24 May 2010

In Transition

I've suddenly and very unexpectedly found myself in transition.  My whole life is in flux, and I'm not entirely sure just where I am headed.  I'm leaving it up to faith, praying nightly, and I'm prepared to never give up, despite the challenges that I see burning just over the horizon, their heat already burning my skin.

After recently coming out as genderqueer, I've begun a genderqueer transition (what does that even mean?).  I've come out as genderqueer to all my closest friends, and I'm beginning to do so more publicly and openly; I've adopted the genderqueer pronouns ze/zan, and I'm starting to ask people to use them in most situations; I made myself a binder and purchased men's clothes in hopes of experimenting with a male and/or androgynous gender presentation and perhaps living part-time in a male gender role (is that even possible?).  I am very uncertain about where this transition already went, where it's now going, or how "far" it will go in the future. In fact, I am scared this whole thing will be a huge failure. However, at this time, I don't know, and I am leaving it all up to fate, ready to see where it does and doesn't go as I embark on an amazing journey.

I am transitioning spatially - ie moving.  I'm not quiet sure where or when, but I know I am ready to find a place of my own and to call it home.  Within the next year, I will pack up my life and go somewhere else.  This also means transitioning to a new level of independence, as the distance will mean that the place I call home will no longer be in the same state as the place my family currently calls home.  I am scared, but I am ready.  Much of this, too, is left up to destiny, also known as the admissions counselors at the universities to which I am applying to transfer.

I am transitioning out of two romantic relationships, one of which recently pummeled into heartbreak, and the other is disintegrating due to distance.  Both of these have been very important, and they've had a huge influence on my life.  They've also been filled with new experiences, especially sexually, that taught me a lot about myself, my identity (especially asexuality), and my relationships.  I am unsure where my love life will take me from here, if anywhere, so it's all up to chance.

I am transitioning out of a very interesting time of self-exploration, self-discovery, and coming-out to a place where I am comfortable living with a queer sexual and romantic orientation that I've come to understand really well.  Alongside my gender identity, I've realized that I reached a point where none of my future relationships will be as hetero-normative as those in the past: until recently, I identified primarily as a woman and partnered primarily (almost exclusively) with men.  I am also transitioning out of a very life-changing year that opened up my mind to many new perspectives and completely changed my view of much of the world.  I am learning how to live my life as the person I've become and the person I am becoming.  This transitioning out of a period of transition really goes to show how transition never really begins, and never ends. So, here I am, in transition.
You want something that's constant,
And I only wanted to be me.
But. Watch.
Even the stars above,
Things that seem still
Are still changing.
-- Still, Ben Folds

12 May 2010

Sometimes I forget life itself isn't just a phase.

I am scared. Absolutely terrified, really. Sometimes, I forget to breathe, because I am petrified of going on, frightened of continuing. This is real. That's the hardest thing to believe, the hardest concept to swallow. This isn't some tale in a fantasy novel, this isn't a daydream I will soon wake up from. This is my life, my one and only reality. And the things I am doing now will stay with me for ever.

Sometimes, I feel I've gone too deep. I've learned too much about the world, and I've learned too much about myself. I'm declaring absolutes now.  I mean, I am always open to fluidity and to change, but certain things just won't change. Or, at least, I can't go back.  I know my body, my mind, my heart too well now.  Everything has been restructured.  I know this is right, but I wish it just wasn't... forever.

I'm hiding in a bubble. I feel safe in that bubble, safe to share myself with others, safe to change and evolve, safe to believe in the world. Oh, and we know pain in this bubble, we know difficulty. We know just what we're facing. Or do we? We look outside in disbelief. We know too much.

I go home, and my mother cries because she's scared for me. I tell her not to cry, I tell her there's nothing to be scared of. I beg her to just love me. She tells me I don't understand. My sister throws around transphobic and homophobic slurs and makes sexist and racist remarks that, to me, are inherently wrong, why would anyone ever say that, isn't it common sense? But to her, it's no big deal. She laughs at me when I tell her it's wrong. She ignores me when I beg her to rethink. I'm the only one asking her to think a little differently. To the rest of the world, she's right on.

