disorganized overshare

I need my community today.

Not being on facebook, there's a lot that I miss. People assume that everyone sees everything, and I am very often forgotten. Yesterday, two different people--one of them my ex-husband, who does not communicate with me--sent text messages to inform me of a community member's passing.

I had not been close with this person over the last many months. I don't know if I would say that we were ever close, but we definitely had a relationship. The news of her death struck me, and I'm not sure yet how to respond.

Each death is different. All grief is the same, but each time we encounter grief we must experience it in the way appropriate to the situation. (Appropriate for each of us as individuals! I certainly don't mean to suggest that there are right or wrong ways to express grief.) This is the first time I've had to process a loss of this kind since my life turned over.

How do I talk about that, even? I mean, I'm going to need some specific, brief way to refer to the chain of events that comprised the year I was 27, still continues, and changed everything forever. My life collapsed. Now I am rebuilding it. I have a more solid foundation than I knew. 

I loved Nancy's energy. She brought such great enthusiasm to everything she did, and she had so many great ideas. She was truly dedicated to bettering our community using her skills and her resources. Nancy saw that everyone had a story, and she wanted to share queer and trans stories with as many people as she could.  I am honored that she filmed and published the piece I read at TransPride 2014. To even say that in the same paragraph feels selfish. 

Everything I experience is colored by the influence that he had on my life. I am frustrated by it now. Everywhere I go, something pops up that reminds me of him. I reached into a pocket of a bag I brought to my parents' house and found a pair of his leather cuffs. Everywhere I go, he is there. I am trying to remind myself that this is not because he still has control over me. It is because we spent four years of our life together. We built a history, and then we separated a household. Things shuffle and get lost and found in that process. 

Anyway, I don't want to become a person who takes death and makes it all about myself. There are others who were much closer to Nancy who are grieving harder than I am, and my role is to feel my own feelings while supporting those people in any way that I can. How do I make myself available to those people? Where are they? What can I do? Who can I feed?

homecoming, number whichever

I'm trying to go to sleep, but sleep eludes me. My schedule has been all messed up over vacation. I slept for 12 hours a night, plus a nap most days. Then three hours the night before we left. I let Dad drive most of that trip.

My mind is racing, and I don't know where to direct it. I want to direct it to calm down, to go to sleep, because it's bedtime and we can do that right now. It disagrees. I went to sleep around 11:00 last night and woke up about 9:30 this morning, the last time. I am developing new motor patterns for this keyboard. It's smaller than most of the ones I have used, and some of the hotkeys/key combinations are different. Most of them are. There are fewer keys.

I need something I can tell to stop default capitalizing. I might not want capital letters right now.

I try to go to sleep and I start thinking about C, and work, and my students, and women…. Lately I've been thinking about more of C's stories and wondering how much was true. Some of them were plausible. The problem was that all of them were plausible, for far too long.

I'm sure there was plenty to process from vacation. I don't know that I'll want to take a trip like that again. It was kind of….stressful. And could have been at least 2 days shorter than it was. I worry sometimes that because my parents were, or always seemed to be, looking for ways to spend more time with their families on vacation, that they are hurt when I don't. or that they are hurt just because they're my parents and they love me.

I really do need to be here. I need to be on my own. Pittsburgh is where I've found home. I was so excited to come home today. My neighbor Sam said he heard me when I got in saying something about it, don't know if I was talking to the cats or the door or what. The best part about leaving Pittsburgh really is coming back. I drove all the way around the city today, even though I didn't have to. I wanted to see it, to see Downtown gleaming in the sunset from every angle. I came through right after the Pirates game started, so traffic was moving at mostly fun paces. I went around a curve over the North Shore and the smell of hotdogs filled my car. I turned my head and saw the boats in the river, hoping to catch a ball that got hit out of the park. The city smelled like baseball, and I loved it like new again.

I miss you, small but loyal blog circle. I've been quite out of the habit. Hopefully I'll have more for you soon, given the improved computer situation. I'm enjoying this little thing so far. I transcribed some voice notes I'd recorded into my phone a while back, so maybe some of that will turn into writing, and some scraps might make their way here. Remember that every time I say I should write about something, I don't.

I am rediscovering myself, and I have changed. It will be necessary for my sanity that I continue to sort out my thoughts this way.

On another note, at B's recommendation I am reading On the Move, Oliver Sacks's autobiography. I haven't finished it yet, and I am thoroughly enjoying it so far.

Big day!

I just got myself a new computer. I haven't had one since September. I missed two-hand typing! Hopefully this will make for some positive changes in my writing/internet/home life. I'm extra excited because it's one of those nifty new(ish) flippy ones that you can position in 4 different ways and use as a tablet. This morning, I picked up my car after having its second bumper replaced in a year and a half of owning it. It looks so shiny and intact! I'm preparing to travel with my family of origin for the first time in years. I think we're taking my car. Should be an interesting trip! I'm excited to stare at a lake and do nothing for a few days. There are so many things I should be doing to get ready, but I'm just not interested in any of them. It's too damn hot in this top-floor apartment, so I prefer to hide in the one room that has air conditioning. I find myself smiling a lot lately. I truly enjoy my life. Ah, clicking keys feel so good!

update:

I'm starting to process my abuse and recovery in writing. This is a good sign. Not ready to share just yet. 8 months tomorrow since I left. My life is probably the best it's ever been. I know with certainty that I am loved.

