The Little Prince and the Fox

It’s not a question of “taming my energy” or “regulating my intense emotions”. It’s a question of finding ways to express those emotions and of channeling that energy, which includes finding other persons who match my energy and avoiding, or reducing interaction with, people who drain it. 

Many aspects of my feelings, behaviors, experiences or perspectives can be understood and explained in terms of neurodivergence and/or gender dysphoria. But so much of me and my feelings and experiences go beyond that. 

I have — and have always had — an energy that is hard to match. By this I don’t mean that it’s better or worse than other persons’ energy, it just seems to be very uncommon. It’s not only a “high” energy: it’s full of irresistible life; it contains very powerful light; it tends to be constructive and joyful, but it can sometimes turn into a dark storm, usually when it’s not “matched” (i.e. when my needs for sharing it go unmet) for too long.

In my entire life, I’ve met only four people with whom I’ve really resonated on this deep level of “personal energy”; and, in fact, these four relationships have been in many aspects the most intense of my life (for better or for worse). 

The first two started over twenty years ago, when I & the other two persons were teenagers. One was a beautiful German girl; the other was my sailing buddy who was also my first “serious boyfriend”. Both of them are still to this day two of my dearest and closest friends, and two of the people with whom I have the closest, most intense and spontaneous understanding, despite the different paths we’ve taken and the geographical distances. 

The other two I met in California and are both climbers, and both of them especially into bouldering (which is, ironically, the type of climbing that I enjoy the least). And the heartbreaks ensuing from the relationships with both of these boulderers have been so intense and long-lasting specifically because of our resonating energies. Besides all of the other, more common aspects drawing us to each other, it was that same type and level of energy that made our connections so deep. And with one of them, in particular, so intense and irresistible — to his own admission, too. 

The need to find people with my same type and level of energy, and to be able to express it and share it and effectively let it out with them, is vital to me. It’s not a whim. It’s not a “want”: it’s a “need”. And the lack or difficulty of getting this vital need met is one of the main causes of my bouts of sadness or pain or anger, because it almost feels like I’m wasting my life. 

I’m realizing how hard it is for people to understand this — this feeling of mine, this need of mine. People tend to interpret it, and even write it off, as “hypersensitivity” or “being so intense” or even “depression” sometimes. While all of these might have been actual secondary effects sometimes, none of them are the real, correct reason or explanation. I know it, I know myself, and I’m going to trust this knowledge I have deep inside me. 

Bad days happen. Days in which sadness, hurt, pain, anger or even impostor syndrome are so intense that I cannot get work done or that I need to sit and cry it out. Those days happen. At least, they happen to persons with my type of energy. They are part of me, part of us, part of our energy, and the consequence of our energy being hard to match (at least in our society as it most commonly functions). Pills or meds are not the solution (at least, not for me). Getting that energy matched is the healthy solution for me. It always has been and has led to some of the most beautiful experiences and, at least in two cases, long-lasting relationships of my entire life.

So I am determined to continue seeking out those types of experiences and relationships, no matter how difficult it is to find other persons whose energy matches my own. 

I have noticed that oftentimes people who rock climb (outdoors) and/or do certain types of sailing and/or ride motorcycles tend to match my energy level more closely, which is probably not a coincidence. There are levels of resonance and fulfillment that I need beyond rock climbing or sailing together, and it’s those more intimate levels that I’m particularly struggling to find and fulfill. And it’s usually those intimate levels of unfulfillment that lead to my deepest bouts of sadness or anger. But I think that recognizing the problem is part of the solution. 

So while continuing to cherish the wonderful friendships I have and being grateful for all that they give me, I will also keep in mind my own vital needs that are not met now and that probably require different types of relationships and persons with different energy levels from what I have close to me at the moment. It might be possible to get those important needs met only with one or two people, as it has been in the past: but I need to find that energy that resonates with mine and build a deep connection with persons available & willing to share it with me.

Yesterday I saw two quotes I really liked: they both resonated very much with me and felt somehow related to each other. 

