has done a lot of weird stuff to me, but now he is forcing me to answer his questions every time he takes my temperature. I have just not answered in the past, but he has someone else with him and I pretended he was talking to them. Now it is just him and he repeats himself if I don’t answer. I feel scared not to answer. I don’t feel safe around him. Maybe it sounds small, I know I want to minimize it. But it is threatening. He is trying to make me do something. He has done so in the past, at the security check, made me give him some of my food, when I am the one who is homeless!!! I guess I feel scared of him. And I am also scared of the system, scared to rock the boat too much. I have already complained numerous times when the guards have run late with the wellness checks - also his fault, because he was sitting on his ass and making them do everything. I think he is mad at me now.

The other guards don’t act like this. I have never had a problem with the rest of them, ever. They are kind and professional. It’s just him.

I am starting to have a panic attack about this right now. I feel incredibly overwhelmed. I don’t want to interact with him anymore. I feel scared because I always think to myself, if I need to I can go sleep in my car. But my car is incredibly uncomfortable to sleep in. Just the other night I got home late and it was so quiet outside I decided to just stay overnight in the car. I have to park so far away it can be frightening to walk at length when it’s that late. But my car is committed to being a sports car, even the back seats are bucket seats 😭😭😭😭 I could probably level it out with some bedding etc, but then there’s the problem of when it rains and the moisture would leak through and cause rot, since that one drain pipe or whatever is plugged. Uggghhhhhh.

Ok and that’s not my actual problem. My actual problem is this guy. Ok. I will talk to my case manager this coming week. Ask her what I should do. I feel so dumb but it really is affecting my mental health. All this week I had a hard time falling back asleep after his wellness checks. So I’m not making up that this is affecting me. I’m in that half asleep state and this forced questioning feels violating to me. Just take my fucking temperature and go!!!

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Hahahaha do I want people to find this? Do I not want people to?

Not really. But somehow the possibility keeps me focused and more honest. Like there’s a witness somehow. Somebody *could* see it.

This really begs the question why I would be less honest with myself if it’s just me… troubling for sure

Anyways ruminations for another day!!! Today sucked but I managed to make my way through

I am really in a mode right now where I feel like nobody cares about me

Why the hell is that

I don’t feel like a priority for anyone, everyone has things that matter more to them

Love and connection for me is everything, but it is never returned that way

Somehow I have to focus on myself more ???? Honestly I don’t know how to do that but I am trying

I feel like I’m in dormant mode, awaiting my next mission

But my next mission is (maybe) me and I don’t know how to square myself with that

Well mostly me

There was a cool IG post yesterday that was saying everyone deserves love and some kinds of love only we can give ourselves

Yeah

That

Somehow this makes me think of giving myself the gift of going to an amusement park and finding somebody to go with me

That would be cool!!!!!!! I fucking move amusement parks

There is a lot of other stuff I wanna do too

Like go to gay clubs, bath houses, raves etc

Get more into working out, get stronger and leaner and protect my knees more

Have some adventures, go have some fun

What else do I want

To bring love and light into the world, and join in collective liberation

DJ, do photography, dance, model, cuddle, fuck, heal, go for long drives, enjoy time with dogs

Explore what’s out there

Make friends and lovers who heal and enjoy and love and protect me and don’t abuse me

That’s such a beautiful thought, I can scarcely believe it’s possible

I don’t know how to show up as myself in this world exactly but I want to tryyyyy

I want to love myself more, even if I don’t always know howwwwww

💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Pondering more here about Amanda Seales. About the systemic targeting of Black women. Why.

Because Black women are an inherent threat to systems of power. If Black women gave birth to all the humans that are on this planet, then they ARE life in a way no other kind of person is.

And life always threatens death.

Amanda Seales speaks honesty. This idea that she’s a hater, that there’s always something wrong… is that really the case

Or do they just not like when she speaks up about things others are silent on. Like Palestine.

I read somewhere that her mom was Palestinian. But now I can’t find that, just that her mom is from Grenada. And that her sister is Palestinian??? So I’m confused.

Also Issa Rae doesn’t like her and won’t work with her. Why 🤔 What’s that about.

….

I dunno. I can’t find anything. Someone said Issa’s publicist doesn’t like Amanda’s publicist. Weird.

I guess why I’m mulling all this over is because I’m trying to arrive somewhere. Maybe it’s not time for that yet. But then I’m wanting to explore in order to eventually come home to myself.

