Explorative, affirming birthday week

It’s mid-summer. After almost a year of paperwork and emailing back & forth with the Italian Consulate in Chicago and the City Hall of the city where I was born back in Europe, I have finally received the communication that I didn’t dare hope for: “Your sex change has been accepted and your gender amended to ‘M’.” That meant I could finally go ahead and make an appointment at the Consulate to renew my passport not only with my chosen name but also with my affirmed gender (although they still call it “sex”). 

Weeks go by as I try, daily, to book an appointment at the Consulate through their automated online system — the only way one can make an appointment — but keep getting the message “Sorry, but there are no more dates available at this moment”. Then, one evening in late summer, I log into the automated system going through the usual motions and expecting the usual “no go” message, but this time the screen appears different, there’s actually a calendar from which one can pick dates! The only date available for the rest of this entire year, though, is precisely my birthday. My heart sinks as I see myself spending my birthday all alone in Chicago, instead of at home in Colorado with friends, flying out to a city that I didn’t enjoy at all in April and doing paperwork. But I didn’t really have a choice, if I wanted to get my passport renewed ASAP — which I really wanted to do. And then, I thought of it from a different viewpoint: on the day of my birthday, I would be getting an official ID with my chosen name and stating that I am a ‘male’ — born again! 

As the weeks go by, I start believing that my trip to Chicago will actually happen so I tentatively tell a few close friends, still afraid of jinxing it. And two of my buddies tell me about the option to ride the train from Colorado to Chicago instead of flying — which I hate. So now, this is starting to turn into a fun birthday adventure, instead of just a trip to do important (& affirming) paperwork, and I’m beginning to truly look forward to it despite having to do it by myself. 

At the end of September, I sat outdoors in the sunshine having chai and catching up with one of my cis-het climbing buddies. While shaky and tentative at first, our friendship has been growing steadily over several years, especially this past year & a half. We haven’t really climbed together in almost a year because of either his or my injuries but, as with most of my close buddies, while climbing was the opportunity to meet and get to know each other, we now keep in touch and hang out over chai or going hiking, just to catch up and enjoy each other’s company and maintain the connection. My oldest climbing buddy & I hadn’t seen each other in almost two months so we’re catching up on a lot and telling each other about our various upcoming plans. So it turns out that we’d be in Chicago overlapping for a few hours on that day in mid-November, he with a layover at the airport, I doing my paperwork. I jokingly tell him how I’d take myself out for a solitary but celebratory dinner for my (re-)birthday & passport renewal, determined to mark the moment. 

A few hours later, I get a text from him, asking if I’d like to have him as a travel companion in Chicago — if so, he says, he could try to change his flight to arrive a day early and celebrate (with) me. The warmth I felt in my chest at his offer is something I’ll never forget: this was an incredibly clear, strong act of love, of love the way I intend it, love as action, commitment, showing up concretely for the other person, and I was profoundly touched. I realized this would strengthen our friendship, bringing our intimacy to a deeper level (by celebrating an important event together, by sharing an AirBnb). The idea warmed my heart but also scared me a little, as intimacy always does.

My buddy was able to change his flight. I got my train to Chicago, and got my paperwork — concretely as well as symbolically meaningful paperwork — done, and my buddy arrived in Chicago as planned to celebrate my birthday & affirming gender-marker with me. 

The experience at the Italian Consulate that morning was very emotional for me and might deserve another whole post to itself. But I knew — I could feel — that I was not alone, I felt really supported and loved, with all my friends rooting for me and texting me from afar and my buddy joining me in Chicago. And while one of the most emotional parts of the whole procedure at the Consulate was, indeed, what they still call “sex change”, I could feel the confidence in my own gender identity profoundly rooted and strong and peaceful. So much so, in fact, that when my buddy (who considers himself “straight”) that night in Chicago told me about his curiosities to explore his sexuality in “queer directions” and asked me if I’d be willing to explore with him, I felt comfortable and curious to experiment with him. 