One was anonymous and read

“Life isn’t about finding ourselves 

Life is about creating ourselves”.

The other was a Chinese proverb: 

“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today”.

For months now I’ve been trying to find a different word than “transitioning” to indicate the processes — mental and emotional as well as medical — that I’m undergoing in my “masculinization”. I don’t feel that I’m “transitioning”: I’m not “going anywhere” or “really changing”, but rather, I feel that I’m “becoming myself”, “coming into myself” or finally being allowed to be more wholly & truly myself. Sometimes the expression “sculpting myself” has even come into my mind, like an artist sculpts a statue, physically creating something that they already envision in their mind. 

I’ve always known that I was, and am, a boy. I’ve always known that I’m autistic. I’ve always known that I’d be an explorer and wanted to be a scientist. 

For me that first quote is real, or appropriate, in that I haven’t had to “find” myself but, rather, I’ve had to find the environments and situations and opportunities to actually “fully be & express” myself — i.e. to be able, in fact, to create myself. 

Part of what has allowed — and is now more consciously allowing — me to create myself is making space for myself — for my needs, my wishes, my dreams, the image and visions of myself. And that’s where the second quote, the Chinese proverb, connects and fits in for me: making space for me requires leaving “stuff” behind, including not letting yesterday be too much of a burden or a shadow today. 

I’m not saying that leaving behind is easy or even fun. It’s often hard and sad and painful, and I’m not always good at it — on the contrary! 

I know that a great part of the sadness and pain and even of the anger that I’ve been feeling lately comes from having to let go, to leave “stuff” behind, in order to be able to create myself by making space for myself. And this is why I don’t want to write off these intense, uncomfortable, painful emotions as “just chemical unbalance”: these emotions are telling me something extremely important, vital even. 

They are partly the spur and partly the consequence of not “letting yesterday take up too much of today” so that I can create myself by making the necessary space — and thus live.

Today I finally got around to the bank to pay my October rent, five days late. This is not my style. 

I’m just so overwhelmed, so tired, at the very end of my rope. 

I’m not getting my needs met. 

I’m tired of having to drive miles to meet up with friends in person and, especially, tired of having to wait weeks, even months, to actually see friends. 

I’m tired of having to almost always be the one who initiates plans with people. 

I’m tired of having to be so often the one who keeps in touch and of hearing from friends only if I’m silent for days or weeks — then, fortunately, they start to wonder if I’m alright and get in touch. 

I’m tired of being so alone. 

I’m tired of having to move once again — for the fourth time in nine months. 

I would need to not have to move again now. 

I need to have some friends with whom I could meet up for an impromptu dinner, to relax for a walk and/or a beer after work, without always having to plan it days — or weeks or months — in advance. 

I need to have more friends that I could call spontaneously for a chat instead of there being so many constraints coming from time zones and/or personal boundaries. 

I need more spontaneity and flexibility and availability in my social life. 

I need to have more “healthy fun”, more “down time” in relaxed, friendly company; I need to have physical contact, touch, shared sexuality.

And maybe above all, I need to have someone for whom I’m “the first person”. Because although I have many lovely friends, for all of them there are one or more persons who “come before me” — their family, their partner(s), their housemates, closer friends. 

I know I’m not the only one struggling at the moment. I know that several of my best friends are also going through rough spots right now. But I have only one friend who is truly as alone as myself. And I am really in need now. In need of love and affection and support, even in person, and as spontaneous and unasked for as possible. 

I also know that part of these feeling stems from chemical unbalance: from my weaning myself off meds recently and currently exacerbated by my period (which I got one week early this month, making things even worse). But chemistry is not the only, or principal, cause of how I’m feeling now. I’m not going to write my emotions off, I’m not going to brush them off as a “chemical storm”. 

I am suffering. I have important needs that are not being met and that haven’t been met for months, maybe years. 

Maybe these needs aren’t getting met because of some deep incapacity of my own. Maybe I’m unable to build connections or a life style that lead to the type of company that I truly need deep down inside me. In that case, I could add this to my list of failures. 