There are so many things I don’t know. And yet here I am, in the belly of the beast, where any move I make has effects - as well as consequences. I want to know more about how I move and what happens when I do.

And is there not room for joy? As well as being disagreeable?? I am struggling how to find my way through all this.

I keep centering others over and above myself. I seem to not know how to do any different.

But that’s not who I am not who I wanna be. I wanna shine and take up space too. I do not want to rest on my laurels, stay in the shadows etc

Is there room for me in this world? The whole me? Do I want to make room?

I want room for joy and softness and wonder. For love and connection and healing. For beauty and creativity and life. Is that not worth fighting for?

How is this supposed to go. There’s so much I’m unaware of.

A Gazan I follow just said that childhood abuse and trauma is so much worse than war. I believe that. I have heard it before from other survivors, that the spiritual/psychological damage is so much worse than the physical. That feels so true to me, I remember the first time I read it in Persepolis. I’m going to hold onto that truth right now because it’s guiding me somewhere.

Tysm 🥰

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Ok so I’m back. It’s been what, a few weeks. I am feeling disjointed and lost again, and have a big headache. I don’t know how to live for myself. I feel so awful everything has come to this, my sister calling the cops on me, her abusing her children… did I make the situation any better. I know I tried. But that doesn’t matter as much as what really happened. Maybe I made the situation better for others and worse for myself. That feels true. Fuck

Im literally in a homeless shelter right now. I was always afraid this would happen. It’s not so bad in certain regards though. I even have my own room. I hate the “wellness checks” and other unexpected knocks on my door, but I manage ok. I feel like I’m drifting though.

The only thing that makes me feel connected to other people is helping others. But it can’t be like that, all me giving and no receiving. Receiving is so uncomfortable for me. I guess that tells me something.

I feel like right now my job is to transform. I can work or not. But something inside me needs to change completely. I need to come into myself. I feel so close and so far at the same time. Who am I. I almost know.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Just needed to get it out there.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

I just saw Dune 2 yesterday. Watched some reviews, and a video summarizing the books as well. Shit gets wild. But also: I feel like it allows a glimpse into the white male imagination. It basically ends up with Paul’s son (oh yeah spoiler) becoming emperor as well somehow turning himself into a half worm and then ruling for thousands of years as a tyrant in order to “teach” people how to want freedom bad enough. Like, I’m sorry, WHAT.

Why do white people always want to frame torture, exploitation, fascism etc as somehow “for your own good.” Absolutely disgusting.

I find it incredibly hard to love myself through all this. I just want to give up. Or fall back, like Cypher in the Matrix. Forget, pretend I don’t know, because it’s too hard and I want to die. Cypher wants that because outside the Matrix he has no one and nothing, really. No family, no one that cares for him. As far as he is concerned he is just a cog in the new machine. At least if he goes back in he can taste steak. Enjoy some of the simpler things.

But I don’t want to be a Cypher. So then what. How do I stay in the fight. How do I love myself when I am one of the bad guys. I have to change sides, right?? But how????

I still love my family. I don’t know how to think of them politically… maybe centrist. They dont care much about individual differences, my being queer or trans is not deeply meaningful to them - nor do they especially want to tell people about it. I guess they are very white apathy. White middle class apathy. Income wise they are not even middle class, more like aspirational middle class, with the big trappings like houses etc accomplished through intense strictness and frugality. I feel tired even writing about them.

I don’t know how to decenter myself or my pain. I don’t know how to be an “ally” or whatever when I’m in this state. But somehow I must make the leap. I have to try.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Having weird feelings today. I am staying in more and more, just scared to leave my room or interact with people. It doesn’t feel healthy. I actually do want to be around people, I just want to be safe??? Anyways. I saw there’s gonna be a local vigil for Nex Benedict. I was thinking about going and clicked on one of the organizers’ names. I would say this person is a semi-celebrity in trans circles. Anyways this person has blocked me??!!!! I was quite taken aback, this is two days in a row I have found out I’m blocked by big accounts. I literally can’t remember ever having an interaction with this person. I think they liked something in my IG stories a couple years ago and I thought it was strange; even intimidating that a big account like theirs would do that. But otherwise I can’t think of anything.