Embracing Gratitude

i might feel gratitude more deeply this year than i have ever felt it before.

i am so grateful for my family. my given family has played a bigger role than i am used to this year. i have learned a lot about my parents and my brother in the last few months. i have also learned a lot about a few members of my chosen family. levels of trust have deepened.

i am grateful for my co-workers, my colleagues, who want me to be happy and do what is right for me. who are cheering me on while i am doing a very hard thing in my personal life. and for those colleagues who don't know, or at least don't talk about it.

i am grateful for those of you who continue to support me from far away. it truly inspires me that my support network spans oceans.

tomorrow is Peter's birthday. i cried into one of his shirts tonight, caught off-guard while i was choosing outfits. it occurred to me that i am even grateful for the experience of grief. i am always glad to be reminded of the depth of human emotion i can experience, whether it is painful or joyous. i am grateful for the way grief draws us together. it reminded us that we all exist, and we should look out for each other.

Who will raise a PBR with me on December 9? (or 9 Decembre, if you're so inclined).

Zie is Here.

Leslie.
I cannot speak this sadness over the loss of someone I will never meet.
I read your words cross-legged on the floor
Of the first room that ever showed me community--
This community, our Rainbow.
My heart shattered for Jess,
For you,
Knowing that every word of this novel was true.
My hands wrung the paperback cover curled
As your femme worried your shirt collar:
"How am I ever going to get these stains out?"
I waited for the butch who would come home to me bloodied,
And hoped I would never meet hir.
I swooned at the literary purr of your motorcycle
And waited for my broad back to lean into.
In your words, I saw the first version of myself
That I ever wanted to be:
A fearless protector, who knows she is comfortable as a womyn-loving-womyn.

Leslie, you were the first to paint me a picture of the world I was going to live in,
And you did it with your words.
In a sense, you were the first butch I ever fell for.
You revealed to me that
Butches are there for loving.

I caught myself crying in the bathroom mirror after I heard of your passing.
I felt the surge of an enveloping hug move through me, and I know,
Zie is here.
In every one of us who remembers hir,
Who respects hir,
Who values Leslie's work,
Zie is here.
Zie has an impact as far-reaching as zie could have hoped,
And maybe farther. Certainly farther than I know.
Leslie's influence will never stop living.
Zie is here.

the state of things

It's been too long. I want to write something to you, you two or three members of this public/private literary collective, who have demonstrated interest in each other's inner thoughts and the details of our lives. And anyone else who may be reading. I'm hesitant to say some things on the Internet. Funny how that can change.

I left my husband almost two months ago now. I am moving one step at a time. There's a lot of waiting involved. I am staying in a safe place, and I am so well supported. So well. My support network spans oceans. 

Some decisions take a long time to make. This one took about three months, in its acute phase. Ever since the day in July when he woke up drunk and woke me up groggy and we got into a fight about nothing that ended with him grabbing me around the waist and throwing me out of the house, barefoot, without keys or my wallet or anything. He locked the door behind him. Miraculously, my keys were in the cupholder of one of the chairs on our front porch. I grabbed them and ran, got into the car and drove to the only place I could think of. While I was trying to get someone to go back to the house with me--I know better than to go some places alone--he threatened suicide and stopped answering my calls. I called 911 from the car, sitting in traffic trying not to panic. He was involuntarily committed.

When he was released from the hospital, we agreed that he would stop drinking and we would seek counseling individually and together. We tried it. I felt that I was making progress individually with my therapist, and he felt that he finally found a therapist who understood him. I hope he's still seeing her. Couples counseling progressed very slowly. Scheduling can be a nightmare. Our couples counselor broke up with us three days after I left, at our last appointment, saying that it would be contraindicated for her to continue treating us given the state of things. He tried to fight it. I understood, let my professional clinician intervene, shook her hand, and walked away.

We had the same conversation over and over for months. He did most of the talking. I shouldered all of the blame. In September, I found myself sitting with my back against the inside of the guest room door, trying to maintain a safe space for myself. He berated me through the closed door for what could have been half an hour about how selfish I am, and it finally occurred to me:

I deserve better than this.

It took four more days. He picked me up from work and started another fight in the car on the way home about how everything is my fault. It continued once we arrived at the house. There was a moment when he looked at me and said, "I just can't win with you." I responded, "Not right now, no." He asked, "Then why are you still here?" I realized there was no reason remaining, so I grabbed my things and I left.

Part of me is afraid to tell my story, because I have seen him telling his side to others. I am worried about the friends I may lose. He lies. This is a sad truth I am finally learning, the kind of lesson that makes you wonder if anything you ever knew was right. He lies. This is my round Earth, my solar-centric system. My entire life for the last four years may have been a fairtyale--the original Grimm, not adapted for Disney's gentle audience. Part of me is afraid to tell my story because I am afraid he will find it and somehow use it against me. He cannot cause me any more harm.

As I drove away and paused to catch my breath, I found myself for a moment and I smiled. I do not have to put up with this anymore.

I know it is important to tell my truth.