The Little Prince and the Fox

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.

Something died within me: nothing to look forward to

[Trigger warnings: death, loss, grief; depression.]

I spend a lot of time in my head: rumination, dreams, memories. The present is bleak, the future a black hole with nothing to look forward to.

Five years ago, with the COVID pandemic, something broke for me. Something broke me — the long illness, the complete isolation, the terrible loneliness. It triggered a depression from which I pulled myself out, at least partially, also by moving to Colorado.

The first couple years here in Colorado were wonderful: not easy — actually pretty hard — but wonderful, so full of exploration, so full of promises, of hope — life opening up again and giving me something to look forward to after the pandemic.

But then, two summers ago, something broke for me again, this time something personal, not a worldwide pandemic involving everyone. Within three weeks in the summer of 2023, I lost my father and a soul-mate/lover. And then, as the grief sank in over the course of the following months or year, I lost hope: I lost the hope of ever being seen, known as myself, by my father; of ever really having a connection with my family of origin; of ever really having a family/partner(s) of my own (as I realized I’m aro-ace); and of ever really having the career I was hoping for (as my prospects in academic became null).

I have lost hope.

This is what is making me feel all of a sudden so “old”: it’s not the difference between being 41 or 43, it’s the loss of hope. All of a sudden it’s gone, like a switch was flipped.

I used to enjoy the company of people who are much younger than myself, many of my friends here in the U.S. have been a decade or so younger, partly because of the exuberant energy I used to have. But now I don’t enjoy being around younger people as much because I cannot relate to them anymore: I feel so “old”, even when I often have more energy and/or am more fit than they are. The point is, they still have hope, they still have careers, dreams, relationships, goals to work towards, to look forward to, while I feel I don’t anymore.

I used to love to teach and I was a beloved educator and public speaker, walking into rooms full of enthusiasm that would engage almost any audience. But that’s also something I cannot do anymore: I can feel myself walk into meetings or lectures with a dullness or bitterness that I have to fight back, struggle to suppress and hide.

The losses in summer of 2023 of those two people I loved so dearly killed something within me, thus changing me, for the worse, forever.

Crumbs

One of the reasons I left California and moved to Colorado in January of 2022 was because I was so lonely in California, having been unable during the six years I lived there to make friends locally in a way that fulfilled my relational needs.

I chose Colorado because, among other things, I found it relatively easy to make good friends locally with whom I could actually do things.

I’m realizing now, though, that with the exception of two or three friends, the depth and strength and connection I felt in most of those relationships were an illusion. Like a person rambling in a desert at the end of their resources sees mirages of oases, so I saw more than what was there in those friendships.

I’m not saying my friends don’t care about me. I know and believe that they genuinely do. But what they can give me in terms of time and affection and availability is crumbs, while they give their romantic/sexual/nesting partners whole loafs and even cake. I’ve been surviving on those crumbs, often even feasting on those crumbs, celebrating them as if they were cake. Because I was so starved that those crumbs often did feel like delicious cake.

But those crumbs were not — are not — cake. They’re not a sufficiently nourish loaf of hearty bread. They’re crumbs of hearty bread: good bread, for sure, but still only crumbs. And one cannot survive merely on crumbs.

As I’ve been going through a few “friend breakups” or big disappointments with good friends in the past few weeks, I’ve been wondering, “Why now? Why did I put up with it for three years and now, almost all of a sudden, I’m just not taking it anymore?”

Part of it is seasonal: every time the summer comes around, I am faced more clearly, more explicitly, with the fact that my friends don’t make big, long-term plans with me, like summer vacations: so I cannot delude myself into thinking that the time they spend with me (those crumbs) is as important or fulfilling as the the time that I would really need and that they instead dedicate to, and plan with, their romantic/nesting/sexual partners.

The other part is increased awareness for me and having reached a breaking point, a combination of “This is what is really happening” & “I can’t do this anymore”. And this was caused, I dare say, by the circumstances with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up in the winter and had a final reckoning & breakup in April. The situation with him was an extreme example of someone not putting nearly as much effort as me into the relationship and, of course, he didn’t care about me or love me as my friends do. But thinking about my needs in the situation with him, forced me to be more honest with myself about my relational needs more in general and as I asked myself why I didn’t put up with certain behaviors from him, I also found myself having to answer the same question about similar behaviors from many of my friends. In many ways that situation with him was a wake up call or a call to reality for me: that and some concrete situations with friends this spring. As my gut finally rebelled saying I couldn’t continue accepting crumbs from the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up, it also opened my eyes to all the other situations where I have been surviving on crumbs.

