Queerness for me has become and then been loneliness. There is one time a year – at Pride – when I feel part of something bigger.
As we get older, more of us find the person we want to spend our time with. Whether that’s a few years or a lifetime, that plays itself out.
I can relate to being with men. I’ve known romance with them. I can appreciate their good qualities because of having an amazing dad and the good ones I’ve been with.
But this stops somewhere. The lifetime I picture for myself is with a wife. I can’t participate in planning lives with men. There are things that come with this life that none of my people understand right now. A proposal will be a conversation of who does it, whether we both wear rings, and it will be on my mind that not every woman like me has the privilege of having the right to marry her fiance. I will have to save thousands of dollars to have a child. We will decide who carries the baby. We will have to inject ourselves or the other with medication for 21 days or more. One of us will not see ourselves reflected in the face of the child. A conversation of this child’s relationship with the donor will take place. And then it will take place again and again. One of us will be labeled as “mother” on the birth certificate and the other will be labeled as “parent”. This child will grow up knowing their family unit looks a little different than most of their friends’.
Showing affection in public is calculated. It may potentially never not be.
Each year, I’m scared no one will come to Pride with me. It is the only event I look forward to every year.
I am alone in my admiration of two women walking by me holding hands. Seeing queer love aging is a rare and special thing – unapologetically themselves in times that were more unforgiving than now. A way of being I have fought to embody.
Working to accept who you are and choosing to bring people into your tornado makes you crave participation and explicit membership in the community.
Interpersonally, I don’t have anyone who intimately understands my experience of being gay. I don’t have someone to confide in when I’m not sure whether a girl wants to be my friend or more than that. Romance between women looks very different from romance between a man and a woman. Break ups feel like my world is ending because they weren’t just my partner, they were my connection to queerness. They were the person i experienced love with, and queer love is radical. This bonds people in ways not easy to put into words.
I am endlessly thankful for the sense of pride I feel in being queer. I know there is a home for me in a multitude of places outside of these walls. I know I can find love, unity, respect, explicit acceptance, and home with other queer people. Right now, that just feels so far away. It is a strange thing – to both belong and to be isolated.
love
06/27/21 girls girls girls
It feels weird writing something that isn’t depressing. And it feels weird knowing I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
A two and a half hour catch up session with girls I’ve known since before I knew myself left me feeling high off happiness. Whenever I leave the ones I’m so lucky to have in my life, I wonder how these relationships found their ways to me. We’re bonded in the little looks across the table, knowing what each other are thinking…the gasps and screams with one’s good news, and the bond of having grown into ourselves together. History is irreplicable.
It’s also in the little moments too though. I called one of my best friends at 7pm on a Saturday, and was on her front doorstep in another city by 9. By 10 I felt like I’d known her friends – former strangers – for years. It’s in changing in front of each other because that’s what girls do, making poptarts together while hungover and realizing how much we like each other’s company despite knowing each other for 12 hours.
My mum has always told me to appreciate the little things. Live life with gratitude. I never felt inclined to be that way until now.
Now there’s just intimacy in everything. There’s little moments every now and then where I feel so intertwined with them. I’m realizing my fixation on finding my other half was a lonely waste of time. I am already so whole. I’m surrounded by girls whose pieces fit with mine. And we know so much of each other.
I just feel like womanhood is so powerful. I understand you because we have some of the same pieces. I know what you’re about to say and you know what I’m thinking when we make eye contact at a party. There are compliments on compliments. Permanent smiles. So much laughter. Shots, dancing, joints, shared drinks, photos, kisses, card games. Physical manifestations of love and warmth.
I also know though, the feeling of being a foreigner in my own body and trying to shower enough times that the feeling of heavy hands disappears. I know that it doesn’t for a long time. I know the feeling of trying to translate your mind to someone who just can’t seem to hear you. And the feeling of being disappointed that you “let” someone treat you that way. And then the realization that we have to forgive ourselves first. That we didn’t let them do anything. They did it to us.
The common experience we have – the good and the bad – is intrinsically us. The depth of understanding is so loving.
And the little things turn into big things. It’s in the way we are learning to demand respect. To say “don’t talk to me like that”.
To realize that these girls know who we are and they love us for it, through it, and towards it. So it’s about time to love ourselves too.
I just fucking love girls.
05/30/21 love n other drugs
When I think about the past year, I don’t think of it with so much resentment anymore. Ringing in 2021, I was in my bed. I went to bed at 9pm. The lack of booze, friends, cheers, kisses, was so fulfilling for me. It felt like 2020 had finally come to an end and I was allowed to just be in my head and in my own self for the one night. The events of 2020 were put in their place. I couldn’t let them bleed into my life any more than they already had.