I know that after having cried it all out, I will get a grip on myself again. I know that resilient nugget in me will pull itself together again and get me through my move in a few days; it will get me through my urgent work deadlines, and hopefully through the rest of my upcoming and future tasks — as it got me safely to my destination on my motorcycle despite the horrible freeway traffic earlier today.

But how long will this little core inside me hold up before it’s worn to shreds?

“I really like working with you”, the grad student whom I’m mentoring said to me today. 

For me, this simple sentence was a great relief, like a warm and bright shaft of light after some dark shadows in the past few days. 

I guess one of the big questions I need to answer for myself is why do I continue to constantly need such confirmations? Why do I still continuously doubt my professional skills as well as the possibility of my being someone pleasant enough to be around or, at least, pleasant enough to work with? Why can’t I trust myself, yet, after all these years? 

Why do the shadows still overpower me to the level of total loss of trust, from time to time? 

A film I really enjoyed last night: “God’s own country” by Francis Lee, starring Josh O’Connor & Alec Secareanu.

I need to start dating — purposefully dating. ASAP.

I’ve always been a spontaneously erotic person, someone who naturally feels, perceives and even expresses eroticism/sensuality/sexuality in a variety of ways, often very intensely and inadvertently. 

Now, with HRT, this is getting physiologically to a level of intensity that is almost unmanageable for me, in the sense that I risk getting “vicarious crushes” (mutual or unilateral) on persons with whom I really want to maintain a platonic relationship. So I effectively need to “divert” my sexual energy to directions that are more appropriate, that don’t risk mixing levels or crossing boundaries which it’s safer and healthier to not mix or cross. 

It’s hard because hormones can really go to our heads and mess with our brains… 

But I’ve learned the lesson, sometimes the hard way, and I don’t want to waste it: let it serve me now!

“You get what you give” [song by New Radicals]

At the end of class, Arys got a spontaneous round of applause from the students. 

This was the first time in nine months that Arys had taught a Physics lesson to college students again, and had they been asked to do it even only a month ago, it probably would have been much harder. 

Over the past few weeks, though, Arys has slowly been finding their place again, even professionally. 

This class was only a “once-off”, covering for their supervisor who couldn’t make it for his own personal reasons and had asked Arys for this favor with plenty of notice. Despite it not being a “big deal”, Arys spent the whole morning preparing for this class. The perfectionist in them wouldn’t allow them to just hand-wave through a lesson on the propagation of electromagnetic waves through matter. But it also went deeper than that: it was love motivating them. 

Arys loves Physics and they love teaching, sharing it. 

So they prepared the lesson meticulously and then walked to campus, more than a little anxious since they didn’t know what to really expect: what would the classroom be like? What would the students be like? How would Arys come across to them? Had Arys’s supervisor even told the students to expect a sub for yesterday’s class? 

As Arys walked to campus, feeling the anxiousness rise in their chest, they reminded themselves, as they do in tricky moments on a climbing route: “You’ve done this hundreds of times before. This is your jam”!   

The anxiety was still there at the beginning of class, just like at the beginning of a hard route on an unknown wall. But then Arys let go and settled into their “instructor mode”, into their own special persona of when they teach Physics. And the energy, the enthusiasm, the spontaneous connection with the audience, even the love, all just started to pour out again as if they had been doing it all this time with no interruption of nine months. Arys wasn’t thinking: they were just in the flow of the moment, of that class. And the students felt it and responded, reflecting back all that spontaneous positive energy. 

At the end of the lesson, when time was up, the students spontaneously — at first awkwardly, then more convinced — broke out into an applause. 

Many of them asked whether Arys would be teaching any of the following lessons for this course or any other class, and several openly said they wished Arys would teach more. Two students at the very end even went as far as saying that this had been the best class they had had in the whole semester. 

Arys was thankful for the face-covering they were wearing, as it helped hide their blushing. 