And I simply cannot do that anymore.

Where to go from here, what to do? I’m not sure, yet.

The system, society, amatonormativity are certainly to blame, are the root cause for this. But if I limit myself to blaming the system, I’m not going to go very far and I’m just going to continue feeling angry, hurt, bitter, and starved. So, I’m going to accept my part of responsibility in all this (e.g. my being delusional); I’m going to take the advice from some other single people and step away from my partnered friends unless they make more concrete steps towards me; I’ve signed up to AVEN, to see if I can find advice and/or connection with other ace/aro people.

Will this help? I don’t know. But I just cannot live on crumbs anymore.

Why I run

I run because I hurt.

I run because the rush of endorphins gives me some temporary joy,

a momentary reprieve.

I run so I can listen to my music

regulating the emotions through motion.

I run so I can keep fit.

I run so I can feel fit

and, thus, worthy to myself.

I run because it makes me feel powerful,

this movement powered by my own body.

I run to be alone.

I run because I am alone.

I run because it’s something I can do by myself,

without depending on anyone.

I run to escape.

I run to run away.

The hard truth

[Trigger warning: grief; suicide.]

A praise I have often received from close friends and even from some acquaintances is that I am real: clear and honest in the assessment of reality, seeing things & saying things as they are.

It’s a praise I appreciate because I recognize myself in it — at least, most of the time. Some aspects of reality, though, I have been overlooking or trying not to see.

Over the course of this Spring, I have been getting more real with myself about many relationships I hold dear, and it has been painful because I have been confronted with the reality of not counting for these people as much as they count for me.

I moved out here to Colorado because in California I was too lonely and because I wanted to climb more. At the beginning, for the first years & a half, it was great: I did, in fact, meet people and bond with folks faster than I ever had in California and I got several climbing “buddies”, some of whom became regular climbing partners and some even friends. But the past two years have been rough and getting worse: my buddies have been getting more and more into their cis-het-amatonormative relationships with girlfriends or wives; my climbing fitness has decreased noticeably, affected by the grief & sorrow from the losses in the summer of 2023 and then a continuous string of injuries and surgeries. The combination of the these two factors — my decreased climbing fitness and their increased commitment to their girlfriends/wives — has effectively led them to lose interest in climbing with me. I have tried to hide this fact from my own self, trying to find excuses for my buddies, trying to be patient with them and gentle with myself. But I cannot hide the truth, this hard truth, from myself anymore.

The last straw, or last proof, came yesterday evening when my closest climbing buddy & I decided to cancel the trip we had planned for this long weekend to go climbing together because I’m not doing great physically. Now, honestly, I would have gone on the trip anyway, despite my general fatigue, because I know I could have pulled it off and maybe gone for some hikes instead of three days of intense climbing — I really needed to get out of town and do something fun or special this weekend, and I had told my buddy as much explicitly. I would have gone on the trip for the company and the adventure with my buddy: whether I got to climb three 5-pitch routes or only one easy 5.6, I didn’t care, the value for me was in being out of town with a friend. But, apparently, for him the value lay elsewhere, i.e. in high-level climbing; and since I cannot do that right now, then a weekend traveling with me isn’t of value for him. And he can’t even promise me a rain check for later this summer because it depends on plans with his wife — once again, I come after spouses, families of origin, romantic partners, and whatnot.

And it’s similar with my other buddies: folks in the climbing group from the Moab trip already have their plans for this summer, either with stronger climbing partners or with their romantic partners, plans that they are unwilling to change; my running buddy in Durango I get to see and/or hear from only when I reach out (as most of my friends); my local running buddies are basically out the whole summer with their wives and families; my non-local friends are far away living their own lives; and even one of my only two close local queer friends has shown from their most recent actions that their wife and their polycule are a much higher priority than I am or that I ever will be.

