Living in my mind — Living in my body

For most of my life, at least since middle school, I lived in my head, almost exclusively with my mind. Being trans, although I didn’t have the words for it, I suffered from (gender) dysphoria and so the more my body turned into a “female body”, the more I fought it, hid it, or ignored it. Being smart and autistic and fortunately able to adapt to, and excel in, the traditional schooling system I went through made it even easier and safer and almost “natural” for me to just focus on my intellectual abilities and interests. My body was just this container carrying around a very smart mind — something “neutral”, “ungendered”. And I took care of my body only to the extent to which it could add to my androgynity, mainly through intense or excessive exercise, adventures with my buddies, borderline eating disorders, and sometimes sex. But there was no sensuality, no relaxed pleasure in living in my body or relating to myself or the world physically: I either used it to excel athletically, or starved it to be as “linear” and androgynous as possible, or ignored it, while I focused on earning degrees and certificates, getting a PhD, learning, proving myself intellectually and professionally. 

Now, it’s almost the opposite. 

At last, in my early forties, I have the body I had always wanted, always dreamed of and chased. It’s here, it’s mine, even if for just a couple years before I get old and loose it again. And now all I want to do is live in this body of mine. 

I’m glad I have a job that is interesting, intellectually stimulating, and socially meaningful. But I cannot get myself to really feel motivated in it or in any other intellectual endeavor at the moment. I’m tired of, or uninterested in, using my mind only. I want to use my body, live in my body, enjoy my body. 

Partly, live in my body as an athlete. This, from the outside, may seem the same as how I’ve been living in my body for most of my life with the intense or excessive exercise and all the competitions. But in reality it’s different: because only now can I compete in/with the body that feels comfortably my own and within gender categories (preferably nonbinary, alternatively male) that are aligned to my identity. Winning races now as a nonbinary trans athlete has a completely different, and much more authentic and fulfilling, feeling for me than any of my victories when I had to compete as a “female”. (And the social and political act of me showing up, visibly and loudly and proudly, as a nonbinary trans athlete is also of paramount importance.) 

But partly now I also live in my body with a sensuality and a pleasure that I did not know earlier in life. I love my body, I feel at home in it and I want to enjoy it. That’s it: I don’t think I really knew how to enjoy it — or I didn’t want to because I felt so dissociated from it. Now I want to enjoy it and I want to share the enjoyment, in sensual and/or sexual ways with other people. This is a new feeling for me — only from the past couple of years, since my gender-affirming top surgery. While coming into my aro-ace identity has helped me understand my relation to sexuality and relationships, the physical, sensual cravings have also become stronger and clearer to me as I have finally come home to my body. 

But being aro-ace doesn’t make it sufficient for me to enjoy my body by myself — I crave to share the physical enjoyment.