I told a friend about it and they were like, hmmm I think it might be because of your stance against racism. Which honestly is the case with the other account that blocked me - that I know for a fact. I looked into this person and they seem to have moments where they’re fighting racism but then they backtrack or don’t make sense. I mean, I think most white people don’t make sense when it comes to racism. Including me, definitely. There is so much to unpack, make reparations for, work to change, it is massive. As a group we are not there, we are not even close to there, we don’t even wanna be there. Not saying there aren’t those of us who want change, but there is a massive gap between our desires and our actions. I know for myself I’m scared of the consequences of really going all out against racism; part of me wants to stay quiet or not “push it too far” for fear of being alienated and alone. I guess that’s part of what I wanna talk about here.

I don’t know how to have community right now. Most other white people do not want what I want, and when I spend time with them anyway they drag me back or make me doubt myself. But when I hang out with BIPOC folks I feel like I’m too serious and intense about racism in a way that centers myself when they just wanna hang out and have a good time. I don’t know how to navigate or regulate this. I want community that I love and loves me back. How do I do this as a white person who aspires to be antiracist?? I feel like if I could even get a few solid folks in my circle I wouldn’t be so swayed by the others. It makes me think about how often my sense of reality has been played with. I hate it.

Even when it comes to showing up to actions etc, I feel like damn, if I just knew *one person* to go with. If I just had one person I could process with. I can feel myself getting sleepy writing this which usually means I’m getting overwhelmed. I want to understand better my place in all this and how best to act. I find it very confusing.

Like for example with Palestine. At the beginning it felt scary but also liberating to post so much. I went to protests. I called and wrote to representatives. But then it started affecting my health. I got high blood pressure. Now I’m having kidney issues. So I should pull back right? But then I think, is my life more valuable than Palestinians’? I don’t think so. So what does it matter if I live or die for their cause? They die all the time. But for me it feels… I don’t know. Like they would die a noble death, whereas I would just die quietly in a corner without anyone knowing or caring why. It would be for nothing. And not even as a journalist or something, just as some trans guy in a homeless shelter who cared. So why does it matter.

I remember when I came to the witch community before I really thought I had found my people. They were political, supposedly. They cared about justice, supposedly. What I found was burnt out white activists who had decided they were “done” and would get angry, defensive or demeaning when topics around racism or even transphobia were brought up. It did not feel like my people so I left. But where am I now??? Cast adrift.

I don’t know where to go now but I’m trying. Everywhere is imperfect. But I hope to find a space that is better suited to me. Where more of the people have the same priorities. I’m not sure how to make that happen but I wanna try.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Feeling very sad all of a sudden tonight. I had not a bad day, didn’t get done as much as I wanted but was ok with myself about it. Then I joined a FB group that had another trans guy in it, someone I’m friends with on FB but don’t necessarily have great vibes about. I wanna unfriend him, and many others, but part of me feels some responsibility to call him in about some of his nonsense. Would that even be for me to do, if I barely know him and don’t even like him?!!! Anywho. His former partner is someone I knew too, and liked better, even if she was a little weird to me after I transitioned. But now it turns out she died????? And like, four years ago. Hot damn, I had no idea. I feel so sad. I checked into someone else we both knew, but that person has either u mnfriended me or I them. I’m not sure which. Either way, just feeling sad. Sad for her passing. And scared, as I’m getting older and people are dying around me, that I’ll never fulfill whatever it is I set out to do here on this earth. Maybe I have already???? I just. I feel very lonely and like I have no idea which way is up. Where do I go from here, like truly. I have left so many iterations of myself behind, the witch community, the kink community, all after I left my ex husband and came out as trans. Then suffered the aftermath with them. I just… I dunno. I simultaneously reject so many of those folks and yet I don’t want to let go, because what else do I have. This is not good. I cannot create a life I want from that mess.

But I do have an idea of who I want to be now and where I want to go. I am just afraid to enact it. I feel too trans, too fat, and yes sometimes too white to go there. That last one is sticky, like what is that even about. Because I find a good amount of the time the white people I know do not share the same values as me. Because I sometimes feel entitled to be in BIPOC spaces when like whyyyyyy would I think that I would be welcome. Because I want to be somewhere I feel at home, where I can feel comfortable and like myself and it has been so many years where I felt that, I actually can’t even imagine any more. But I want to. What would it be like to have a friend group that loves me. That loves to dance, that loves to discuss, that loves to dress up, that loves to support each other. That wants decolonization, abolition, collective liberation, and seeks to uplift each other in that journey. That is queer and trans and multiracial. That would be a dream. Dare I dream it??

