🚨Silly little vent post incoming🚨
It’s been really hard to handle the unbalanced arcade stacking game that has become my life all by myself. My ex-girlfriend and I recently got back in touch after a long time, and I still had a lot of feelings for her when she did. That’s a remarkable understatement— she means the absolute world to me. Her and I are on such similar levels. Her humor is tailor-made to perfectly slot itself into the jokey part of my brain nobody else can fit into. I feel like a lot of the people I meet don’t understand me very well. I know I’m a bit of an odd guy girl. I have friends and I relish any opportunity to engage in public speaking and being in large crowds and holding court at a house party and— all of it! But it’s thin. See through. I haven’t been heard or seen by anyone genuinely, except for her. Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters with infinite time could never produce an accurate description of how well we match. She’s very smart, and I like that. Her and I have faux-debates over the values and beliefs that we have in common but differ in execution or measure. I like that. I don’t know how I’m supposed to find anyone as clever or specific to me. So, I wanted to give our relationship another chance.
For the first few months after we got back in contact, I didn’t want to lay it on too thick or anything, though I probably was unconsciously. It was weird for a while. I wanted to rush back into being at least close friends; I thought we’d just kinda click back into place. It didn’t work out that way, and that’s fine, really. Overtime, I began to see the value (and honestly, the fun) of re-getting to know each other. Over our time apart, we became very different people, but the fundamentals were all there, so we at least had stable soil to grow out of. There were a lot of highs and lows throughout that time, mostly lows. That’s on me, though. I take everything in such extremes that the most benign perceived slight is a damning indictment on me as a person. I thought I had entirely fallen out of favor for a while. Right after, I thought it’d save everyone time to start planning the wedding right away. In my defense, she sent out contradictory signals that made it difficult to trust what I was experiencing.
As time went on and we got closer, she started treating me different. We were talking more, and individually outside of group chats, and calling often. Before I knew it, we started working on projects together; making YouTube videos, modding my favorite game, mixing our interests— so as to say, we became a pair. She’d call me just to talk. If I didn’t reply in time, she’d send follow up messages until I did, or ask where I’d gone. Sure, one could say, those are signs of a tight, secure friendship, something to be content with. But, sometimes she’d flip it entirely on its head. She’d go silent for days at a time. She’d brush me off when I reminded her of the plans she made for us. I watched her recede and rush toward like the tide. And, much like the tide, it’d sometimes come in these great extremes. Droughts of love marked by insults (implied and outright), inexplicable explosions of impatience that manifested in what I experienced as an extreme exhaustion from me. That could be fair. I can be a lot. That’s the negative, though. There were towering cresting waves of clear water that I could see a beautiful, shining horizon through. An idea- a future- to look toward with the assurance the sun would rise, as it always has and does, inevitably. She outright said it! After a wonderful night that I’d color a date, she said she liked the things I had to say, and that she liked me! She said, explicitly, that she saw the same future I did, and that she liked it. She asked me to ask her in the morning to check back in. I felt as though they announced the rapture was taking place tomorrow and I had a spot in the light. I was so happy. Even though we parted ways at three in the morning, I set an alarm for 8:30, so I could wake up and start that life as soon as possible. When I did, she had completely recanted that.
It was hard. We had plans to hang out that day, and suddenly she said she wasn’t able to. She made no mention of her life-vest words to me. I cried a lot. It was a giant, ugly Fell For It Again Award sewed into my chest like a scarlet letter. I really believed, I really trusted, that finally things would change in my life— that things would get better. I was broken. Completely shattered and broken. I didn’t talk much that day either, for better or for worse. I didn’t want to send the message that if I didn’t get my way romantically that I’d pack up my things and run away. So, I sent her a message explaining how it hurt me that she did that, and how confused it left me, wondering if she meant any of it. Now is a little late in the story to mention that she was drunk when she said those things. You can’t blame me, though. It’s nicer for me to explain it- to let myself believe- that it did come from her heart. She replied the next day, saying she did mean those things, but didn’t want anything to change between us. That was very confusing for me as well. She didn’t even remember the later part of our date. She didn’t remember she turned to me, lazy smile and eyes that saw me for who I am, and said she wanted to see the world with me. She didn’t remember- not at all- that she said she saw me. And that’s all I wanted. To her, it was a blurry accepted truth she had no way to explain or verify against herself. That really sucked.
