I run around Seattle with reckless abandon. I enjoy every small moment where I feel my ability to control my life and make choices in action. I live right off the Salish Sea and I’ve never felt more at home. Spring is just beginning here and the optimism of new life is infectious.
Last year I wrote about my state upon turning 19. It’s an age no one ever talks about. Now it is time for me to reflect on that 19th year and to wish myself the best in the 20th. I simultaneously feel like I don’t have enough to say and yet could easily say too much. There have been a lot of changes. For the most part they have been good. However, many of them make me very sad.
I don’t know whether to be honest or to be optimistic. I feel like documenting in detail the pain that this winter brought me shouldn’t be the point of this memo. But to pretend it didn’t happen also defeats the purpose. You can bury the pain of reality for years but it’ll still hit you eventually. The hardest part for me is finding the words. For once in my life I don’t even have a bullshit soliloquy. I don’t know how to put it. Parts of it I don’t remember. The parts I do remember I try not to.
I’ve never felt sad cold as the way I did from October on. Every other minute disappeared in the cross-eyed blurry vision of disassociation. That spring and summer had been the warmest and happiest times of my life. I had a family that I loved. In retrospect I know that every day had me looking the other way at the snubs and digs and active mistreatment because I didn’t want a fight or to look it in the eye. I was still happy despite myself. I would have forgiven (and did) just about anything. All I wanted was that feeling of belonging to last forever.
There was a debt I owed them that I could never repay. Not emotionally, not financially…nothing. We all knew it. Everyone did. You know, I will forever be eternally grateful for the fact that they saved my life. Took me in. Financially supported me for two years. I know I took it for granted. Maybe I didn’t say thank you enough. I know for a fact I thanked the wrong person quite constantly for selfish reasons with altering motives. It was transparent and sickeningly manipulative. It was wrong. The debt in and of itself was not the problem. When people help you like that it’s just there. The problem was the way I was made to feel it. It positioned and soured and chance of permanence between us. It hung over my head like some unspoken promise. A silent threat. Many times it felt like waiting for an axe to drop. I couldn’t sleep half the time in that house. The anxiety slowly eating away at my insides was slowly driving me off the deep end.
I was treated like a child and was expected to act and behave like a perfect, emotionally mature adult. I never asked for someone to be a makeshift parent. Yet I found myself terrified of “friends” who held my insecurities, fears, flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings over my head like it was a joke. Well I wasn’t in on it and it sure as hell wasn’t funny. And I forgave all of that instantly. I told myself…convinced myself…that this was just how mental illness works. I was disposable in the dynamic because I wasn’t dating any of them. From the beginning I had quickly learned that nothing nor anyone mattered much outside of those within the partnerships. So I excused the inevitable and understandable frustration with the difficulties of life that built up and came out towards me because I knew I was there. I was there, I was disposable, I was naturally frustrating all on my own, I was forgiving, and I was powerless.
The only thing I have over them is the truth. Because I know how quickly it could damage their reputations. I know they care about that, and I know that they know what I’ve got over them. But I have no desire to name names or call for collective ostracizing or to exact a calculated “revenge” to make myself feel better. Sure I’m angry, but more than anything I’m sad and hurt and disappointed. These people were my whole world. Besides my parents, life with them was all I’d ever known. Now it’s over. Some of it (more than you’d think) is genuinely my fault. For that I am sorry. The only malice I hold is for Her and she knows damn well why. I do not miss them but I do miss the way things used to be. It hurts me in a way I have no words for. I reassure myself that with time and patience this too may heal.
I still loved them. Destroying them to please and assuage my anger will bring me nothing but embarrassment and regret. I don’t need to spend time writing out a detailed and dated list of grievances and transgressions and then jam it down everyone throat or threaten to revoke my friendship. That’s not me in the first place, but I also don’t think it’d bring me anything remotely resembling peace. They’ve made asses of themselves all on their own. They don’t need me to do that.
However, let me clarify, simply stating true feelings of mine about my experiences is expressing my pain; not my anger. It is not for my gain. If things are lost to them by way of deductive reasoning from vague but true and accurate statements my only response is that those events shouldn’t have occurred in the first place. I am sorry if this hurts or stresses anyone, but I will not bury reality within myself anymore. You do not retain nor deserve my “loyalty”. I hope we all grow from what has happened between us. I hope it makes us kinder and more thoughtful people. I am sorry that I let them down.