Coming back to this person who’s now passed. The last time I saw her was at SEAF. She was sitting down, caught sight of me and waved me over. She hugged me and complimented me, called me handsome I think in an effort to validate me. It felt awkward and I don’t really like being called handsome so I did my best to exit quietly. But I think it was offered from a place of kindness. So now, even though it’s been years, I receive it as such. Thank you, love. May your journey in the afterworld be blessed.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Now I’m thinking of another “friend,” someone who was also a gay trans guy and who “helped” me through top surgery. I’m putting scare quotes around all those things because regardless of intent I feel like he stole my body away from me at a time when I was most fully coming into it. I wanna let myself feel enraged right now, I want to take my body back.

He offered to help me make some decisions around top surgery but got so invested that he really dragged out the process and made it about himself. I don’t really feel like he did that on purpose… but damn I still just wanna be mad about it 🤬🤬🤬 LET ME BE MAD!!!! It was just so fucked up, like, even though he did all these nice things he was also controlling. I remember when they did my chest reveal him and the nurse had this whole conversation about what my chest looked like before I even had a chance to look at it myself. Outrageous!!!! He wanted to take a picture too and I was like, no. Definitely not. I really wanted to hold my body precious to myself. My new body, just for me.

He shared a hotel room with me while I healed and was virtually unable to give me space when I needed it. It was a complete nightmare. Eventually he took me home to his place that he shared with his partner and once we were there I had more space to myself. I think I still left early though. The whole thing was a terrible ordeal.

What the fuck choice did I have though?? I wish I had gotten my mom to come with me. I don’t know if they let you do that surgery alone. I think you have to have someone come pick you up and care for you etc. I don’t think I had anyone else at the time.

The whole thing makes me so mad. Was it my fault??? I wish I had booted him off the whole “project” early on. I needed support, not someone to take over and make it about them. Imagine, making someone else’s body about you!! What the hell is that shit. I fucking hate it.

Ok I’m gonna try something. I do remember some moments alone through that whole situation and I’m gonna recall those and draw them forward. Maybe that’ll help some.

I remember waking up from surgery with an elderly nurse misgendering me 🤦🏻‍♂️ She seemed kind though so it wasn’t the worst. I also remember throwing up lmao and having to stay overnight, and then going back in for a hematoma the next morning. That was rough and I was super out of it. I remember going for a short walk and having a beautiful encounter with a young horse. I remember watching the visual album for Lemonade for the first time and having to pause every few minutes to cry. Whewww I was a mess!!

I wish… I had done a lot of things differently. It was a scary time. I needed support so badly and didn’t know where to turn. I was so terrified I was going to be disowned, that I would wind up on the street, or worse. I needed other trans people around me to help me with my transition. Just… maybe not that intensely. Not taking over. In a more warm, relaxed “you’ve got this” kind of way.

I’m having a little crisis here because I’m thinking of all these friendships gone wrong and I’m like, is it me???? Am I the problem?? Why can’t I have regular healthy friendships with people that aren’t hurting or controlling me all the time?? What if I’m a covert narcissist or someone who constantly twists things into me being the victim, even if it actually is my fault. How would I even know.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

I am thinking today about a time before I transitioned when I was friends with another trans guy. We were both sex workers at the time. He took a trip to NYC and invited me to come with him. I was so excited to go, but also worried. He knew I had an on and off crush on him. I was poly but he was monogamous. I brought that up and said I was worried about being in a sexually charged environment with him and didn’t want to wind up having anything happen that would accidentally cross his boundaries. He assured me he would allow no such thing to happen, and off we went. We had a great time, spent time chatting on the rooftop and dawn, and I got to meet a bunch of other great folks. One night after a party we were both drunk. Everyone else had left and I started getting ready to go to bed. He asked me if I wanted a massage. I knew what that really meant and said yes, even though I knew it wasn’t ok. Massage of course escalated into other things. We pushed each other around in a boyish way that was so intoxicating to me at the time. I felt like he saw me for who I was, at a time where that was vanishingly rare. We messed around and had a sort of energetic sex. I know I would have done more if I’d felt more confident about trans bodies, but I felt like if I asked it would have broken the spell and we would have stopped. The next day I was so hyped. I was in an abusive relationship at the time and wanted this to be my ticket out of there. I wanted us to run away together, fuck and stay in hotels on the road until we were whole and healed. He, on the other hand, wanted this to never happen again, or so he said. I wound up telling my husband about it, who at that point seemed like he couldn’t give two fucks about me. He didn’t care. But my friend’s mood significantly darkened when we discussed him telling his wife. Under no circumstances did he want that to happen. He became quite upset at the idea that I might tell her, which I did eventually, long after they split up. Over the ensuing months he told me about the various escapades he had with cis men, jerking some guy off on the dance floor at a gay bar, hooking up with another in his car. He told me that these were ok but hooking up with friends was not. He lied a lot so looking back I have no idea if that was true. I still longed for us to be together.