We moved on, though, I was more than willing to stomach my pride to make way for the next plate of shit I’d eat for her. And everything was normal again. We had plans to go to Minnesota together, and I was very excited for the trip. It’s funny, in some way, that I had made that plan without her; I was going up there to see a mutual friend and she caught wind of it and asked to come along. What can you say to that? I was apprehensive at first, coming off the heels of that last experience, but I’d relish any opportunity to see her. So we found each other there. And everything was good! It was all so easy, and we were so close! We spent so much time individually that our mutual friend had to remind me that he was feeling left out, which I felt bad for, of course! But still…that was a wonderful sign for me. She got drunk one of the nights, and we spent it together crying. She told me a lot about her life I didn’t know. I heard her, I listened with the reverence of a congregant receiving a one-woman sermon. I saw her. That night was very special to me, and it always will be. The next day was nice. I felt like we were close. We got coffee together the next morning and— well, sorry, I just remembered I’d be remiss not to mention the good parts outside of the crying, even though that was good in its own way too. We wandered around Minneapolis together. We went to a book store and bought relevant biographies of the people we were studying. We went to get food, just her and I, at two in the morning. She expected me to pay, and I did. She got a drink there, and dropped it, making an embarrassing mess for her. I didn’t see it that way. She wanted to leave without the drink and without the food, but I just let an employee know and got her another cup. Simple as. We went back and shared the food. It was nice.
The next day, the one I alluded to earlier, I expected the worst. Truth be told, I had accustomed myself to being let down after every good experience (that may seem dramatic here, but I can’t go into the context of our relationship where that idea had been reinforced to me again and again at the risk of writing a novella). But it was nice! It was normal! It was easy! We got coffee and hung out together. I was working on a project we had started, and that I was so excited for, and she was playing games next to me. I loved that. That felt right. That felt easy. The rest of the day was unremarkable, in no particular way. It was just normal, simply and wonderfully normal. That night, she drank again, and we were very close. We put our arms around each other and leaned into each other and all the good things you’re able to do when you trust someone enough to be that close to you. This next part is going to sound very silly, but imagine how ridiculous it is to me living through it and knowing the effect it had on me later. Runaway. By Kanye West. I know. Actually so stupid that a Kanye West song sent me on a path toward complete isolation and irreparable loss. But there’s a part of that song:
“Never was much of a romantic
I could never take the intimacy
‘Cause the look in your eyes
And now you’re at an advantage,
‘Cause you can blame me for everything
And I don’t know how imma manage
If one day you just up and leave.”
She looked at me so intently for that part. She grabbed my shoulders and put a finger into my chest, jabbing for emphasis at every part that resonated with her. A message I was supposed to internalize. I didn’t really. It’s funny, but I thought it was romantic in some way. I wanted to see the best in her and in us. I wasn’t going to throw the baby out with the bathwater because of a Kanye West song. But it went on from there. We were sat down next to each other, and she made some pointed reference to a girl she loves. I didn’t know what to think, so my body led autonomously. I asked her why she’d bring that up right now, seeing as we were getting so close and with the memory of her saying she liked me. It was over from there. We went somewhere private, and I asked her what was going on. She got…animated? She put me down. I sat there while she stood and lectured down to me on my flaws. That I’d never be enough for her, because no matter what, she loved someone more than she could ever love me. I was straightforward, I asked about all the things that had happened between us recently, and I cried to her. I told her I loved her and I didn’t understand what was going on. I said to her, “but you said you saw me?” and she, in a moment carved into my skull with her words, replied, “I said that because I was DRUNK.” She said something more after that, continuing to wax on with her…whatever. Her love, for a person other than me. She explained, and this part I understood rationally, she was a gay woman, and had no interest in a man. That really stung for me. I had confided in her that I didn’t feel that way about myself. I told her that I was in my heart the woman I was always, and she called me a coward. She told me I was a coward for being scared of how my family and, frankly, how the world would react. It was confusing too. She stopped in the middle of this to put a weird bug in my ear. Everything got peaceful, if that makes sense. After saying she was only attracted to women, I reminded her once again that I was one, just deeply ashamed of it. And see was like, “okay then, no problem,” saying that was the only roadblock between us being together, but then she got rigid again. I don’t know.
