The Little Prince and the Fox

One of my closest friends got their first tattoo just a couple days ago and yesterday was telling me how they were still riding the wave, enjoying the high, from the euphoric feeling of having gotten this tattoo (which is really beautiful, by the way!).

I could relate to them very well, as I also felt euphoric for quite a while after getting my own first tattoo three weeks ago.

It’s nice – and maybe necessary for mental health? – to get these waves of joy or euphoria, to get these highs on which we car ride, even surf, for a few hours or days.

In the past weeks the mornings have been really hard for me. I’ve been waking up late, which is unusual for me. And I’ve been feeling both physically tired and emotionally drained when I wake up. A sort of “morning sickness” but at the emotional level. This past week, especially, I’ve had several days with sadness and fear haunting my mornings. This is very strange for me. I used to be the type of person who gets up early and full of positive energy.

I still am an optimistic and energetic person but I’m also feeling emotionally tired now. There’s been an emotional earthquake for me recently and now I’m facing a professional tornado coming up soon. So I guess the sadness and fear I feel are justified, and probably even healthy.

Science (my work), friends, and exercise help. A lot.

Today I had to get a 1-hour run in and with the heat wave there was no other option than to go as early as possible in the morning.

It was a huge struggle to get myself out of bed and ready for a run this morning. But I did it.

The run itself was pretty tough and it was already extremely warm at 8:30 this morning. But I stuck it out and ran for an hour. And enjoyed it.

I came home soaked. Still sweating buckets. But happy.

This is the runner’s high.

It’s simple chemistry – I know it. But I’ll take it when it comes: I’ll ride this wave for today, or for however long I can…

Here it is: a wave of grief. A mixture of sadness and fear. 

The leitmotif of the past six months has involved change, letting go, transition, holding the uncertainty, limbos. And also beautiful growth, discovery, opportunities to come into myself more fully and live more authentically. 

But in the past few weeks these limbos have started to crystalize into real, actual, changes; into really letting go or closing down something specific while something else opens up. Which has often brought me joy and/or relief. But there’s also been pain. 

There’s pain now, today. It started seeping in again yesterday, certainly encouraged by my physical tiredness. 

There’s so much pain today. Sadness. Fear. And loneliness, so much loneliness. 

I’m surrounded by so many wonderful friends, old and new, nearby as well as scattered over the globe but still close, and I can feel the love and support from them. But I’m also keenly aware of how personal and solitary my journey is because it is my own unique experience. 

And so it is for each one of us, I guess — as Quasimodo wrote in his poem “Solitudini” (literally “Lonelinesses” or “Alonenesses”, plural)

“Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra 

Trafitto da un raggio di sole. 

Ed e’ subito sera.” 

Maybe today I feel this aloneness more sharply because I wish I could share some of these important changes with a few specific persons with whom I cannot share them, at least not for now. I wish I could write to them, tell them, “I’m becoming myself! I’m becoming a boy. I’m finishing a textbook that to me feels like the wrapping-up of a love-story, or a love-letter. I’m ending one phase of my career to start a new one. I’ll soon be completing my move geographically, with all the adieus that entails. I’m shedding a skin — and hopefully finding a new skin, one that fits me better, and a new home. I need this, I wanted this, and I’m looking forward to it. But regardless of how healthy and exciting these changes are, no matter how much I’m looking forward to these new stages of me & my life, there’s also loss, and pain, and learning to let go. Which isn’t easy.” 

There’s a few people to whom I would really want to say this, pretty much in so many words, but I cannot. Not now. Not yet. Maybe later, maybe never.

I’m still reeling from the beautiful intensity of the past two days with my European climbing buddy visiting. 

The timing of his visit was a godsend. 

The pain and sadness from my very recent heartbreak might come back — they probably will as grief comes in waves; and if/when it happens, I’ll hold that grief and work through it. But this visit now was a wonderful reminder of who I am, of what I really want, and of the connections that I still can make (& have been making throughout my life, including in the past five or six years here in the U.S.). 

