Piercing recognition

“Ain’t no angel, oh gonna greet me

I’ve been so far gone living in a fever dream

I wanna stand on the mountain

I wanna know how it feels

I wanna see what the world looks like

When everybody here can feel just what I say

And I’ll do it my own way

Yes, I know, well I know, there’s a price I have to pay

Cause I do it my own way

And I do not know what I need to say

Cause I’m on my own

The rules have changed since I learned to play

So I burn in vain

It is harder now than it ever was

But I’m strong enough so I’m standing up

There are things in me my words cannot betray

So I do what I do, what I do, what I do

And I do it my own way

If I could see in the future

If I could look from the clouds

If I could learn what I don’t have now and could not live without

I’d gladly stay

And I’d do it my own way

Yes, I know, well I know, there’s a price I have to pay

And I do it my own way

…”

I’ve been having a very tough week. 

Moments of hope and happiness and excitement and gender euphoria; and also plain joy from being with and talking to so many good friends, as well as satisfaction from the work on my textbook. 

But then the deep pits of hopelessness and despair — not a general “depression” but specifically induced by gender dysphoria, a sense of alienation (and deep concern for what is going on in the world around me, on top of it all). 

These opposing emotional states have been keeping my mood in sway for over a week and given me plenty of sleepless nights. 

And I just cannot make up my mind re. HRT at the moment. 

Today, however, on my early morning run (which I had to do on music to get self motivated — very unusual for me), I had a moment of perfect, blissful “recognition” , almost piercing recognition or insight or clarity, something that felt like enlightenment, like one of those rare moments when you feel that you KNOW, but not rationally, rather with your body and your soul. 

It happened with a song: “Ain’t not angel” by Ron Pope. 

I’ve always liked both the melody/tune/rhythm and the lyrics of this song, but this morning it was the singer’s voice that spurred a feeling of “recognition” in me. Since pondering about getting on HRT, I have been paying more attention to singers’ voices and noticing how many of them could be male or female, indifferently. And when I heard this song this morning, this singer’s voice, I thought to myself, “That’s a voice I could identify with. If I were a guy with a voice like that, I would feel okay and myself with it” — and I didn’t mean a musical voice, I meant the pitch. I identified with that voice, with that guy: I saw myself in that guy’s voice; I saw myself as a guy I would identify with, in that voice.

I really want to write this here to help me keep record of my ups and downs re. HRT. Because I keep changing my mind about it. 

I know I’m non-binary. I’m not a man and I do always want to honor that part in me that is a female, a little girl, a woman: after all, I was brought up as a girl and a woman; I feel topics like abortion rights viscerally (and in fact went to the pro-abortion rights manifestation on Saturday); I even enjoy wearing “girly clothes” like leggings or skimpy summer dresses sometimes. 

I also know that I feel mostly like a boy, though, I am mostly a boy. But to what extent to I take that? How can I align my outside look to my inside feeling? 

And how important is it to me that the outside world see me the way I feel about myself?

“… 

I do not know what I need to say

Cause I’m on my own

The rules have changed since I learned to play

So I burn in vain

It is harder now than it ever was

But I’m strong enough so I’m standing up

There are things in me my words cannot betray

So I do what I do, what I do, what I do

And I do it my own way

… ”