I still feel parts of 2020 in me though. In my reactions, in words of songs, what I tell strangers on the internet. It all just doesn’t hit as hard anymore.
In the past two months my outlook on life has changed. I’ve realized that my life is saturated with love. I’ve always been obsessed with being loved…trying to shape myself into the perfect person someone could be infatuated with. I realize now that people pouring love into me wasn’t enough as long as I had no love for myself. It’s like they were pouring into someone who had no bottom. All this love went right through me.
It’s a Sunday night. I’ve always found Sundays hard. When I think about Sundays now though, I think of how I get to see three little kids tomorrow who know me and love me and make me feel seen. How the fact that the little girl and I have the same number of letters in our names, and she had the biggest smile when I told her that the 14 letters made us the same.
On Sundays I think of how being loved isn’t dependent upon being perfect. I don’t know where this came from, but I’ve believed for as long as I can remember that love is earned. Love is kept through proving you deserve it.
Now, I know that loving someone is timeless. The duration is irrelevant when the feeling is there. The history I’ve made with my friends – the girls who have got me through things I never thought I’d experience – means our stories are intertwined. The two girls from high school who I’ve grown with, the work friends that have turned into best friends, the university friends and exes who picked up my pieces more than once. My mum always answering the phone, and my dad whose love language is making snacks and giving hugs. These are the ones who have made my story.
I’ve also realized in the past year how love is communicated in a thousand different ways. I’ve never been able to show affection. I’ve never been one to initiate affection. It goes through my mind to touch someone and I get a sick feeling when I just can’t bring my mind to my hands and I shut down. When I started working with people with dementia though, it opened my eyes. The “I love you”s from residents, the hand holding, storytelling, hugs, cheek kisses, sunny walks, and the fact that I’m the person tucking them in at night and reminding them that they’re adored. Those are the little things that have made me realize what love actually is. It’s there if you choose to see it. I feel so lucky to have gained these little loves, and that in the past year, I’ve realized what story I want to tell in how I live.
Now, I end phone calls with my friends with “I love you”. I take pictures and videos all the time because seeing people smile back at me is love. I say when I see something I like in someone because it’s nice to have someone try and see you deeply. Understanding is the ultimate intimacy.
Now, it’s very clear to me that I’m right where I’m meant to be, surrounded by the people whose stories I’m very lucky to watch unfold. Even though last year brought so many of us down, these little loves are here to help pick us back up.
Lessons on Love
-say “i miss you” honestly and often – but only when you truly feel it. tell them specifically what you miss. make it personal. miss the specifics.
-don’t swear at them.
-don’t accuse; say what you feel. this is you being introspective enough to explain what you’re feeling as a result of something they’ve done/said. more “i feel…” and less “you’ve been…”
-take a breath before sending that message. you can never take back something you’ve said. let them read and respond to what you have said. tackle one topic at a time.
-setting boundaries is an act of love for yourself, and for them. without clear lines, resentment builds up if they overstep the non-existent boundary. be clear about what you’re okay with. stay open, and don’t let things build. express your feelings as soon as you can.
-never call them crazy. try not to call anyone “moody”. it’s invalidating of whatever is making them feel down. meet them with support, not assumptions.
-say “i love you”. tell them what you love about them, how they make you feel. they’ll remember this.
-also, find the “i love you”s in actions. making you dinner, eye contact and a subtle smile across the room, the hand on your leg, asking what you’re reading. acts of love.
-if you’re overwhelmed, try and pinpoint what need isn’t being satisfied. by simplifying the disgreement into “I need ___”, it is translated to them how to meet you in the middle.
-sleep on the disagreement if you need. always say goodnight. you’re entitled to going to sleep feeling what you’re feeling, but sleep provides clarity sometimes wakefulness can’t.
-“there’s no way to be perfect, but there are a million ways to be good”. you won’t be the “perfect” partner, but you can always be good. stay good.
-you don’t get to tell them you didn’t hurt them. remind them of your intent, but don’t excuse/undermine the validity of their feelings. take responsibility and apologize, but only if you mean it. an apology out of obligation is worse than no apology at all.
-validating someone’s feelings does not reinforce bad behaviour. if someone has shut you out, you need to give more than you’re getting. reach out. support. validate their feelings enough that they can be at peace with them in order to move on in a positive way. do not shame someone for showing their feelings, because they will be less inclined to do so in the future.
-relationships are in parts. there is good, bad, complicated. the whole relationship does not need to be simplified. we learned a thousand good things from each other, even if it didn’t work out how we imagined.
-actual love isn’t expectant, it’s accepting
the significance of hours 