The past two days have been both grounding and exhilarating. A wonderful reminder that it is, indeed, possible for me to connect with guys super deeply, super intensely, super sincerely, immediately, i.e. in an absolutely spontaneous, instinctive way that encompasses multiple levels all wrapped up together with neither of us being fazed by them but, on the contrary, embracing them and riding them like a wave with trust and ease.

The common European background helped for sure — e.g. the wonderful, unasked for affirmation I got when talking about my non-binary identity and he told me that he sees me like one of those Greek-Hellenistic sculptures of a young boy, a budding young man — he was referring to the kuros that I identify with but hadn’t mentioned to him — without my having to say it, we were saying/seeing the same thing thanks to our similar European schooling. That was beautiful, one of the loveliest moments of affirmation and shared understanding that I’ve recently experienced.

But there were also other aspects of our interactions and feelings that went beyond our common European background. That were merely due to our compatibility as persons: these were good reminders of similar situations that I have been able to find with other guys here in the U.S. in the past few years. 

I have met and connected deeply with lots of wonderful people here and learned so much. In general, I really appreciate there being more respect for personal space, less automatic “touchy-feelyness”, more respect for and awareness of the need for consent when getting close to someone, than is usually found in Southern European countries/cultures. But in some of my experiences/interactions here I have felt a loss of spontaneity and/or directness in this continuous “testing the waters” approach. In my opinion, there can be a beauty and happiness in trusting the body-language and I find it sad to lose it completely or let it be overshadowed by too much “talking through everything”. 

The spontaneously easy and close interactions with my climbing buddy in the past couple days here were a wonderful reminder for me of similar interactions I have had here in the U.S. in the past few years (and with two 100%-American guys actually). Persons with whom there was some kind of immediate recognition and ease and liking at lots of different levels and with whom, to some extent or other, body-language was the guide of our interactions with some kind of unspoken yet mutually understood consent. Situations in which both the other guy and I felt like we had known each other our entire lives.

I like that. It feels wonderfully good to me and gives me a rare, special, and cherished enlivening joy. 

One of my new climbing buddies is visiting me for a couple days for a project that is basically a mutual, and fun, favor. 

He’s from the part of Europe that is half of my own heritage, which is one of the many reasons we connected so easily and spontaneously (albeit only recently). 

It’s nice having him here for a couple days. It’s refreshing and fun and even interesting. It’s fun and interesting to see parts of me resurface that have been in hibernation for years. It’s not only the language — which is already a big deal, since it’s a much more gendering language than English and harder for me to speak now that I’m non-binary. It’s the whole culture, the background, the references — common references, shared jokes or same type of humor, even the same type of body language, including a more spontaneous and exuberant flirtatiousness/eroticism that has no serious intents but is refreshing and fun nonetheless. And pleasantly familiar in its innocent liveliness. 

Polyamory is a non-negotiable for me. And it partly has to do with my having multiple identities and so many interests: I grew up and lived most of my life in multi-cultural/poly-ethnical environments: I am a “mutt” who speaks several languages and identifies in different ways with various cultures; I am an avid and competitive athlete; I am a scientist and a dedicated professional; I am a non-binary/trans person; I am an adventurer and explorer; and I am a childish lover of fun times (although I often struggle to get this aspect of me out/satisfied). And also, I enjoy flirting and I believe physical contact/intimacy/sexuality to be just another aspect of interacting with people and exploring ourselves & relationships. I don’t like causal sex but I do like —and have always cherished — the possibility of sex/intimacy with friends/buddies, if the right situation arises and the feelings are mutual. 

I cannot forego this. For me being polyamorous is part of my identity, part of my multi-faceted identity, maybe also part of my liveliness/youthfulness, part of the fun, childish, playful me. A way for me to explore myself and the world. One of my multiple identities, and one that I enjoy very much.

