The Little Prince and the Fox

I now officially sing bass. Or maybe baritone, but still on the males’ deeper voice spectrum. 

My voice has been gradually dropping for over a year and a half with some discontinuous, almost sudden, changes, like bumps downwards every now and then. For months I have been aware of how deep my voice is when I sing, of the low notes I can hit — and, conversely, of the notes and songs/singers that I cannot sing (along with) anymore. And the people around me have noticed it, too: a couple times I’ve done a fun music session with a cis-male friend or two and they commented, almost astonished, that I was singing the lower parts and they the higher ones; a few times I’ve done music with my housemate, singing with her while she played her guitar, and she has made validating, appreciative comments like, “You’ve got quite a bass going there”; and my friend from Iowa who joined me on part of my trip this past summer and who’s a musician with a beautiful soprano voice told me just a few days ago when I called her that I startled her on the phone because my voice has dropped since we last saw each other in the summer, and she literally said, “I think your voice has dropped another octave?!”.

Also, I’ve been singing in a trans choir for over a year now and I’m aware that I sing among the lowest parts. But still, in our small trans choir, we adapt songs and parts to our changing voices and things are relaxed and easy-going, with many of us often changing roles/voices depending on the moment and/or the song — which is why it’s so wonderful to be able to sing in a choir where almost everybody is trans!

And, most annoyingly, in everyday life I often still get misgendered because of my voice, probably because when I speak in public I’m often tense and switch back to a voice that is closer to my old, higher voice, which is frustrating.

But today I sang in a bigger choir of almost solely cis people — lovely queer elders with whom my trans choir is preparing a performance. This is a numerous chorus with clearly divided sections for the different voices so I was asked in what section I would sing. And knowing, by comparison or exclusion, that at this point both alto and tenor are too high for me, I picked the bass section. For the first time. For the first time ever I was sitting & singing with the deepest male voices. And as the only non-cis-man (apart from two trans people from my own choir). 

It’s hard to convey with words how meaningful, how impactful this is to me. 

Maybe because my body hair isn’t thick, yet, and it’s still very far from the way it would be if I were an “adult man”; or maybe because the deepening of my voice was one of my most desired outcomes of HRT. Either way, singing officially in the section of the deepest male voices of a choir, and being totally able to sing along and hit all those low notes (& struggling with the high ones), was incredibly, almost mind-boggingly, affirming to me today. 

I’m still reeling from it now. 

Last night I went out dancing. I went out dancing again at last. 

There’s a live music & dancing venue in the town where I live where a band was playing songs by The Eagles last night and since one of my neighbors & I both really like The Eagles and had been trying to go to one of these “Eagles cover shows” since last summer, we finally went last night, last minute. 

And I had a blast. 

I hadn’t felt such complete, pure, untainted joy in months. Months. Probably eight months. And I really don’t feel this type of complete, pure joy often. Which is probably sad and definitely one of the main reasons I often feel profoundly sad, like a shadow in my heart, because I’m not getting life-nourishment that I need. 

I need fun dancing like plants need water and sunlight. 

To me, there’s something about dancing to music I enjoy that is like a force of life. It wakes me up and enlivens me and energizes me like nothing else does while also allowing me to let go completely, wholly, like I never otherwise do. 

I never really let go. I find ways of getting myself distracted, of relaxing, of decompressing, but there’s always a degree of control: be it yoga or meditation or intense exercise or extreme/risky adventures or hanging out with friends or reading or listening to music or singing: there’s always an aspect of control and self-consciousness. I’m always inside myself. 

I don’t use mind-altering substances, I’ve only gotten high on weed a couple times with a trusted friend and when I have a beer I don’t even have a whole one so as not to feel any loss of control. So I’ve felt a complete loss of control and an opening of my self only rarely: the couple times I got high on weed with my trusted friend; during my KAPT sessions last May; on some “runner’s highs” on beautiful trails; a few times of wonderful sex. And the occasions when I dance like last night.  

One of the therapists with whom I worked in Europe, a decade ago, followed a school of thought that maintains there are only four real emotions, or groups/families of emotions, which are innate to us and have physiological & evolutionary reasons to exist, namely: joy, anger, fear, and sadness. Each of these “major real emotions” or “emotional families” includes various others, as sadness would include grief, for instance. The “joy” category includes not only the various forms of happiness but also love: the “joy” category is considered, or represents, the category of emotions that “drive life” (and in such a way are physiologically/evolutionarily innate). 