When my buddy & I met climbing three & a half years ago, I still looked like a “lean, athletic girl”. He’s been my friend and one of my steadiest allies since then, seeing all my changes and celebrating them with me and calling me “brother”. I’m beyond worrying that he might “see me as a girl” if we had sex. I know I have feminine sides to me as well as female body-parts, and I’m totally comfortable with that — both with myself, within my gender-identity, and with how my closest friends see/perceive me. I’m also at peace and confident with my aro-ace identity now, understanding very clearly my libido along with my general lack of sexual attraction for individuals. Thus, exploring my sexuality with different people, as long as they feel safe and offer a “safe space”, is part of exploring my gender while also, with some friends, deepening our friendship, giving additional nuances to our levels of intimacy. 

So this has been a wonderful, interesting, and partly surprising birthday week, so far: traveling long distance by train for the first time in the U.S.; meeting interesting people on the train ride (including a gay man with whom I had a great conversation and exchanged phone numbers and made a more genuine connection in just an hour over dinner than I did in a whole year with the folks in the gay men’s chorus); getting my affirmed gender recognized on the day of my birthday, somehow being officially recognized as a “man” forty-four years after I had been defined a “girl” when I couldn’t advocate for myself; having sex with a cis-het guy friend who wanted to experience “MSM” and adding to my own experiences of “MSM”; and generally reveling in affirmations and explorations. 

Exploring — which is probably the theme, or driving force, of my life.

Living “The Rock Warrior’s Way”

“[…] your highest goal is learning, and only in action does true, experiential learning occur. This is what you climb for. In order to transcend a risk, you need to learn something, and you’ll only be able to learn by staying open and receptive. In your preparation for the risk, you’ve meticulously set specific parameters to avoid serious injury and safeguard your life. You’ve decided that the risk is appropriate and that you want to take it. Your art now is to participate in the risk in the most empowering way possible. You’ve committed. […] trust in the process.”

As I sat in bed reading these words from Arno Ilgner’s book “The Rock Warrior’s Way” the other night, it dawned on me: substitute the word “climb” with “live” or “love” and this last paragraph by Arno Ilgner summarizes that “something new” in me that I was trying to describe the other day. 

I have been reading Arno Ilgner’s book “The Rock Warrior’s Way” on and off for the past several months and, as many of my climbing buddies has promised, it has made me a “better” climber — not necessarily climbing higher grades but climbing more focused and relaxed, more conscious in a subconscious flow, more “in the moment”, more effectively, enjoying it more as a process or journey that just success vs. failure. Reading this book, though, has also has been one of the quiet sources of the strength and openness I have been finding again over the course of these months as it has reminded me of how I live — or try or want to live — my whole life, of which climbing is just one (albeit important) aspect. 

“The preparation phase […] focuses on understanding how our conscious minds work. We play little tricks on ourselves that drain power […]. Fears, real and imaginary, can negatively influence our behavior under stress. Recognizing fear and the various kinds of fear-based motivation allows us to develop a more love-based foundation for action. Love-based motivation moves us from an avoidance orientation to a learning & seeking orientation, which focuses our attention more sharply on the task at hand. The whole process of meeting risks and challenges becomes not only more efficient, but also more enjoyable and rewarding. This increases our motivation and willingness to put ourselves in challenging situations. This places us in a positive feedback loop, a path that continuously increases the personal power* we have available when entering into risks and challenges.

In the transition phase, we focused on creating a 100-percent commitment to action. The preparation phase helped us to do this, since through it we have a much better idea of exactly what the risk is. We’ve examined the risk scrupulously, made plans that limit the danger, and resolved questions about our intent in risking. We also developed specific psychological strategies for fully committing to the process. 

Now, in the action phase, we keep ourselves mentally in the action, in the most empowering frame of mind possible, despite our natural tendency to seek escape. The Listening process concentrated on opening up the subconscious and intuitive information systems and limiting the role of the conscious mind. The final process, the Journey, focuses on keeping attention in the moment to find comfort and meaning in the risk.” 

[Chapter 7, “The Rock Warrior’s Way” by Arno Ilgner]

In my own life now, I think I’ve finally reached or entered a renewed, Journey process: this is the “new phase” I’ve been feeling.