I left the next morning, four days before I was supposed to. I felt lost and desperate to get home and get out of this. It felt suffocating. So I did. And that night was the last time we’ve talked. I don’t know. I really don’t know. I went home and tried to kill myself. Not in a Romeo and Juliet way, but having received an affirmation that the person I loved the most could never love me, and the wonderful times I cherished were blacked out mistakes she made. That she didn’t mean. Moreover, it felt like a rejection by the only person I trusted enough to tell I didn’t like the man I was. And a hundred other things too, unrelated to this. I’ve been carrying so much, and I thought I had someone who saw me and understood and was willing to shoulder some of that burden. Obviously, the suicide attempt didn’t pan out. I took a rainbow of pills, and a lot of them. I drank heavily. I cut my arms open so severely, on both sides, I required multiple stitches. I wanted to be brutally killed. I wanted my head ripped off. My chest ripped open and my rib cage pulled apart hungrily by a beast of death that would devour my heart. Here I am though.
I’ve tried to pick up the pieces, and I’m trying to accept that maybe I’m not that man I was born as. But it’s confusing. I feel lost. I feel like- and not to say it was squarely her responsibility to guide me through it- I have no idea what I’m doing, and transitioning seems so daunting. I have no idea how to be a woman, and I was hoping she’d show me. Oppressively, it feels like there’s absolutely zero point in even bothering. That this is all some shitty LARP to shake the coward label. I can’t imagine meeting someone and them tolerating, let alone falling in love, with me for all I am on top of being a transgender poser who is better off just suppressing that part of me. There’s no clear and happy ending to that. There’s nothing for me. I have family and friends who care, of course, and I know people have less than that and I don’t mean to whine and pout about the wonderful gifts people like me would kill- and have done to themselves- for just that. It hurts me, in my perspective of life, that they don’t really see me. They don’t really know me. And nobody does. I haven’t felt love in my entire life outside of the brief window of heaven between us. I’ve never, since we broke up, woken up next to someone and felt like I had two suns to rely on in the morning. I’ve never since had someone ask me how was my day, whether it be exhausting or beautiful, just to hear me out. Just to share some of that— as partners. I have no one to call when I see a fun event, or concert, or deal at a theme park or aquariums or— whatever. None of it. I eat alone in the dark of my room. I eat alone at restaurants. I dance alone at concerts and take myself to movies. I do all of it, good and bad, alone. Completely, totally, alone in my life. Alone in a body that I hate. And where’s the reprieve? Where’s the happy ending?
My friends tell me that it all works out. That I have value. That I’m a catch. That one day I’ll look back on this and laugh at my despair at my wedding. But when? And how? As a man? Marrying someone as someone I’m not? I’m waiting like patience on a monument for something deceptively billed guaranteed. Just to appease me. To keep me hoping. I’m really sick of hope. I’m sick of forcing myself to just get through till tomorrow. I don’t want to just survive. I want life to be the hope itself. But it’s not. For millions of people across the globe- and that’s certainly a low estimate- that song never comes. Never. Never ever. They live and die alone. Why am I any different? I wish they’d just be honest with me. I wish they’d just say, yknow what? Maybe not. Probably not. So get used to it. I wish someone would yell at me. Well,…I guess she already did. I’ve ranted and regaled this same tired story for years of my life. And nothing’s changed. I will always be like this. I will never be a real woman. I’ll never be safe. My walls will never come fully down again. What is always will be.
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