Finding my footing

On my hike/climb yesterday I injured my ankle pretty badly. And yet, over the past couple weeks, for me the feeling has crystalized that I am, in general, really finding my footing here.

I’ve decided I’m going to stay here. I’m going to do everything it takes to allow me to stay and grow and build my career and reshape my personal life here.

As is often the case for me, this important decision came almost spontaneously, surfacing almost on its own from the broiling waters of “in betweens” that have been my landscape for the past month or so. It’s like bubbles surfacing in a frothy pond, or a meadow appearing clearly after a snow storm, or an island on the horizon emerging peacefully after a violent gale.

I’m staying here because I want to stay here. Because I like it here and feel happy, at peace here, and because there seem to be concrete professional pathways that are better supported for my interests here. I’m not staying because I dread or loath California: I’ve made peace with California and will always love the place where I spent six very important years of my life, I’ll always love it as one can love an ex-partner with whom one has found a kind, sweet, loving closure. Something or someone that one might go back to later on in life, as an old friend.

I’m ready to give this place here a chance, to give myself a chance here. I’m also ready for (a) romantic relationship(s). Probably I’m ready to finally try and make the effort, invest in (a) romantic relationship(s) precisely because I have found my own geographical and, hopefully, professional, footing.

My non-binary climbing friend in California, whom I like in a special way, has asked me again if they can come visit me here. And this time I said “yes”. Because I know that no matter how much I like them and regardless of where they want to live or of what happens between us, I want to stay here for now.

On my hike/climb with a new climbing buddy here yesterday, he asked me about my romantic relationship situation. Despite it being a new acquaintance, I feel very comfortable with him and I knew there were no “extra meanings” in his question, that it was just genuine interest between two people who are building a new friendship. This feeling, together with my own newly-found grounding, allowed me to answer very openly and honestly – that I don’t have a partner now, that I don’t like to do online dating, but especially that it’s hard for me to find someone because of my non-binary/trans gender identity, because “I am a boy who likes boys”. His spontaneous reply to the latter was, “There’s nothing wrong with that!” So I explained better, telling more about myself: “Yes, but it’s not easy to find guys who see me that way because I have a female body. I’m a boy in a girl’s body. I like my body and I don’t think I want to do surgery or take hormones to change it, but it’s difficult for me, and has been very difficult for me in some past relationships, to not be seen as a boy by the guys I like”.

My being able to say all that to someone whom I’ve known for only a short while comes not only from the instinctive ease & familiarity I feel with him, but also and probably foremost from my own newly-found confidence. From finding my own footing.

“This is who I am, this is what I want – whether you like it or understand it, or not”.