*{NOTE: by “personal power” Arno Ilgner means an attitude of acceptance, respect, control (of one’s own fears), and openness that has nothing to do with the idea of “power” connected to “success” or money or control over others.}

Something new

My several moves from one city to another, between 2005 – 2013, in Europe. My move from Europe to California in 2016. Making a big career decision and starting to teach at university in California in 2018. My move from California to Colorado in 2022. My top surgery in 2023. My father’s death in 2023. My salpingectomy in 2024. Even my moves between different towns here in Colorado between 2022 – 2024. All of these events marked big changes, turning points in my life that left me feeling — naturally, obviously — like I had gone through a portal or something had changed forever or there was something new. It was evident, apparent from the concrete event — the new location, the new job, the new body, the permanent lack of a person or of a possibility in my life. All of those events left me feeling immensely, often irreversibly, changed, like I was entering a “new phase” of my life, for better or for worse. But that wasn’t surprising: something had changed very evidently even on the outside. 

In the past couple months, I have felt that something has changed deeply and maybe irreversibly within me, even though there’s not one specific event I can point to and say, “There, that was it, that was the moment, that was the cause”. I don’t think this change is visible in me from the outside, but I can feel it distinctly within me. Distinctly and yet hard to describe. 

I think it’s a “new phase” in two different ways. 

On the one hand, despite not having moved again or changed city or job, some important friendships have ended or changed deeply over the past six months or one year. The relationship with one of my two closest nonbinary friends here has ended. The relationships with a couple of my climbing and running buddies has gotten more distant or infrequent because of scheduling conflicts and/or changes in life goals (mainly on their side with their normative families/relationships). I finally took the step to quit the gay men’s chorus that I joined a little over a year ago. And an attempted reconnection with my European queer ex-lover has been aborted, or not worked out, basically because they got cold feet or aren’t in a position where they can handle a renewed relationship with me now. All of these endings or changes in relationships have effectively been losses for me, once again pretty painful losses. But along with these relationships ending or waning, there have been new connections, relationships growing steadily, some of them more evidently, some others more stealthily and yet still in meaningful and nurturing ways. 

On the other hand, this “new phase” has a lot to do with the way I’m taking things now. It’s hard to pinpoint when this change happened within me, it must have been gradual over the course of 2024 or the past couple years, but it’s definitely happened. While still feeling very sad or pained by the changes or waning of some friendships and ensuing losses, I’m not feeling devastated or completely dysregulated like I used to. The change, the loss is there, it’s real. And the ensuing pain and sadness are there, they’re real and I feel them. But then I’m also able to acknowledge the reality of the situation, the simple fact that, for instance, one buddy got married and is trying to have kids and his wife wants to climb with him, so he has less time for me, or that, no matter how much we may love each other, my European queer ex-lover & I have different views and/or bandwidths for a concrete relationship between us now. I’m acknowledging these differences and losses, accepting them, and then dealing with them in more practical, concrete, or effective ways. I’m acknowledging not only the reality of the loss, of the pain, but also the reality and legitimacy of the other persons’ needs or goals and also the reality and legitimacy of my own needs and goals (e.g. my need for more adventures and steady, loyal adventure buddies who can really be present for me). Recognizing more clearly and concretely the reality and legitimacy of the other person’s needs or goals along with the reality and legitimacy of my own needs and goals is somehow enabling me to put up with the painful losses without being engulfed or paralyzed by the hurt.

I don’t know where this change in me has come from. It’s hard to pinpoint the source. Yet a change it is, and a big one, and I can feel it deep within me and see it in my own daily actions.

Ripping off the bandaid

Of course this is painful. Of course I’m feeling uncomfortable and even somewhat dysregulated. This is a loss, yet another loss. 

I have decided to quit the gay men’s chorus. 

I will have to grieve this. 

But what is “this” exactly? My identity as “gay man”, or my “wish to be accepted as a gay man”, which turns out to be unreal? My identity as a baritone (which, instead, remains real and “my own” even if I don’t continue to sing with this particular chorus anymore)? The few — very few, three, maybe four — people in the chorus whom I might miss seeing? The few hugs — very few genuinely affectionate — I got regularly on Sunday evenings? The singing? The routine of Sunday evening driving to & back from rehearsal, singing at rehearsal, filling up 5-6 hours of my Sunday evenings every week? What will I “fill” that with now? 

