On the subject of transition and feeling
17 Jul 2024I recently wrote about my challenges with the world of seriously dating men, or attempting so. This was a kind of a heavy subject and a pretty big brain dump of ideas. I was actually worried when I posted it that it may just be too much, too personal or too sad.
Sometimes I tell people stories from my personal experiences and a lot of condolences are expressed. I certainly don’t share stories to have people feel sorry for me. In fact, it makes me worry that I am coming off like a bit of a sad case.
Quite the opposite though.
I think it’s really important to understand how much transition has enriched my life and how little the scuffs and scrapes I get from dating online matter. The simple fact is that I feel. I feel emotions. I feel an attachment to life that is so powerful. It doesn’t matter whether things make me feel sad or happy. I have the privilege to feel in ways I just don’t think I was experiencing historically.
I was talking to a cishet friend of mine the other day trying to express what it feels like before and after finding my gender identity. He is a fan of recording himself driving and singing along to music to share online and spread good vibes. I told him that the energy he has to do that is an energy that I feel in myself now which I didn’t before. Prior to coming out if I had been faced with such an energy from someone it could’ve made me feel resigned, angry, sad, which is in retrospect so fucked up. I’m not even going to try to explain that. All I really know is that I have a lot more capacity to be happy for myself and happy for others.
So when a boy gets me down, and I come online to share what a frustrating experience I’m having, I don’t want anybody to think it’s ruining me. This blog is about storytelling for the curious and solidarity with trans folks. It’s not sympathy farming. I’m so bloody happy to be me. I’m still trying to hone my creative writing skills and sometimes it’s hard to slip that in all the time depending on the tone of a post.