I am just so tired of — and so hurt by — people having to ask their wives or check with their partner(s) whether they can do something with me, make time for me, or not. What is this bullshit?? Can’t they just, every once in a while, say, “Hey, honey, tomorrow I’m going climbing with my buddy so I won’t be around all day”, or “This weekend I’m taking a trip with my buddy so I’ll see you in three days”. How can that be so difficult, so impossible, so hard for them to do?

I am so, so sick of this. So tired of this.

Here I am, on the threshold of yet another summer with no plans with anyone, nothing to look forward to. And it gets worse every year because I’m getting older and hope dwindles: a few years ago, I still had hope, or maybe the force of desperation, to keep me going, to give me the energy to keep trying, to seek out people and opportunities or to get on the road and just go by myself and enjoy it.

But I have no hope, no energy left. So often now, the only thought I have is how to get out of here for good, once and for all.

The lesser of two evils

For seven years, from 2008/2009 to 2015/2016, I was together with someone who was my sexual, “romantic”, and nesting partner.

We met in grad school through our common group of friends and got together the last year of our PhD. We moved in together after about a year of being sexually involved with each other and moved to Germany together for our first postdoc. I had received two postdoc offers from research groups in Singapore and one from a national lab in Washington D.C. — both places where I had really wanted to go — and one from a place in Germany. I chose Germany despite not really liking the city where I was going to live: that decision wasn’t based only on the fact that I liked the research topics I’d be working on; I chose Germany also because that was the only place where my partner had received a postdoc offer, too, and we wanted to move & live together.

I have often looked back upon that decision as a mistake, the only regret in my life. The first couple of years of the relationship with that sexual/romantic/nesting partner were wonderful: I was really happy with him, I thought I had found “the man of my life”, so I ignored the red flags and made that decision for my postdoc. And then, even when things started going badly and got worse over the other five years of our relationship, I tried everything I could to “make things work” between us. I tried so hard.

Eventually, I left. In January 2016, I moved to California by myself, leaving that partner and most of my life from that time behind me. I had had enough and my dreams, which had always been there and included moving to California, prevailed over the desire of having a “life partner”.

I have never regretted my choice of leaving, of leaving him. It was one of the best decisions of my life. But it was also one of the hardest. I remember sobbing for several hours at the beginning of the flight that was taking me from London to San Diego.

In that moment, I finally chose me — my freedom, my well-being, my dreams — over what was or had become a toxic relationship. I will never regret that decision, but now I will also stop regretting the years I spent with that man and the efforts I made to try to make that relationship work. I will stop regretting those years and those efforts with him because now I know, now I understand how much I really wanted that relationship to work.

That hadn’t been my first sexual-nesting relationship. It was actually my third. I ended each of those relationships when I realized they weren’t what I needed and there is no doubt that a lot of the reasons why, or ways in which, those relationships weren’t “what I needed” was because of the cis-hetero-amato-normative conditioning I had received that led me (us) to believe there was only one, or very few, way(s) of having a “life partner” — which now I know is untrue.

But now I also know something else.

Last weekend, I spent four days with my French buddy who moved back to California from Colorado. He hosted me at his place and I was his first visitor since he moved back there three months ago. We did the trail race together last Sunday and spent the most part of the weekend & all four evenings together. We spent hours on end together, like we had never done before. We went running together, did a race together; we went out for walks and dinners and ice-cream and brunches together; we went to an Irish pub together with another French coworker of his to watch the final soccer game of the Champion’s League (such a European thing to do!); we went out to the movies together and relaxed on the couch to watch shows & documentaries together; we cooked meals together and took turns doing the dishes. We planned our four days together, around each other’s schedules and needs. For four days we were, in some way, “nesting partners”.

Those days with him were some of the happiest days I’ve had recently and have had in a long time. I had a similar feeling of happiness and belonging on the camping/climbing trip to Moab with a group of friends for my French buddy’s birthday in May and partly also when visiting my friend in Durango in April.

What these recent trips, and in particular the days spent in California last weekend, have helped me to see as clear as day is that I would really want (a) nesting partner(s) and probably would even need that type of relationship in my life: I simply am happier and more functional when I share my life/days intentionally with a loved one.