To the rest of the world, We're mutants. We are queer, We are trans, We are feminist, We are liberal, We are young. Some of these things, We'll outgrow. Some of these things are forever. I don't want this bubble to pop, I don't want to grow up. I don't want these things to be forever. I want to be what my mother calls "normal", and I want the same for all my friends. But it's too late. It was too late from the day We were born, destined to, one day, look in Our souls and see something deviant.

I am afraid of loneliness, that We'll never find our place. I am afraid of apathy, of people judging and othering Us, laughing at Our struggles, erasing Our efforts, ignoring Our successes. I am afraid of hate, which, with apathy around, can never die. I am afraid of slurs and fists, of knives and weapons, I am afraid that We will suffer and hurt and die. I am afraid of murder.

05 May 2010

No Self

Buddhism has been on my mind a lot lately. I'd been curious about it for a long time, and finally studied it in my East Asia Religions class. Two Buddhist concepts that have been on my mind a lot are transience and no-self.  Transience is the concept of impermanence, that nothing ever stays the way it is now.  No-self is the concept that there is no single thing that makes you yourself.  Imagine, for instance, a chair. A chair is made of many smaller parts, so what makes it a chair? There is no single part that makes it a chair. Rather, we recognize this combination of parts (none of which are a chair on their own) as a chair.
"He knows no one shines forever. They change with the weather." - On The Arrow, AFI
One Buddhist meditation is to imagine oneself at five years old, now, and at sixty years old. Is there anything in common between these three people?  The three have completely different thoughts, perspectives, priorities, ideas, voice, appearance, and they are not even made up of the same physical matter. There's no single thread tying the three together.   Thus, there's nothing that makes us us. There is no self.
"You want something that's constant, and I only wanted to be me. But watch, even the stars above, things that seem still are still changing." - Still, Ben Folds
I have always been a terribly nostalgic person. I've always missed moments of the past, missed the people I used to be close to and the places I got to know. What I miss more than anything else is the way I felt in those moments. Looking back, you can never feel that way again. Especially love.  I like to say that once you've loved someone, you will love them forever. That's a complete and utter lie. While some people from my past still bring up feelings within me, I've forgotten many of them. Even the very important ones, such as my first kiss, my first love, my first boyfriend no longer make me swoon. It's amazing that someone who changed my life so much and made me feel so many emotions has now disappeared completely into the fog of my memories. I know that someday this will happen with the present. Perhaps that's even scarier than the thought of this moment never happening again or the prospect of missing someone. It's terrifying to think that there might be a time when I will no longer miss today, when this moment will be so far off, that I won't even know how to miss it. I will literally be a different person than I am today.
"And the waves crashing around me, the sand slips out to see.  And the winds that blow remind me of what has been and what can never be." - The Lighthouse's Tale, Nickel Creek
As I pack up, I think about how this has been the most life-changing year since freshman year of highschool.  This year, I also had the most significant romantic encounter since I was fourteen.  I am grateful for the ways I've changed, and I know the things I've learned will stay with me for the rest of my life.  Still, it sometimes shocks me to look back a year and think about how different I was then.  This really hit me on 420; a year ago, that would have been all that I ever wanted: marijuana was a huge part of my life, and pot culture was filled with hope and community. I've grown distant from this, and it was strange to walk through Norlin Quad, knowing how happy I should be, how happy I would have been, but, really, I didn't care. I am a completely different person than I once was, and the things that fill me with joy now are not the same as the things that filled me with joy then.  Looking around was like looking at the person I used to be from the outside. I am someone else now.
 Rate of Change
 I'm running out of Fridays.
Of course, they'll never be gone
Completely. But Fridays now
Are the Fridays of my life.

Recycle bins fill with beer cans
Flattened by the perpendicular force
Of name-brand sneakers
On the feet of drunk friends.