The situation with the gay men’s chorus had really turned out to be like one of those toxic relationships where at least one, or sometimes only one, of the partners involved really wants it to work out, really hopes and wishes it will work out, and they do everything they can, put up with a lot, in order to try and “fix things”, but it’s never enough, it’s never really good, despite the few moments of joy or fun that happen now and then and keep us hanging on in an illusion of improvement or hope. I’ve been in relationships like that — and they can be of any type, platonic, romantic/sexual, nesting, professional, athletic. So I recognize the unhealthy pattern. 

It hurts to let go. It really hurts. A lot. I really wanted to sing. I really hoped I’d be accepted  by the “community of gay men” that somehow for me was being represented by the people in this chorus. But it isn’t working. I keep feeling — and being treated — like an outsider. And I’m tired to feel like “I don’t fit”. I’ve felt that way so often in my life, in groups where I was forced to stay (e.g. school or some jobs), but here I am not forced to stay. Here I have a choice, even if the choice, the alternative, is painful. 

At the end of the day, the pain of quitting — like ripping off a bandaid —, that is sharp and deep now, will eventually be smaller that the accumulated trickle of pain of every rehearsal where I feel isolated, lonely, estranged. 

Free from denial — Free to love

The next-to-last night of my camping trip in South Dakota at the end of August was beautifully clear. I was going for an evening walk in the meadow that occupied a big portion of the campground and was, at the end of the season, completely empty. It was dusk, the sky darkening gradually over the darker shadows of the trees that rimmed the clearing surrounded by gentle hills. Suddenly, the moon — a waning moon three or four days past full — rose bright above the low hills and trees. And just as suddenly I was reminded of the mug my European queer ex-lover had painted for me with the images of trees in the woods, shades of blues and greens typical of dusk, and a bright full moon. 

I had forgotten about that mug — apparently, my ritual of burying all the objects that my European queer ex-lover had given me before they left in August 2023, that ritual that had allowed me to put up with one of the most painful separations & losses of my life, had worked: it had allowed me to forget, thus allowing me to survive the pain. 

For almost two years, I forgot. 

But this summer brought me healing, softening and opening up my heart again. As my heart opened, so did the windows in my soul, allowing me glimpses at first, and then clear views of what I had buried — figuratively as well as literally. As I saw that bright South Dakotan moon rise above the tree-topped hills, as I suddenly remembered that mug, my breath caught for a moment. I stopped walking and stood in the meadow, looking up at the darkening sky, at the bright moon. And I spoke out loud — to the stars filling the sky, apparently, but in reality to my European queer ex-lover. For the first time in almost two years, I spoke to them with no anger, with no pain, acknowledging the simple, wrenching truth that I simply hadn’t been ready two years ago but also that I was ready now — or would be ready, if given the chance. I told them how much I loved them, still love them. That was all my heart could feel: love and acceptance; no more pain, no more anger, no more denial. I finally stopped ignoring how much I still love them, stopped denying that they were — are — my soulmate, stopped ignoring the fact that I’m often drawn to people, strangers, who physically remind me of them. Having admitted all that to myself and having talked to them through that starry sky and bright moon, I made peace with my continuing love for them and let my heart be open, at last. 

Admitting my continuing love for them, allowing myself to still love them, admitting the fact that they were and still are my soulmate brought me a peace I didn’t think would be possible. I’ve stopped rationalizing that they live and are building their future in Europe while I’m here in Colorado to stay and if I ever move from here, it will be to go to Alaska, ever further from their location & life plans. I’ve stopped telling myself that there’s no sense in loving someone who lives an ocean and two half-continents away from me. I’ve stopped trying to rationalize or explain that the one person I would want as my life partner is, technically, geographically, unavailable to me — I’ve stopped trying to put that into some psychological framework to prove how incapable I am of close intimacy. I don’t think that psychological interpretation or rationalization would be true now. And whether it’s true or not, it doesn’t matter at this point. It’s just as true, or even more true, that I love this person. Two years later and with all the life experiences and professional experiences and adventures and trips and friendships and hook-ups, I still love this person just the same. I still consider the intimacy we had, the emotional connection, unique and irreplaceable. 

That person is my soulmate. Period. If we didn’t live on two different continents, I would plan my life with them. 

Freeing myself from the denial of these truths has freed my heart, allowing me to love and thus to feel a joy and relief and soft opening that are beautifully peaceful. I can feel it in my chest, my heart softening and opening up — I’m free to love (again) and that feels truly heart-warming. 

