Running with the Wolves

Saturday, June 2, 2012

I really really love it when people play with my hair. By that I don’t mean vigorously messing it up with your hands (unless I’m particularly fond of you, I will hate you if you do that). But when someone gently runs their fingers through my hair or softly plays with strands or clumps of it, it’s.. comforting. Sometimes it almost makes me feel like a kid again. Especially if I lay in their lap while they do it. It’s nice. I like it.

Speaking of pride.. As I was thinking about dying my hair a couple days back, for a brief minute I seriously contemplated dying my hair rainbow. Then I laughed at how spontaneous of a thought that was and how my mom would react if I did. Sometimes I wonder how my brain comes up with these ideas.

June

June is by far my favorite month of the year. It’s the beginning of summer, meaning the beginning of fun, relaxation, some socializing, and lots of time to myself. But more than that, it’s LGBTQ pride month. I can’t fully or properly describe the feelings June brings along (and I won’t try because it’ll probably bore to death whoever actually reads this), but it’s an incredible feeling, that much I can tell you. When the rainbow flags go up along Market, when the excitement for pride starts bubbling, when the news start talking about the parade and celebrations, then actually being there at pride.. It just makes me feel that much less invisible to society—like I actually matter—and that much more damn proud to be who I am.

solairebee:

げみ

Friday, June 1, 2012

(Source: luxrays)

(Source: pandor4)

Neutrois.me: Nameless

An ineffable string of random letters and/or sounds that somehow represents you. YOU. Who you are. Your essence. The same word is used to refer to who you used to be; to call your attention to the present; to stand in for who you will become. This name is yours. Your name is yours. You are your name. Even when so many others share the same four, five, six, seventeen letter phrase that, through all your years of existence, has come to signify YOU.

This is why your name is important.

Yet, as transgender and gender-aware people know so well, most names are inherently gendered, which is why most of us choose to change it. We didn’t choose our birth gender, and we didn’t choose our birth name; but we choose our new body, and we choose our new name. Somehow all other aspects of transition don’t have as many options as a name: the possibilities are infinite, and with it the difficulty of a decision increases exponentially.

Sometimes a name chooses us. Much like our gender, as hard as we tried to fit into this or that box, our place in the spectrum awaits us as soon as we discover it, already warm for when we’re ready to nestle into it. But other times, much like our gender and transition and all the choices we’ve had to make along the way, we agonize over our name, mull over a handful of the options, start going down one path only to realize we need to back up or start over.

One of my earlier experiments with names failed miserably. It turns out this was not the right name for me. But is there a “right” name? Or can I at most hold out for a close approximation? Will I be forever stuck with a name with which I can live by, but never truly feel at home in?

I can think of a sizeable number of names that I like, or would like to like. I dream of a name I can call mine, a name I can see myself in, a name that is ME. But it is just a dream.

Given this constant state of flux I’ve been in for years, not being able to see myself in my name – for perhaps my whole life – I’ve come to feel like there is no name at all that fits. It is, after all, called transition, wherein motion is implied. My transition is in progress, with no end in sight. And what is constant motion but a blur; what is the space between moleculues but emptiness; what is something that has no name but ineffable – undescribable, undefinable. Do I even exist without a name? What can I call ME? Who is ME?

Finding a name that “fits” has been one of the hardest parts of my transition.

(Source: neutrois)

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (via careful-darling-you-might-fall)

(Source: 2know2will2dare2keepsilent)

“But don’t forget who you really are. And I’m not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you. You know who you really are. When you’re alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you.” Louis Sachar (via onlinecounsellingcollege)