I feel extra weird about that night. Like, it feels rapey. We discussed that something like that could happen, that I didn’t feel comfortable with it given his relationship agreements, and then once we were drunk he initiated it. Did I want it?? Hell yes. For a long time it stood out as a singular time in which someone sexually interacted with me in a way that I felt seen, though later he denied even that. Internalized homophobia probably. But the rapey part, I don’t know what to do with that and it’s just sort of lingered there. I am writing because somehow I would like to put it to rest. But how?

There’s no question he took advantage of me. It feels so much like a power move - cross my boundaries, see if he can get me to say yes so his ego can get some strokes in. It doesn’t even matter what we do, just that I would be willing to do it. Then discard me and fake innocence.

He was the one that arranged the party. Then suggested the “massage” when everyone was gone. Wondering now what would have happened if I said “no.” Would he have accepted that or pressed on? Gotten aggressive? It tells me a lot that I am even asking those questions. It definitely felt like a power move.

I am remembering now too that his wife didn’t like me. She didn’t stop us from being friends but I think she knew in a way that I didn’t understand at the time that we weren’t really friends, that I was more like his side bitch. But I didn’t feel that way. I felt like we were bros, that he saw me, and that sometimes there would be these gay little sparks that were allowed to fly as long as they weren’t named. UGGGGGHHHHHH. I had another trans guy tell me years later it sounded like he was on the down-low. Yeah pretty much huh.

Ok so rapey. How can it be rape if I wanted it. How can it be rape when I don’t even recall him taking his clothes off. How can it be rape when it was gender affirming. How can it be rape when the next morning I wanted more, and was sad he didn’t want that. It doesn’t make sense.

Thinking now what I would say if someone else shared this with me. I would say, sounds like rape to me. Just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean they can’t rape you. Just because you desire sex with someone but don’t want to follow through for xyz reasons doesn’t mean they can’t rape you. He literally waited until I was drunk and we were alone to cross my boundary. That’s gross.

But the other part of me is like yeah, that’s gross, but is it rape?

I would say to someone else, hey. If it doesn’t feel ok for you to call it that, you don’t have to. How does it land in your body now?

I feel a twisting and a sense of disgust. Less violated and more taken advantage of. Like I thought we were actual friends and he just wanted another pawn to play with. How sad. I have been used in this way a number of times. I don’t want that energy in my life any more.

Now I feel like flicking him off of me, like an insect. Just annoying. Which I did do eventually. I take pride in that I sat down with him and told him he had a lying heart. He was a good looking guy but wasn’t loyal to anyone except himself. I’m glad to not have him in my life anymore. I hardly ever think of him except for this still lingering question. I would really like to put it to bed.

Right now I think that I can’t. All I can say is that at minimum that interaction feels gross, that I feel taken advantage of, and that I’m glad he’s no longer around me. I don’t think he’s in any way a sincere person and I’m so glad he’s not in my life. I don’t wish him anything except distance.

I’m annoyed I can’t do more to get rid of this. But thankful for the space to air it out. This still bothers me and maybe I can own that I have a right to that. That feels better.

I am thinking that I don’t want to feel empowered or validated anymore by this gross situation. That I wanna release. I also wanna ponder more on how I have more room for men I consider good looking or desirable to harm me, like my self worth is so low I feel like I wouldn’t deserve intimacy with them otherwise. Yuck.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Two days in a row! I am feeling better today. More motivated. I had to get out of bed because I had a medical appointment. I am so hungry for care and attention that just being at the doctor’s and her telling me I did a “good job” when I took a deep breath and held it made me feel a lot better. I was not very enthusiastic about running errands afterwards, but I was really tired.