So yes, it was a cold winter. I felt hopelessly alone…but I survived. Barely. I must confess to you, reader, that in October I did something I never thought I’d do again. That month had brought difficult health news, loss of my home and family, and a brief but upsetting sexual assault perpetrated by a stranger. All that and I found myself in a motel room in Tukwila so that for just one night I could sleep without the fear of those in the rooms next to me. And then I started filling the tub in the bathroom with ice. And then I pulled a knife I didn’t remember packing out of my bag. I crawled into the ice and stared at the ceiling while I tried to freeze myself off from feeling anything. I do not know how long I laid there with a knife to my throat but eventually I set it down. I turned on a hot shower and sat there shivering and sobbing until all the ice had melted, and I had no tears left.
I am ashamed that after all this time I attempted again. I’d come so far, and that relapse made me feel like a failure all over. I pretend so well that I’m fine I even fool myself sometimes.
That winter went on to feel as cold as that ice almost every day. By Christmas, when I’d found somewhere else to live, I was desperate to be out. It wasn’t truly complete until the middle of January, but for the most part I enjoyed every moment free of them and that house in a way I never thought I would.
I get to build my own life now. I can take care of myself and slowly learn how to live as me. Time will pass and eventually I will have a house and family that is mine. I won’t be afraid. Meanwhile I am content and okay being alone.
For the first time I am free of authority and people breathing down my neck. I will cherish this.
Despite all my sadness I know there is so much for me here in this world. I’ve always been the kid with their head in the clouds. But as I watch the world around me I know, for the first time, I’m in the right place. I don’t need to long to be somewhere else. I don’t need to build a world inside my head to hide away in to feel safe. I have found the backdrop to the beginning of my adulthood.
Let’s talk about the positives. I’ve been a barista since August now. At first I was working in a licensed location that sucked and was exhausting with no reward and drained me to no end. But upon moving I’ve secured a job in the city with a well known coffee company and receive full benefits as well as good and lasting companionship with coworkers and a wonderful location and environment. I have a future and a career. I’ll be able to take advantage of their online college program and pursue a Film and Media Analysis degree despite my lack of funds. I never thought I’d finally see myself working towards school like this. I love my job, despite it’s stressful and exhausting nature. It keeps my mind and hands busy. It helps me feel motivation I have difficulty mustering on my own. It takes a lot out of me, but it feels worth it.
The city itself finds ways to lift my spirits to no ends. The gulls, the crows, the starlings, the swifts, the pigeons, the jays, the flickers, the finches, the hummingbirds, the junkos, the sparrows, the chickadees, the robins, the eagles, the pelicans and an endless abundance of birds give me daily joy. The sunrises and sunsets are the most brilliant hues of lilac and pink and gold and orange that blend together in a warming glow that feels like comfort incarnate. I am surrounded by mountains and snowy peaks and evergreens that make you feel like you’re millions of years in the past. Seattle is so urban and yet so wild. It retains so much of what has come before…I will fight tooth and nail for that. And of course, the sea…it makes sure I know I am home. I hail from Nashville, Tennessee which means I bordered eight other states most of my life. That’s as landlocked as you can get. It is freeing to watch the boats and ferries and cargo ships come and go. I am in a different part of the world and doing much better.
Lastly, let me tell you about the newest and the best addition to my life. The people in my life have been more than wonderful. I have a best friend, Star, who is just about my favorite person on earth. They’ve been there for me in the worst part of my life and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to know them. I’ve grown to know so many wonderful and kind trans folks in this city. The Seattle Nonbinary Collective is a perfect place for someone like me and every other Thursday I spend time with the nonbinary individuals of the city and have a lovely time. Let’s not forget the spectacular friends in my lasting group chat aka Oscar 4 Real Justice. Here is all my love and gratitude to Tony, Ari, Llewyn, Kai, Paloma, Mickey, Tia, Max, Louie, and Adam. You’re all the best and save my life on the daily.
And then there’s The Girl (the moniker I use for her online) and if you know her then you know I like her an awful lot. What our relationship is right now and will be in the future is wildly uncertain but that’s not what’s important to me. Right now I am content to merely spend time with her, the wonderful woman she is. She is warm and kind and so nice. Which is new! I am not used to nice. All my life I have spent devoting myself to taking care of others and having them respond by wanting nothing to do with my affection. But she accepts it gratefully! We are there for one another and find so many wonderful moments together and right now I can’t even begin to tell you how happy and pleased she makes me. She is the sunflower of my life, and no matter what happens, I will be happy to have had those moments now, regardless of what they mean to me later.
So now two decades are behind me. That is a strange and yet exciting feeling. I am sad but I am hopeful and I know there are good times to come. Here’s to the next decade, may it be as brilliant as my surroundings.
Vin can be found on twitter @hologramvin. You can donate to them here, and support their Patreon here.