“Acceptance is the answer”

Acceptance is the answer is tattooed on the forearm of one of the gay men in the chorus where I sing. 

I’ve seen and heard quotes along similar lines before and often considered them trite or defeatist. But I think I’ve finally come to understand — once again, not just rationally but also, and especially, emotionally, deep down inside me — the wisdom and even the power of the idea that acceptance is the answer. 

And I think this has been the key aspect of the healing and peace I’ve found in the past months. 

I stopped wishing that some things were different — thus putting into practice, from the climbing wall to my daily life, the wise advice from Arno Ilgner’s book The Rock Warrior’s Way. 

Wishing that things were different is a huge waste of energy, and often also a great source of pain. Painful situations can teach us a lot and really open our hearts and eventually even bring us peace, if we learn to look at things (& people & relationships) as they are. That takes courage, though, and often an amount of courage that isn’t easy to find, because plenty of times it requires we actually make some big change(s). Which is precisely where the idea that acceptance is the answer is not a defeatist viewpoint. 

If I accept things as they actually are, then I can really make a choice, and that will probably bring me peace in the end. 

I have made peace with the fact — i.e. accepted at a deep, inner level — that, most likely, I won’t have a nesting/life/sexual partner again. I had that type of relationship, with deep, beautiful love, three times in my life. That’s more than many people can ever hope for, so I’m grateful. The first two times were almost two decades ago. And all three times it happened ”by accident” or, at least, that’s how it felt to me: it caught me by surprise, I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t seeking it out, and all three relationships had started as interesting or fun friendships. All three times, it was the other person who pursued me and I suddenly realized that “something more than platonic” would be nice from my viewpoint, too. But I hadn’t been expecting it or craving it. 

Theoretically, that could happen again. But realistically my situation is very different now. I’m not in college or grad school anymore and thus surrounded by many peers who might be “interested” in me, as I was for those first two relationships. I’m two decades older and at this age in life most people have “settled down” and are thus not looking for nesting/life/sexual partners. Neither my job nor my athletic endeavors nor my social activities bring me in contact with many people, so I’m not bound to meet anyone new who might be “interested” in me. But also, and maybe most importantly, I’ve come to understand and accept that I’m not interested in going to seek out those types of relationships and never really have been. That’s not how I function. I can crave intimacy and I love deeply but it needs to come organically for me, to follow or grow in a spontaneous way from an existing friendship, not come from a dating app or going to social events or bars. 

There have been a couple of moments in my life when that type of relationship came to me and I was open to accept it and I/we had a wonderful experience of love. 

I am grateful for having had those experiences, truly grateful. But I’m also truly at peace if they never happen to me again. 

Acceptance is the answer. I have truly, deeply accepted and integrated into me those experiences, those past loves, including the pain of the losses — the most recent only a couple of years ago. Those experiences, those loves, are part of me, part of what makes me who I am now. And who I am now is ready to move on through life simply with the love and comfort of the good platonic friendships that I have (& might make).

The little things we remember

[Content warnings: loss, grief, death.]

Often, it’s the small things we remember about the ones we loved and lost. The color and shape of their eyes. The sound of their laugh. The inflection of their voice as they told us they love us. 

“Ich liebe dich”, A. said suddenly, almost bluntly, matter-of-factly, for the first time to me ever, as we were sitting across the high kitchen table from each other that evening. 

“Ja, ich auch”, I replied. 

We had been arguing because of something they had done, unthinkingly, “behind my back”, that made me lose trust in them and thus feel hurt. And the pain came out as anger. I can remember the cause of the argument and my feelings, not really the details of the argument. But the inflection of our voices in their “Ich liebe dich” and my own “Ja, ich auch” is still crystal clear to me. 

I can remember so clearly, so vividly, how they looked at me and said “Ich liebe dich” again that last night we spent together, our last night of lovemaking. 

Or the sweet peck on the lips they gave me saying, “Bis morgen”, as I got ready to ride home on my motorcycle the day before I found out about my father’s death. 

Or the sunflowers, the sunflowers everywhere, since those were the months when sunflowers blossom and bloom here. And how A. talked about gathering sunflower seeds to roast them and eat them together – which we never got a chance to do. For months after A.’s departure & return to Europe, sunflowers haunted me, like a blade twisted in my wound, they reminded me of them so much. 