What I experienced dancing last night and the other times I felt pure, untainted joy, for me confirm this interpretation of the “joy” emotional category: because in those moments the joy I feel is also love: pure, untainted, unconditional, unselfconscious love. In those moments, I feel like I’m just a drop in the ocean, but powerfully a part of the whole. In those moments, I perceive myself differently, I feel physically & mentally looser, and more profoundly well in my body. Those are the only few moments when I truly let go.

Last night on the dance floor I could feel myself let go, I could physically feel all the gripping and burdens leave my body, leave my mind, leave my soul. I was shedding, truly shedding, as I could physically feel the pain flow out of me and the grief peel off of me. The pain and grief were physically leaving my body & mind & soul last night, like water flowing out of me or layers of old skin peeling off of me. 

So wonderful. And liberating. 

But it wouldn’t have happened if I had been dancing alone in my room, even assuming I could get high volume music and special lighting. The presence of other people and my awareness of many of them watching me and enjoying my dancing or empathizing with my enjoyment made a whole difference. I need to be seen, physically seen. Now that I feel so well & aligned with my body, now that my body is so beautiful but also so aligned to how I feel within and how I see myself, I want & need the outer world to see me. 

I need moments of pure, untainted joy like out dancing last night. It’s the lack of moments like these, and of sharing moment like these with other people, that brings on that dark sadness within me that feels like a shadow in my heart & soul. If you want to call that darkness “depression”, call it “depression”: but it’s not going to be cured by a pill. Only joy, in the deeper or broader sense of “joy” as the set of emotions connected to life-driving experiences, and in the sharing of these moments with other human beings — that’s the only real, and lasting, cure.

“

This is how it is with love. 

Once invited,

it steps in gently, 

circles twice, 

and takes up as much space

as you will give it. 

“

[Joyce Sidman]

The love I got again for a couple months last spring & summer was of a type that I hadn’t had for a long time, almost decades. I’m not sure that I invited it, but it definitely knocked at my door last spring, stepped in gently, and took up as much space as I would give it. 

And I gave it an ocean of space. As much space as my heart and soul could contain, could offer. 

And now that ocean of empty space is filling up with grief like dark waters from a flood filling an underground cave.

Grief is hitting me like a truck. Or maybe like a tsunami — because a simple wave I could ride, or swim through, or sail over. 

It woke me up early this morning, maybe around 3 or 4 am. I’m not sure, I didn’t look at the time, I just let myself feel. I let the emotions wash over me, the memories pour over me. That’s what they needed, maybe what I needed, too. 

The memories of the relationship with my European queer ex-lover, from our first interaction almost two years ago in the spring of 2022 to this past summer of 2023. 

Yesterday I rehoused Frederick den Farn, the fern that my European queer ex-lover left (with) me this past summer of 2023 when they returned to Europe. I tend to have quite a black thumb so it’s almost a miracle that this plant survived until now, over five months. But finally, this past week, I felt I needed to let go of it. I needed this plant to be out of my sight — as are the two books that my European queer ex-lover gave me and the mug they painted for me. I’ve been feeling the need for a more tangible ritual, getting rid of these objects. Somehow, just being out of my sight in a box in the garage isn’t sufficient anymore — it’s insufficient for my pain and insufficient for the need of leaving behind & starting over that I feel now. So I’ll have to figure out what to do with those objects. In the meantime, though, I could get rid of the fern that was almost constantly in my sight in the living-room: so I decided to rehouse it and yesterday I gave it to another queer person with whom I think there’s a budding friendship. And who I know is willing to hold space not only for my fern but also to listen to my story and feelings re. my European queer ex-lover. 

I think rehousing Frederick den Farn yesterday spurred the renewed grief tsunami that woke me up, full of memories washing over me early this morning. Or maybe rehousing Frederick den Farn was just the last, tangible reason for the renewed tsunami of grief. 

With the start of the New Year and getting closer to my double anniversary coming up on January 26th, I have been feeling a mix of nostalgia and also wariness around what I am feeling now and, especially, will be feeling in the upcoming weeks & months. Because as the weeks and months roll on, as dates come & go again, I will be reminded of dates, events, and emotions from the same period one & two years ago. Both two years ago and last year, the first six months of the year and, especially as the winter slowly turned into the spring and then spring blossomed, I too blossomed and slowly bloomed, opening up to what the world, my new home in Colorado and then my new body, brought to me. And one of the things that came to me was the European queer visiting researcher who eventually became my friend and then lover. 

Both in 2022 and in 2023 the first six months of the year brought me a succession of openings, of (good) surprises, of new starts, of love and other wonderful things (despite some difficulties, too). What will 2024 bring me? I can’t imagine any beautiful surprises heading my way now or in the next few months: all I can see for now is those dates, those recurrences and anniversaries coming around as reminders of the beauties of last year and/or the previous year, reminding me ever more starkly of what I’ve lost.