It is these recent trips, the feelings I had during those days spent with my French buddy in California, that have finally erased the regret I felt around staying so many years in a relationship that didn’t work after grad school, the regret I felt around choosing Germany over Singapore to be with that guy. It might have been a “mistake”, because he was not the right person for me (nor I for him), but it was not wrong, because I had really wanted that relationship, because I need (a) “life partner(s)” of some sort. I don’t know exactly what form of “life partnership” I would want & need, e.g. if I’d like it to be “nesting” in the sense of actually living together in the same house or not, whether I’d want to have the nesting & sexual aspects from the same person or different people (probably different), whether I’d want some form of polycule and, if so, what type…

But what I do know is that, when in 2016 I chose myself — my freedom, my well-being, my dreams — over that toxic relationship, I chose the lesser of two evils: I chose to be alone rather than with the wrong person. But that does not mean that I am happy alone: that just means that I needed to get out of that situation and be alone then, to save myself then. It was survival, and that survival isn’t brining me happiness anymore.

What am I doing here?

What am I doing here, on this Earth?

It’s not even noon, I’ve gone out for my run, showered, and had a hearty brunch (all by myself) and now the best part of my day is over. I’ve got nothing left to do. Nothing that feels meaningful, at least.

Is that because I’ve been unemployed for none months and disillusioned or disappointed or hopeless about my career for a year & a half?

Or is it because I don’t have a family or some form of stable/nesting partner?

I know this is depression but I also know it’s caused by something specific in my life that is making me unhappy and not just a chemical imbalance in my brain.

Is it because of the renewed bout of gender dysphoria I’ve been experiencing over the past couple of weeks?

Or is it because of the horrific state of the world, in general, and of this country, in particular?

Is it because as a trans person I feel at “house arrest” here in Colorado because of how realistically dangerous it has become for people like me to travel out of this State or out of this country with an ‘X’ gender-marker on my passport because of the risk of not being let back in or of being the victim of violence at the border?

Is it because I don’t have a goal in my life, because my life feels — and probably really is — purposeless?

I get these brief moments of joy, at this point basically only when I’m exercising, preferably outdoors. Brief moments of joy when I’m out on some adventure or exercising with one of my buddies. But when I’m done, when I’m back at home alone, the loneliness and sense of purposelessness grip me again in their horrible claws.

I could give myself goals, tasks, and in fact I do. But once even those are done, what am I left with at the end? And to what end do I perform those tasks, try to reach those goals anyway?

To what end?

What am I doing here on this Earth?

More than half my life lies behind me, my better years lie behind me, and I haven’t really accomplished anything.

Why keep going at this point if it can only get worse?

Depression — The horrific state of the world

I’m gong through a bout of depression.

It’s circumstantial but it’s real.

The horrific bill that was passed in the House last week was probably the last straw, maybe because it’s one of the most all-encompassing measures of disaster and discrimination and abomination, such a widespread, all-encompassing measure of hatred and evil.

I’m worried. I’m worried and scared and angry. The world seems like such a horrible place in this moment: horror and violence and wars and hatred and discrimination and abuse of power wherever one looks. When the LGBTQIA+ community is attacked politically here, my friends and acquaintances say things like, “Well, at least you have a European passport and can go back to Europe!”. But I cannot. It’s as bad in many European countries — in some even worse — than it is here. At least, Colorado is a “safe haven”. But I feel at “house arrest” here. I’d like to go visit friends in Germany & Italy; I’d love to go on a climbing trip this summer with some buddies in Squamish (Canada); but I dare not leave this country lest I not be allowed back in or submitted to violence at the border because of the ‘X’ on my passport.

But it’s not only the attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community (which are horrible and would be enough to make this a criminal government): it’s the attacks on democracy itself, on the democratic institutions, on the different branches of democratic power; on the press & media & freedom of speech; on science & research; on healthcare for the people more in need, on the middle-class & the less privileged in general. To me it seems that we’re not simply veering but actually hurtling towards an authoritarian, oligarchic, phobic regime with the population of a whole country allowing it, sleep-walking straight into doom.

It’s terrifying and I don’t know what to do about it and that’s why I’m depressed. Because I feel so powerless. And exhausted. My job itself is constantly at risk because of this criminal government. And if I lose my job, I lose health insurance and thus gender-affirming care, and I literally risk ending up homeless because I have no one to fall back upon. So what battles should I pick to fight?

What battle can I pick to fight?