Six months ago one of my closest friends gave me the book “The body keeps the score”, which has been on my reading list for a couple years now. I haven’t gotten around to reading it, yet, but I look forward to it — and maybe then I’ll finally understand why, whenever I experience a loss that to me feels like a rejection from a person whom I love deeply, physically I feel it in the pit of my stomach. 

Always. 

It can vary between feeling like a punch in the stomach or a knot, often leading to incapacity or unwillingness to eat. Twice, in very dark moments of my life about a decade ago, after a terrible fight with my then-partner — fights that felt like I was being rejected and/or disapproved of and/or judged negatively or condemned at my core — I felt so bad in my stomach and even so much self-hatred that I hid in the bathroom and stuck my fingers in my throat to try and throw-up. Fortunately, though, I couldn’t get that far. Maybe some tiny shred of self-love or self-respect stopped me then — and even more fortunately that has never happened again. 

But the knot in my stomach, the feeling of a punch at the mouth of my stomach, and the subsequent incapacity or unwillingness to eat, are all there again now… 

Why does this happen to me? 

When I let the deep friendship with my non-binary friend & climbing/adventure buddy acquire a romantic&sexual aspect to it, in April, letting it happen out of spontaneous mutual consent and just the feeling of the moment, without discussing its possible consequences, I made a mistake. 

I assumed it would be okay because in the moment there was mutual consent and it felt spontaneous and “right” then. 

I assumed it would be okay because in my life, and especially in the past five or six years, I have had so many “friends with benefits” and it’s always been okay. 

I assumed wrong. 

I shouldn’t even have assumed in the first place. 

Touché.

For the past day and a half I’ve been feeling extremely sad. The cause lay in a message from a person that I love very deeply. 

This message is very thoughtful, mature, respectful and loving. There is no doubt from this message as well as other interactions with this person that they love me deeply, too. 

I knew that the “immediate” reason for my sadness was heartbreak. I also knew that this heartbreak and the unfathomable depth of my sadness was due not only to this particular message and this particular situation that can be logistically difficult but also to old heartbreaks and traumas from my past. I was aware that I was reading this message not simply as it was but also, inevitably, through the colored lenses of my own past hurtful experiences. So I haven’t replied, yet. I’ve been holding off until I reached some balance and clarity in my own feelings, also because I could feel in my gut that something was nagging at me that I couldn’t pinpoint, yet. 

Now I know what it is: once again, it lies with assumptions. 

One of the aspects of that message that kept feeling terribly hurtful and also disappointing was the sense that this person was deeming our relationship impossible or us incompatible on the basis of what to me felt like “hypotheses”: situations from the past that we haven’t really ever discussed fully and hypothetical situations in the future that might happen or not (because plans are simply plans and can get overturned anytime!). This word “hypothesis” kept lingering in my head and nagging at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on the cause. 

Until this morning. These “hypotheses” in this beloved person’s message that hurt me so much are assumptions — and mostly unfounded ones, as far as my feelings and experiences are involved. 

Yes, this person is mature and honest and direct and loving. They are one of the people I’ve loved the most and had in highest regard in my entire life. But in this message — while it’s still a mature, honest message — they are making a bunch of assumptions (without asking me) and based upon them they are deeming our relationship doomed. 

They are assuming that since I’m white, I have never experienced racism (in my case, what I’ve experienced is technically called “xenophobia”) and thus cannot understand their mixed-race experience. 

They are assuming that my tendency of being non-monogamous would endanger our long-distance relationship. 

They are assuming that their desire to coparent would be a problem for me. 

Why not ask me instead of assuming? 

I know it’s partly, maybe mostly, on me, on my being very shy about bringing up and sharing my deepest thoughts and feelings, my fears and pains. And I know that this person’s assumptions are coming from a place of trust and/or respect towards me, on one hand, and of self-protection to avoid getting hurt too much themselves, on the other. (These are, admittedly, partly assumptions of my own for which I have some direct evidence from this person but which I also need to check!) 