One of the things I am pondering is where is the balance when it comes to activism/taking care of others and focusing on myself, as someone who is simultaneously privileged and oppressed, specifically disabled. I know simultaneously that I deserve a happy life and also things are really fucked up right now. They have been for a while and will continue to be. It feels like a weird push and pull for me, like I have to decrease the amount of entitlement my white self experiences while increasing the amount of care and attention I give my trans and disabled selves. How to become bigger and small at the same time? What if im wrong and as a marginalized white person, since whiteness trumps all, I need only become smaller? How do I tell when my resistance is healthy and necessary, and when it is based on comfort and the desire to hold onto privilege? I feel pretty clear that when my kidneys are starting to have trouble I need to back off. But even then… I look at the journalists in Gaza, risking their lives for the story of their people to be told. Hmmm as I write it feels different though. They risk but they do not know. Several journalists as well as civilians have left Gaza now, including for medical treatment. So I can potentially conclude that if I am getting medically affected by pushing myself that it is ok to step back.

I realize I probably can’t see what is healthy here and what is not. It would be healthy and wise to have some guidance, specifically from someone who both cares for my overall wellbeing and who will lead me in the right direction. How to do this when I am homeless and broke? There is probably an answer right in front of my face and I’m missing it. Who are my teachers, who am I responsible to, after years I still don’t know though I can say there are many. But I say many as in, many books and articles and posts I’ve read, a handful of courses I’ve participated in. I did try at least twice to engage other white “allies” in ongoing work together but both times it fell flat because people were unwilling to really go there. Also in my current situation I don’t have a lot of myself left over, even on days where I have a lot of time. I am just exhausted and worried on every level.

I have therapy tomorrow and I am so glad for that. I am sad not to have it twice a week right now but maybe there’s a way. In the meantime it’ll be good to go. The past week has been A LOT.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

Wow. I completely forgot that I even had an account on here, let alone had written anything.

I want to come back here because I need a place to write. Someplace where someone *could* see what I’m saying, but it’s not likely. Somehow it makes a difference from when I write in a journal.

Strange, too, to read what I wrote nearly a decade ago. How much things haven’t changed. I mean that in good ways and bad. Action is still so hard for me. I sit and ponder way too long. Wasn’t that an issue for Hamlet??

I am homeless right now because of a decision I made. To help someone, actually. Someone both close to me and who was causing harm. I knew it was a risk and I didn’t know how it would play out. I both wanted to help them and wanted to help those they were harming. I thought this would be a years long thing but it came to a head within days, and I no longer had a place to live. I still don’t.

Something gave up in me. I just don’t want to keep going. I know I need to find my joy, find reasons, but I feel utterly defeated and beaten up by life. Every time I start to get energy or motivation back something happens to me. I am starting to have health problems now, high blood pressure and now issues with my kidneys. I honestly don’t know what to do. I am not somewhere I can cook for myself. I have a mini fridge and a microwave, and to be quite honest that is more than many people in my situation have. I can’t have guests over. No one can live with me here. I forgot to say, I’m homeless but I’m in a shelter. A converted hotel actually, where I get my own room, my own bathroom. It is so much better than what most people experience in this situation. But I am not grateful. I am scared all the time, hyper aware of how everything is beating me down. The “wellness checks” where security knocks on my door to take my temperature. My shitty zero effort transphobic case manager, who I have finally replaced with someone who is much warmer and more encouraging. The fact that I have to hand in my laundry and not see it for several days, which means days without my towel etc. I feel out of control, privileged and yet utterly ungrateful. I have been having a panic attack for the past week, having a hard time sleeping, just freaking out on every level. There are too many things going on at once and I’m melting down. I don’t know what direction to go in. It’s mid February now, past that, and I’m still stalling. What can be done????

It feels good to get this out there. I want to complain about every minute thing that bothers me so I can release it. Right now I feel like I have to be so fucking grating and “humble,” grateful for scraps and toxicity when I know things could be so much better. Have I ever felt helped before in my life??? How many times have I been in despair only to be greeted with dismissal, gaslighting, minimization, abuse.

I hate it here.

I have a doctors appt tomorrow. I’m going to try to spend some time walking in nature or something afterwards. Try to find some time to appreciate what’s out there. I have been through this before and been able to turn things around. I hope I can do that again this time.