Or the violent summer thunderstorm and pouring rain the afternoon before they left and went back to Europe, and the hot shower we had together, for the first & last time, at their place afterwards. 

I cannot remember what we had for dinner that night. But I can remember that storm, that shower, the shifting emotions, the lovemaking. 

As I can remember the first text message from them that finally made me think that there might actually be something non-platonic in their interest towards me, as they wrote explicitly that their “bed was big enough for two”, in case I needed to sleep over when I drove them home after we went out dancing together on that night in May.

I can remember how they cupped their hands over my “new” chest on that first morning we woke up in the same bed, their bed, together.  

I can still remember how their hair felt in my fingers – so soft, so silky. 

And I can remember their eyes, their beautiful, teardrop-shaped, clear green eyes – maybe the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen – so sweet, so full of love and joy, smiling or, sometimes, welling up with tears. Their eyes, the window into their soul: a soul they shared with me, a soul that reached out to touch me, to hold me. 

That beautiful soul that touched mine. 

“Maine”

[Content warnings: loss, grief, death.]

Often, my favorite songs remind me of beloved persons or meaningful places or memorable experiences.

I’ve never been to Maine. I have no connection to Maine, nor does my European queer ex-lover. Yet, Noah Kahan’s song Maine for some reason makes me think of my European queer ex-lover. Maybe it’s the song’s longing chords and melancholic rhythm. Probably it’s also some of the song’s lyrics… 

“

Tell me, lover

Now that you made your change

Was your soul rediscovered?

Was your heart rearranged?

[…]

You don’t hate the summers

You’re just afraid of the space

[…]

A boat beside a dock in the sunlight

And nothin’ but the water and the sunrise now

[…]

I miss this place, your head and your heart

And my dad

Still tells me when they’re playin’ your songs

Laughin’ at the way that you would say

“If only, baby, there were cameras in the traffic lights

They’d make me a star

They’d make me a star”

[…]

I miss this place, your head and your heart

And my dad

Still tells me when they’re playin’ your songs

Laughin’ at the way that you would say

“If only, baby, there were cameras in the traffic lights

They’d make me a star

They’d make me a star”

[…]

Tell me, lover

Once you’ve had a change of heart

‘Cause we’re no more than the fossils

On Crescent Beach State Park, and we

Used to sing along to church bells on Sundays

And can you even hear ’em from the subway now?

And I hope that we make you proud

‘Cause this town’s just an ocean now

”

Some of the lyrics reflect how I feel about my European queer ex-lover, what I could imagine saying to them or would like to ask them: 

“

Tell me, lover

Now that you made your change

Was your soul rediscovered?

Was your heart rearranged?

[…]

You don’t hate the summers

You’re just afraid of the space

[…]

I miss this place, your head and your heart

[…]

Tell me, lover

Once you’ve had a change of heart

‘Cause we’re no more than the fossils

“

Others, instead, make me think of them as in things that they might say to me, their way of joking or teasing me: 

“

A boat beside a dock in the sunlight

And nothin’ but the water and the sunrise now

[…]

Laughin’ at the way that you would say

“If only, baby, there were cameras in the traffic lights

They’d make me a star

They’d make me a star”

[…]

”

And then, there’s one verse that probably makes me think of them because of the connection, in my own head & heart, between them and my dad, because within a few weeks in the summer of 2023 I lost both my father and my European queer ex-lover and the latter had been intimately close to me in the initial, shocking grief of my dad’s death: 

“

And my dad

Still tells me when they’re playin’ your songs

”

“MAGA’s Bulldog”

Some scary, concerning facts about the government and some terrible quotes from Vought [from the New York Times article: “The man behind Trump’s push for an all-powerful presidency”]:

“

To many legal experts, Mr. Vought’s work is a threat to the foundations of democracy. “One of the main sources of power that Congress has over the executive branch is the budget,” said Eloise Pasachoff, a law professor at Georgetown University. “If the executive branch isn’t controlled by the power of the purse, then there is very little that will control the President.”

She added: “It’s a fundamental challenge to liberty for every single person in America.”

“

“[…] he had laid out steps to achieve the long-sought conservative goal of a president with dramatically expanded authority over the executive branch, including the power to cut off spending, fire employees, control independent agencies and deregulate the economy.”