These comments made their day, rewarding them for their hard work in preparing for the class. The comments were also good, and somewhat necessary, reminders. Of their capacities. Of the place and space that they can take up. Of the importance of finding and maintaining a balance between humility and knowing one’s worth. Of the power of love: because it is love — the love of Physics, the love of teaching, the love of sharing, the love of helping other people learn and grow, too — that allows Arys’s classes to shine. 

And of the fact that we so often get what we give.  

“…

Don’t let go, you’ve got the music in you 

… 

You only get what you give 

… ”

I’ve joined a trans choir! 

I went to my first rehearsal with them last night and totally loved it! And I realized how truly deep my voice has gotten… if only I allow myself to let it go deep. 

My voice has gotten really deep. But I keep defaulting back to a higher pitch. I do it at work, I do it when talking to acquaintances/neighbors, and I even do it with my climbing buddies. 

Slowly but surely, the boy in me is growing: I’m getting stronger (not noticeably bigger but definitely stronger, i.e. my muscles are more powerful); a little mustache is starting to come explore my face; and my voice is deep when I sing or when I talk in a relaxed setting. But I still come across as a “woman” because these changes are not visible enough to others — except for my voice. That could be noticeable to others, if only I used my new, deeper register. And yet, although I want so badly to be and be seen as a boy, I keep defaulting back to a higher pitch so often. 

Why do I do this? 

I guess that partly I’m afraid of making people around me uncomfortable and then, as a consequence, feeling uncomfortable myself. 

For now I can still be seen or perceived as a “woman”, albeit one with a very androgynous, lean, athletic body. Especially for people like my climbing/adventure buddies, it’s almost as if I still encapsulated “the best of both sides”: the non-threatening looks of a fit woman along with character traits that are usually considered boyish or masculine (adventurous, wild, daring, bold, easy-going). But what will happen as my voice deepens further? What will happen once I no longer have breasts (and yet have no penis, either)? What will happen if I decide to keep and not shave any facial hair that might eventually grow? Will my more explicit and visible, yet still partial, masculine attributes along with my sexual disinterest for women feel like a threat to my cis-male buddies, due to an ingrained homophobia that is still pervasive (although subconscious)? 

I know that my “coming out” as non-binary trans-masculine to a few cis-men friends/acquaintances has already “turned them gay”, as one of my closest non-binary friends put it. These guys didn’t phrase it like that to me, of course, and might not even be aware of it themselves; but I’m discovering that “turning people gay” is a common effect or consequence of trans/non-binary persons coming out and one of the many reasons that trans/non-binary people can be perceived as a “threat” or as uncomfortable by heteronormative and/or gender-conforming persons.

I just hadn’t realized how much this would in turn affect me and my own feelings and behaviors… 

There’s so much pain in me tonight.

Intense pain and the brightest awareness that I’ve felt in a while… 

Yesterday, I had a lovely video chat with one of my best friends from grad school and, among other things, in our conversation they quoted a very powerful and enlightening sentence from the book Wintering by Katherine May: “My needs are reasonable”. 

Encouraged by this and another close friend, I read the book Wintering during my own “wintering” here in Colorado in February 2022. I didn’t remember that speficic sentence from the book but I’m glad my friend quoted it yesterday — and I will definitely remember it now! 

Like many of us, I wasn’t taught that my needs are reasonable. On the contrary, I was often given the message that my needs were unreasonable, unworthy, out of place, or irrelevant. And that other people’s needs were the really important ones, more important than my own, and that as such they should be heeded and met before/rather than my own. 

Fortunately, I also met many persons along the way who saw, understood, and valued me & my needs, and gave space to them. Learning to actually make space for myself & my own needs, though, has been a long, late, and often difficult lesson for me to learn — one that I am still learning and trying to practice.

Often, I’ve realized, I need to get to the “breaking point”, to the point where “I’m done” and so anger or frustration become the main fuel for me to make my needs heard. I’ve learned to harness this anger into a form of constructive energy to move me forward, but still I think there could be less painful ways of making space for myself and my needs. For instance, by keeping in mind that seemingly simple but extremely powerful sentence: “My needs are reasonable”.