[wonderingwanderingsworld]

identities.

Whew. Here goes.

I have been struggling with how to describe myself in ways that feel both true and anti-oppressive. There is something about that making of lists that pushes a bunch of my buttons and I wind up with a whole lotta feelings.

It feels numbing and objectifying, writing out a list of my identities. I feel like a thing, a non-person, without agency.

One or two and it's not so bad - that I'm a white trans guy, for example. I feel ok naming that intersection. It feels important, actually, because when white trans guys are aware of their transness and how that impacts them but less of how their guyness and whiteness does, it usually makes for douchebag behaviour. Because of power and who is considered the default and who sits  at the margins, right? Easy for me to dwell on the parts of me that are "different" and fighting for my rights while skipping over the parts that are given extra candy without even having to ask.

That said, when I get into these lists, especially these longer versions, I start to feel a certain despair. Is that all I am, just a sum of my parts? Certainly all of this informs my experience - being trans, being (mostly) gay, being an immigrant as well as having an immigrant mom. Being white, growing up working class, being highly sensitive as well as super smart, at least in a school kind of way. There are stories at those intersections - moments when I would go downstairs to tell my handyman father that I'd gotten straight A's again and he'd say, yeah, but do you know how to fix things? For him that was the true measure of intelligence - there was a part of me that agreed with him, and a part of me that was crushed.

There is something about these lists that takes away my sense of agency, turns me into a product of my environment and strips me of making my own choices. It feels violent and wrong.

Perhaps, though, I need to remember the dance. I act and am acted upon. I am affected by my DNA, by how and where I grew up, by how society perceives me and upholds me and a million other things that are beyond my control. (I like to pretend that is not the case, that I am creating my own reality, but I have learned that this is one of the toxic things about privilege - dislocating yourself, turning into the "everyman" when you are anything but.) But this is not the whole truth.

Although I have been shaped, I also shape myself. As much as I am the product of things beyond my control, I am also Divine and unknowable and infinitely capable of curiosity and change. 

Maybe what's violent in these lists, for me. How I also erase myself, erase my own agency. As someone who only recently came out as trans, I have been erasing myself for decades. Hollowing myself out, avoiding asking myself what I truly was or even what I really liked. Even naming myself in this way, as trans, has been a giant act of self-determination - the world told me I was a girl, and I told them they were wrong. It has been an act of magic.

Often the places I feel most uncomfortable naming are the places I have privilege - especially being white, able-bodied, and a settler. I don't want to speak them out loud - I feel naked, exposed, and it brings up a lot of my self-hatred. Especially my whiteness - this is something I have hated about myself for a long time. My fucking skin colour and DNA have been weaponized and I have benefited from that and utilize it to my advantage all the time. It symbolizes violence and oppression and genocide to me; colonization and slavery and cruelty. I long to skip the hard work of examining my white privilege because I want to rip my heart out when I do. But, fuck man, if I don't examine that stuff, I just keep enacting the same oppressive bullshit. I don't wanna be that guy either.

For now maybe I can remember that every time I name myself as white, or able-bodied, or a settler, or any other privileged position, it is an act of magic. An act of empathy and connection with folks who have been erased, such as people of colour, disabled folks, and indigenous peoples. It creates cracks in the empire for me to even acknowledge those things. I think that's worth a little discomfort. And also, if I'm being honest here, the fact that I have so many feelings come up probably means there's more still to look at with this stuff. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck but it huuuuuurrrrrts!!! OK. One piece at a time here, I can go slow, let my body adjust.

And still, agency, and the dance. OK. I think I am coming to a conclusion here, which I wasn't actually expecting to: I need to remember to name my agency, my Divine nature, that make me three dimensional and human and alive. Things like my love of mischief and cats, my strange affinity for fast food and karaoke, and my secret hope that I'll one day become a rock star... or at least look like one ;)

Gods, there is so much in this world I don't know. But I feel like I've at least come to a place of better understanding here as to why I feel uncomfortable about listing identities - it's for both legit and kinda sideways reasons. Haha. Probably shouldn't be surprised about that by now.

I think I'll take some time in my next bunch of posts exploring the identities I've named and see where that gets me. Suspecting there's a lot there.

#justice #FTM #trans #transguy #witch #ihatelists #butialsolovelists #anti-oppression #mystic #genderqueer #curiosityispower #wordsaremagic #wordsareviolent