[Trigger warning: vivid dream of a car crash with some injuries but no casualties; darkness.]

A couple weeks ago my French climbing buddy left me a very sweet voicemail to say Hi and explain his recent silence — and he said, literally, “Sorry, dude, but life has been hitting me like a truck”. 

Apart from feeling for my buddy because I care about him and know him really well and could hear the sincerity in his voice, the expression he used (in English instead of the usual French) felt very vivid and appropriate to how I’ve been feeling, too, so I could really empathize. 

And I wonder if that expression spurred at least part of an extremely vivid dream I had early this morning.

Dream: 

I was in a vehicle, a small car, with three other people I knew, driving at night, when we were suddenly crunched up by a huge truck. Initially, it looked like the truck was rear-ending us, so we passengers yelled to the driver to slow down. But then, as our driver friend brought to our attention, we saw that the same truck was also closing us in from the front. We eventually came to a halt with our small car partly smashed up & crushed between different sections of the truck. Before this halt, I vividly remember seeing our car getting crushed, with the rear doors, especially the one on the side of the other passenger, being smashed in and myself thinking lucidly about rolling or jumping out of my own rear-door which was still accessible and relatively safe. Which, in fact, I eventually did, saving myself. 

Finally, the crash came to a halt and the other rear passenger & I came out relatively unscathed, although shaken. The front of our car was more beaten up and our other two friends (or parents?) in the front were injured and trapped. As I/we worried & busied ourselves to help them, they reassured us that they would be alright and encouraged us, almost commanded us, to continue our journey, to move on and go ahead without them. All they requested us to do was to leave them there safely, i.e. call medical aid for them and make the wrecked car visible in the dark night road (the big truck was gone by now) so it/they wouldn’t get hit by other vehicles. 

So that’s what I did with my other friend from the rear passenger seat and, albeit with concern & mixed emotions, we set out and moved on along the dark night road, walking against the oncoming (sparse) traffic.  

Afterthoughts / interpretation: 

The two people in the front were definitely older/more mature, parent or care-giver figures. The other passenger sitting in the back seat with me was like a friend but only partly, or vaguely, there. 

If I follow the school of dream interpretation according to which I (i.e. the dreamer) am each & all parts/entities in the dream, then I am the person who got saved & moved on, but I’m also the wiser, caring persons who saved me or encouraged to save myself by continuing my journey leaving them behind; and I’m also my “shadow friend” from the back seat, my own companion continuing the journey with me — maybe another (older?) part of me that can still be helpful to me on this voyage. And I’m also the small car in which I was traveling, which got smashed up and had to be left behind; as well as the big truck that crushed the small car (& then disappeared). And I might even be the (sparse) night traffic, those few cars driving in the opposite direction in the dark, while I walk forward (or, at least, have the intention to do so). 

I find this dream incredibly powerful. And clear. I’m sure it’s telling me to move on from the current wreck of my life — or to move on and make a change, leave something (that seems) important behind, before my life gets wrecked too severely & I get totally crushed. 

Time to move one, even if only on foot, with no vehicle; even if in the dark, walking against oncoming traffic? 

Leave the wreck behind — it will be taken care of, somehow — and walk on, before it’s too late. Continue my journey — whatever that may be, wherever it may lead, despite the current darkness.

This has been the first good Christmas for me in years. But it’s also been very melancholic and full of different, even opposite, intense emotions. 

This month of December has been rough, a roller-coaster of feelings, often difficult ones, with a lot of loneliness and fear of the holidays. 

The end of the semester with its more than usual extreme/dichotomic reactions from the students was rough, almost too intense to be bearable. 

The extra loneliness and sadness I felt as the holidays were approaching was also unbearable, but then fortunately things turned around as I was (& am being) showered with & wrapped up in love and support from friends — (geographically) near & far — as well as neighbors, climbing buddies, and acquaintances from the queer community. I can feel the warm love, and it feels wonderful. Compared to last year’s holidays and several recent holidays or holidays as an adult back in Europe, this Christmastime has been so much better, so much lovelier. And yet also so much more melancholic and even sad, mainly because of my losses from this summer feeling sharper again now. 

This is the first Christmas without my father — not just for me — I hadn’t really had Christmas with my dad in years — but especially for my mother (& sister). The last time I saw my dad alive, in person, was during the Christmas holidays eight years ago, three weeks before I left Europe and moved to California. That memory has been coming back to me very sharply now. And with it the memories of my father’s final hospitalization and death this summer, and of my European queer ex-lover’s support to me, a partner’s support, in those days. And thus also a renewed longing for my European queer ex-lover again. 

