Author Archives: adventurerliberated

[Trigger warnings: loss, grief; cancer.] How can grief keep turning around and hit us like a truck over and over again?  I thought I’d be able to sleep it off last night or run it off this morning. But no, it’s still here, tearing at my heart and causing tears to flow profusely, sobbing even. Continue reading

My left hand is aching a little bit after Tuesday’s surgery on my torn UCL. But what is really aching now is my heart.  My heart aches so bad in this moment that I feel like it might almost crack open.  It’s been aching a bit, intermittently, for the past two weeks, with the anniversary/commemorationContinue reading “Ache”

[Spoiler alert: details about the book “The house in the cerulean sea” by TJ Klune] I’m sure Arthur Parnassus is the “young phoenix” mentioned about a third through the book. And he likes, maybe even loves, Lines Baker just as he is. Likes him, maybe even loves him, for all that he is: Arthur canContinue reading ““The house in the cerulean sea””

I get it now why people call it “transitioning”.  Rationally, I’ve always understood it — I totally get the meaning, even the etymology, of the term.  But now I’m starting to get it at a deeper — emotional, physical — level.  I still feel that the term does not apply to me, does not describeContinue reading ““Transition” — “infiltration””

I’m feeling so much ache — ache in the heart — and worry.  I’m trying to stay focused on the practical issues, get all the phone calls and paperwork done for next week’s likely hand surgery and for one or two other medical procedures I’ll need to get done this summer.  The practical issues canContinue reading “Old patterns, new pains”

[Trigger warning: explicit description of body parts, including “sex characteristics”.] I don’t have a penis. So when I was born, I was assigned “female”, or declared a “girl”.  I have a vagina and uterus and functioning ovaries. Despite my GAHT, I still ovulate and menstruate. Depending on when my blood is drawn, my estrogen andContinue reading “This beautiful male body”

This weekend I’ll be incommunicado, off my cell phone.  Today marks four months since I did the burial for my European (gender)queer ex-lover. This weekend also is one year from the weekend that marked the start of our “love affair”.  So there’s a bittersweet taste to this day, to this weekend for me, and aContinue reading “Bittersweet — yet mostly sweet — anniversary”

[Trigger warnings: physical injury; loss] I’m in pieces. Apparently, the silly injury I got on my left thumb two & a half weeks ago is a torn UCL requiring surgery. This would entail six weeks of no “weight-bearing activities” with my left thumb/hand after surgery and effectively three months of no climbing (& no motorcycleContinue reading “Robbed of my golden years”

I keep finding, making my way into, spaces of non-toxic, safe, and nurturing masculinity.  I’ve been doing this my entire life but now I’m doing it in a more conscious way or, rather, with a different awareness because of the more explicit and liberated way I can express & present my gender identity.  This weekendContinue reading “Oases of safe & nurturing masculinity”

Today, a new love story has started, maybe the sweetest, and possibly also the trickiest, of my life.  Today, I have become a father: the father of the little boy within me.  I think that today I finally not only understood rationally but also truly came to touch and feel and integrate within me emotionallyContinue reading “I will father the little boy in me”