Gutters collect the butts and filters
Of Newports, Blacks, Camels, and PTs.
Puffs of smoke dissintegrate
And disappear into memories.

My memory is overflowing
With today. The present
Will soon be left behind
And I'll be searching again.

Soon I will scream and laugh
Making more memories to share
And to lose. Soon this and that
Will be the past and time will be fresh.

But I am scared. Not of vodka
Or of ashes, but that I'll sit
Someday alone and I will miss
The rum and chronic of today.

-- from my journal, 04.24.09
I've completely rethought my political perspective.  I've gone 180 on issues such as undocumented immigrants, affirmative action, racism, and colorblind ideology. I've begun identifying strongly as a feminist, and this has become a major part of myself and my identity.  I've also began exploring other forms of marginalization, oppression, and privilege that exist in our society.  I read Peggy McIntosh's "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" - like, really read it - and began to acknowledge my own privilege. I've also become familiar with standpoint theory, which is such a simple, common-sense concept, but it has completely altered how I perceive academic literature, and changed how I participate in discussions about marginalized groups that I am not a part of, especially if members of that group are present in the discussion.  Most significantly, I've completely restructured my perspective on what gender and sex is.  I've become sensitive to the gendering of children, biological essentialism, gendered spaces, cissexism, cissupremacy, and how fucking transphobic this fucking world is, and I've overcome more internalized cissexism that I ever thought was possible or necessary (it is very very necessary).  I can't seem to go ten minutes without thinking how patriarchy and sexism pervade our society by creating hetero- and cis-normativity and homophobia and transphobia.  My priorities have also changed significantly, with marijuana dropping off the radar completely, replaced with a dedication to combat oppression, specifically sexism and cissexism.  I've also become even more passionate about and involved in things that concerned me a year ago, such as gay rights.  I've come out three times as three different identities, and begun actively exploring myself, labels, and the way society impacts how I see myself.


So that's where I am at the moment. I'll be somebody else tomorrow, and in an hour. As scary as change is, I have no choice but to embrace it. And embrace it, I will.

D:

I would like to tell the world that I am less than happy by googling "heartbreak" and blogging the first image I find pretty.

First Kiss

I still remember the place where I had my very first kiss. I remember it exactly. I could go there today and sit right there, I could point out where he sat and where I sat.  I could tell you just what the March weather was like, I can remember the very texture of the California air. I could describe just how I felt, how nervous I was and how happy. I could trace my steps to the bus afterward, spreading my arms as if to hug the sky.  I could trace my emotions for the next few days, the memory still burning fresh in my heart. I used to come back to that place all the time, I would sit and think, and time and space would bend, filling me with that very sensation, that freedom, that magic. It's amazing how powerful a place can be.

Then time passed. There was a space between me and him, I was miles and roads and states from that place.  I moved on, and so did my heart.  I grew up, I changed, I became someone I never imagined I'd ever become.  There probably isn't a cell left in my body that was there the day we kissed.  I came back to that spot once, years later.  I knew what I should feel and I knew what I wanted to feel, but I didn't feel it. It's as if the memory belonged to someone else, to someone that wasn't me. I could have sat anywhere else in the world, any other town would have been just as strange.  I miss you. I miss that moment.

Everything is transitory. There is no self.

but I will always love you

04 May 2010

Multisexual Identities

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02 May 2010

Intersexuality as Identity.

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Regrets.

For a long time, I honestly believed I had no regrets.  However, recently, I began to realize that this really is not true, it just took me a little growing up before I realized that I should have done some things differently. Here are my regrets.

1. Not participating in theater in high school.  If I could re-live high school, I would do tech, because the theater community is not only intelligent, hard working, mature, and dedicated, but they are also very close and fun.

2. Taking French rather than Spanish.  Although I am very glad I can speak limited French, I wish I took Spanish, instead, because I find it to be the most beautiful language, and I feel like knowing Spanish would be more beneficial than French.

3. Living in a single this year (freshman year of college).  I'm missing out on a very important experience, and the single makes me lonely.