But although I know these assumptions are not meant to hurt me, they still do: they still feel like a shield and daggers. 

So please, please, please: ask me, don’t assume!

“Ask, Don’t Assume”: this has become one of my favorite mantras since first seeing this quote at a friend’s house in February. 

Over the past five or six years my awareness with respect to assumptions has probably been one of the greatest shifts in my worldview and growth. I have found myself in personal situations as well as professional environments which have not only totally deconstructed and turned on its head my upbringing and habit of assuming, but also and maybe even more importantly made it glaringly clear to me how much, how often, how pervasively we assume. 

I am a scientist: in some realms of my life, assumptions are my daily bread and are necessary. But I have come to realize that apart from maths and the hard sciences, where indeed assumptions are often the foundation (and yet still need to be made with extreme caution and analyzed carefully!), when it comes to human relations and most aspects of life, assumptions are not just tricky: assumptions can be straight out dangerous and harmful. Assumptions about people, feelings, situations can sometimes be necessary or inevitable. But overall I’m realizing that assumptions about persons, emotions, situations are more like shields or walls, and they can even turn into swords or daggers or rocks. 

I still find myself making assumptions, too. A week ago, in my last session with my counselor, I was wrapping up a situation that had weighed on my mind and heart and soul for along while, and I found myself saying, “… but the shame I felt in all that is still hard to overcome sometimes and that’s something that he didn’t feel, even if it was confusing and difficult for him, too, at least he didn’t feel the shame…” And then I stopped almost in mid-sentence: before my counselor had even said anything, I caught myself and corrected myself: “Actually,” I found myself reflecting, “I don’t really know that and cannot know it unless I ask him. He might have felt shame, too. I’m only assuming he didn’t and I cannot really know”. 

In that moment I saw and felt how useful therapy has been for me because, together with many readings and conversations with people who are open-minded and non-judgmental, I have truly learned to ask and listen carefully instead of assuming, to be more open-minded, to hold the doubt, and also to be much more aware of the moments when I don’t, when I slip back into the old, ingrained habit of making assumptions without enough information. 

“Kiss it” by Dorothy (Album “Rock is dead”):

“Mama she don’t like my walk

Daddy he don’t like my talk

My baby told me “Listen here

A woman need a man.”

All I gotta say to you is “Kiss it baby, ” yeah

Kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Preacher try to make me see

Teacher try to marry me

My baby told me “Listen here

A woman need a man”

All I gotta say to you is “Kiss it baby, ” yeah

Kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Kiss it baby yeah, kiss it

Whoa kiss it, kiss it

Whoa kiss it, kiss it

… 

… 

… “

You might feel like you’re on your own now. And you might really be on your own. 

Maybe your family’s reaction to your coming out was something like, “Of course, we love you just as you are, but… “ 

Maybe some close friend turned their back on you for stating your opinion honestly, regardless of how respectfully you did it. 

Maybe an acquaintance or friend’s partner attacked you for no reason, just for being you, for being in some way “anti-conformist”. 

Maybe you got evicted or kindly asked to leave or fired because of not “fitting the standards” — and maybe it was done without even telling you the true reasons so you couldn’t defend yourself. 

Maybe you live in a place where you cannot even make your own choices for your own body because someone else writing the laws has decided that this fundamental right is too threatening. 

You have the right to be yourself. You have the right to choose how to live your life and what to do to your own body (as long as you’re not willfully harming anyone else!). 

You have the right to speak up.

You are lovable and loved regardless of your shape or color or age or gender or relationship choices.

You’re not alone. You might feel alone now, you might actually be on your own, living your life your own way. But trust that you’re not alone. 

There’s more of us out there, trying to live their lives authentically and respecting the right of auto-determination, for ourselves and for everyone else around us.