“Mr. Vought has at last begun to put his plans into action — remaking the presidency, block by block, by restoring powers weakened after the Nixon administration. His efforts are helping Mr. Trump exert authority more aggressively than any modern president, and are threatening an erosion of the longstanding checks and balances in America’s constitutional system.”

“At the heart of Mr. Vought’s plan, associates say, is the intentional engineering of a legal battle over Congress’s power to decide how government money is spent, potentially creating a new legal precedent for the president to block spending on any programs and policies he dislikes.”

“

“We have now been embarked on deconstructing this administrative state,” he said.

”

“Over the years, Mr. Vought has made clear how he views his targets. He has said the Education Department promotes “woke-rot” propaganda like “grooming minors for so-called gender transition.”

“

[…] That the Internal Revenue Service targets “struggling families in a craven effort to sustain the broader bureaucracy’s radical progressive agenda.” And, in a remark captured on video unearthed by ProPublica that stung many in Washington, he said he wanted federal employees to be “in trauma.”

Once the budget director has the power to starve those government agencies, Mr. Vought has said, they can wither away. “We want to make sure that the bureaucracy can’t reconstitute itself later in future administrations,” he said on Mr. Kirk’s podcast.

”

Love catches us by surprise, again and again

[Spoiler alert: some details & a quote from the book “A man called Ove” by Fredrik Backman.]

In the beautiful book “A man called Ove” by Fredrik Backman, when Ove ends up in the hospital and one of his neighbors goes to check on him, she finds herself suddenly overwhelmed by her concern for Ove and the author, describing her emotions, writes “Love is a strange thing. It takes you by surprise. […]” 

Yes, love does take us by surprise. 

In the spring of 2023, I thought I’d just be reactivating an intellectual, queerplatonic friendship with the European queer visiting scientist that had already spent a few months at the institute where I worked the previous year. But within a few weeks of their arrival in Colorado, as we quickly reconnected despite months of silence, our friendship evolved rapidly, and surprisingly, from intellectual to deeply emotional and then also sexual to one of the greatest loves of my life. Our separation and subsequent complete loss of connection, total silence, left me devastated for months. After our painful separation two years ago, initially I needed to distance myself from them. Once I was ready to reconnect and talk to them, it was too late: they didn’t want to talk to me anymore and never, ever replied to any of my messages again. So most of my rituals to find closure and healing in 2023-2024 involved erasing my European queer ex-lover from my life, e.g by burying all the objects related to them and considering them “effectively dead” by making a “tomb” for them. They had rejected me from their life so I rejected them from mine. Almost as if I was tearing or cutting off a piece of me.

Despite the comfort I got from those rituals that I did by myself, it was only this summer, two years later, on my solo trip to South Dakota, that I truly, deeply, and wholly made peace with the circumstances of that relationship (including the painful separation). 

A couple weeks ago, I was telling a good friend about some thoughts and dreams that I had been having about my European queer ex-lover, and his surprised response was, “Oh, but I thought you had made peace with them and that relationship”. He said it as if “making peace” meant “forgetting” or “never thinking about something again” or “never talking about someone again”. 

But no, for me “making peace” is quite the opposite: for me, “making peace” means allowing that event or person or part of my life to be truly and fully accepted by me and integrated into myself. It means acknowledging to myself the importance that a person or event really had to me while also recognizing what went wrong, admitting what I wish had gone — or I/we had done — differently. 

Love for my European queer ex-lover caught me totally by surprise in the spring/summer of 2023. And in a sense it caught me again by surprise recently as I dreamed about them so vividly. 

I have made peace with what happened with them that summer of two years ago. I’ve made peace with the fact that part of it was simply the “wrong timing”, “too soon for me”, with the fact that “I wasn’t ready”. I’ve made peace with the mistakes we made, with how poorly we handled some things, particularly the separation. I have made peace with all that pain. But I have also made peace with the importance that person had in my life, with the love I felt for them and still feel for them now. I have made peace with the fact that they will always have a place in my heart, they will always be a piece of me and a piece that I don’t want to tear off. 

And I have made peace with the fact that I may still think of them and dream of them and even miss them sometimes. Because love catches us by surprise, again and again.