We got caught up in the No Kings protest in Asheville, North Carolina on March 28. This was such an unexpected and hopeful experience. It really made all of us feel like we weren’t alone, like there are lots of people who actually care about our rights. It really was such a touching and inspiring thing to witness.
Climbing the Craggy Pinnacle Trail last night on the Blue Ridge Parkway with Chris A., Sarah A., Alycia J., and C. It felt the whole way like we were in an Alan Lee painting!
Malaprop Books and Cafe in Asheville. Featuring my iced elderberry matcha, delivered with a special message in place of the standard name / drink notation.
I’m on my way back home from a girls’ trip I just went on to Asheville. This trip was over way too soon. We went to the Biltmore, explored downtown Asheville (interestingly, right during the middle of the No Kings protest, which was surprising but very encouraging and hopeful), and climbed up a trail to the top of a mountain in the Blue Ridge Parkway just in time to see the sunset. We spent three days and nights there in an Airbnb. I’ll probably post some photos from the trip later this week. I got a lot of help with doing my hair and one of them even did my makeup one day. They also really supported me by taking me to use the women’s restroom when I needed to, and were just there for me in a way that helped me feel safe and supported and even confident presenting as completely female in public places several times.
I feel so lucky to have had this experience. I can tell it's going to be something I look back on with yearning for years to come. I'm not even out of North Carolina yet and I feel like crying.
It was a very special thing to have been a part of. This is something I’ve longed for my entire life but never thought I would or could ever experience: to be included in a special occasion centered in and around female friendship—but also particularly with these specific girls. Two of them are from the very friend group that I felt awe and envy for as a teenager in Ohio, wishing that I could be one of them. (The third is the partner of one of those two, who I’ve been forming a close friendship with in the past six months or so. The other, who I’ll call C., is one of their friends from up in Ohio.)
So I’m filled with so much gratitude for being a part of this trip. For having a space made for me in the first place. It feels like a very profound thing, something that I could have very easily not been included in, and for that I’m all the more grateful and filled with wonder and emotion that I was. Do these girls understand how much this means to me, to have been able to share the past few days with them? I hope they do, but I’m not sure if they ever can.
I feel like my home is among these women, much more so than in Charleston, even with the friends I have there. (Three of them live in Ohio, and the partner I know from more recently lives in Charlotte, but plans to move to Ohio soon.) I feel like I've left a part of my heart and soul behind me. Maybe I have.
There’s also another factor. Like I said, the girl I’m calling C. is a friend of one of the girls I knew from childhood. She’s the only one I hadn’t met before. And she was also the only straight girl on the entire trip.
And, of course, I fell for her. I pretty much had a huge crush on her the entire trip. We have so much in common. In terms of personality, interests. She’s a graphic designer, and she’s insanely talented. Like, my jaw was on the floor when she showed me her sketchbook. But because she’s very straight, I have no chance with her at all. So I never said anything. Although one of the women just told me, when I mentioned it her, that she could tell; so I have no idea how obvious I was to the others.
I haven’t felt this way about anyone in months. I tried to mostly just enjoy these feelings, enjoy being around C., enjoy talking to her. And even that was really nice.
But now the trip is over, and I not only feel that I’m mourning the closeness of those friendships, but also mourning my crush, too. I really want to move back to to Ohio so I can live near these friends. But with all the anti trans laws being passed everywhere, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. It just depends what happens in the next few years in Ohio, which is pretty much a red state, even though there are safe cities like Columbus. I don’t know. Part of me just wants to say, fuck it, and just move there anyway, and live in the moment for as long as I can, and deal with whatever bad happens whenever it does happen, if it ever even dos.
So yeah…I’ve only known C. for less than four days, and I already miss her, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. And now I have nowhere to put any of these feelings.
It’s such a strange mixture of emotions I’m sorting through, all while driving back to a home I don’t really want to return to. Missing these friends intensely. Feeling immense gratitude and privilege for being a part of this experience. Warm feelings for someone new. A sense of being cut off freshly from all of them. And on top of it all, an impossible crush.