All of this mixed with the sense of being at home here, of having finally found home in this corner of Colorado. A lovely, warm feeling but also somewhat confusing or concerning because of my professional uncertainty. Which is starting to haunt and worry me again. 

And then the memories of last year’s holidays, so lonely, so isolated, as all that I was waiting for was my gender-affirming top-surgery for which the one-year anniversary will be in precisely one month. So much has happened, so much has changed since then… 

So much, so much… 

So many deep, intense, even contradictory emotions for me to hold in this melancholic merry Christmas…  

I’m having nightmares. Nightmares from which I wake up screaming, or wanting to scream, wrenching myself awake with a huge, conscious effort, like a struggle for life.

Then I’m left feeling shaken, scarred, almost traumatized all day long. 

What’s happening? 

Something is stirring in the depths of my psyche… what is it? 

These nightmares seem to point to some male/female battle but also, maybe mostly, a terrible threat upon me, as if something, or someone, wanted to kill me, were trying to harm me. 

Who is it?

Maybe the hardest part of all this for me is that I still have hope, I still have some fuel left, given by a mix of hope and anger. I am a fighter: the fighter in me is exhausted and sad and bitter, but he’s also still alive and angry and a little hopeful.

I’m livid at our Western society. That’s the truth. It infuriates me that when someone comes out and says, “I’m too lonely to bear it, my life is too joyless because of lack of sufficient closeness”, society’s response (including many good-natured, well-intentioned friends) is, “Go see a therapist” and/or “Get on antidepressants”. 

Antidepressants do not cure loneliness, they do not create the close connections that we — or I — need with other human beings. Apart from the fact that antidepressants actually dull ALL emotions, not only the “difficult” ones (and I don’t want to live with dulled emotions), there’s the plain fact that meds like antidepressants can maybe be, at most, a band-aid, a patch, but they do not cure loneliness, they do not solve the problem at its root. The root of the problem is in our society, in how it functions, in the nuclear family or couple format, in the importance we give to romantic relationships above all others (so if you don’t have that, you’re screwed), in the rampant and pervasive individualism. And in the tendency, especially here in the U.S., to solve everything by putting people on meds. I spent most of my life in Europe and I never saw, there, the massive use of meds for every little thing as there is here in the U.S. 

You have some pain in your body somewhere? Take pain relievers. 

You have some pain in your heart? Go to a shrink (now I can fully, and sadly, appreciate Woody Allen’s humor around “Americans and their shrink”). 

You’re lonely? Take antidepressants. 

You’re sad? Take antidepressants. 

You’re nervous or worried? Take anti-anxiety meds. 

What about creating, building, and maintaining real community? What about working less and fostering more free time, more time together among humans, more time out in nature? 

What about asking, “Why do you feel lonely or sad or worried?”? 

What about addressing the root causes of this (pervasive) loneliness, sadness, anxiety? 

Almost everyone I know here in the U.S. is on some form of meds for mental health or neurodivergence. I had never, ever, seen this in the three decades I spent in Europe. The system is broken. The system here in the U.S. is broken. 

The fact that Western society puts the weight of “finding a solution” almost completely on the individual (& on their/her/his family of origin and/or spouse/romantic partner, if they/she/he has one) is unhealthy, unrealistic, unsustainable. So it is unsurprising that that weight might sometimes, eventually, become unbearable.

I am not broken, despite all my loneliness and sadness. 

And I’m not giving in to this broken system. I am going to fight it my way, no matter what it takes.

I need to write this. I need to because I’ve been bottling in too many intense and troubling emotions deep down inside me in the past few months. I need to write this also to keep track of how I feel. 

How I feel is that I don’t want to live. 

I am lonely and sad. And afraid of the loneliness that keeps coming back into my life and engulfs me more and more darkly. This loneliness is partly my own doing, partly the “simple” but real fact that many of my closest friends have been busy and/or struggling with their own stuff und thus unavailable/out of touch, and partly the way our society functions. At this point, all three of these factors are beyond my control. Probably they’ve always all been beyond my control but only now do I realize this, or only now am I finally too tired and fed up to keep trying. I’m not going to change my own nature nor am I going to change how society works, and I definitely cannot blame my friends for having their own life and/or issues. So all I can do is keep living in this loneliness or decide that I’m checking out for good. That’s the only choice I’ll have left at some point, when the loneliness becomes too unbearable. 

(And there are, truly, no other solutions. Neither meds nor my therapist can help — antidepressants are not the solution to loneliness or lack of close human contact, and if I told my therapist that I don’t want to live, I would simply get interned.)