The Little Prince and the Fox

There’s something I’d like to add to my recent post on wholeness or wholesomeness.

During my wonderful recent summer trip, and as a result of it, I’ve often felt tempted to say something like “I’ve rediscovered myself”, especially when trying to summarize it to someone asking me how it went. But then I realize that this way of putting it is short of the truth: in reality how I feel is that this trip didn’t only enable me to “rediscover myself” but also, and even more wonderfully, to actually “find and discover even more”, about myself as well as the world around me. 

I truly rediscovered myself and found more: I found more than what I had expected, maybe — or more than what I had before the year & a half of struggles and tough introspection. 

And I keep finding more, even back here at home: more in myself, in the different aspects of my identity; more in my activities; more in the persons around me and in the interactions with people. 

Yesterday, in particular, I had a wonderful experience with a new climbing buddy who is also non-binary, and in a similar way to me. Despite knowing each other very little and them being quite a shy and silent person, we resonated and related in deep and almost unexpected ways. The connection was delicate, like dew drops trickling off leaves in the pale morning light; yet somehow powerful, or profound. And for maybe the first time in my life I felt a truly gender-neutral connection: I felt extremely close to this person in a silent, delicate way, and totally gender-neutral in a comfortable, incredibly natural way, as if an imposed, cumbersome layer had been shed, a burden lifted at last. It felt almost as if I were naked, but not at all vulnerable: I actually felt comfortable and natural and safe as I have hardly ever felt before. 

Somehow I felt as if my whole non-binary being were more than the sum or mixture of male-female: the whole felt more than the sum of the parts — and maybe even more so because it was in relation to another human being… 

It’s been just over a week since sending my “coming out” email to the majority of my friends and I am thankful for the supportive, encouraging, accepting, even enthusiastic and celebrating replies I have been receiving. I have also received some “silent replies”: some friends who are either too busy or not really tuned in, or aligned with, gender identity & non-binary nuances haven’t answered my email — as I expected them not to. But this doesn’t upset me (and I hope my “coming out” didn’t upset them): they are dear friends to me anyway and that is the reason I decided to include them in such a delicate communication even if it might fall dead on them. 

Last week, I wrote and sent that “coming out” email because I felt ready to do so at a gut level: I felt almost an instinctive, instinctual imperative to do so, that the moment had come for me to tell those people how I really felt, about my whole person as non-binary “androgynous/gender-fluid”. 

A week after that important step, though, my feelings have evolved, in a positive way. What I feel now is a wholesomeness, like I’m whole at last, I’ve fully come into myself (or my selves) at last. And it’s a wonderful feeling, especially contrasting it to the emotions I felt during the spring and until the end of June, before my summer trip, as I began to realize and grapple with my non-binary gender (and other aspects of my identity). Throughout the spring and beginning of summer, the realization of there also being a boy in me —  an unacknowledged and often stifled boy in me who had cohabited with the openly accepted and sometimes forced-upon-me girl — this realization brought me mainly a huge sense of loss, and therefore sadness. I felt keenly what I, or the boy in me, had missed or had had to fight against for so many years: it felt like a hole, and was painful and sad. And then, there was also fear: fear of the boy in me not being accepted by the outside world, as it hadn’t for so many years (especially fear that cisgender male persons would not accept the masculine part in me, not consider me “male enough” — which I recognize might be my own bias/prejudice).

Fortunately the emotions I feel around my non-binary gender are very different now: I feel healed and whole, like that loss has been healed, at last. There might still come moments when my androgyny is not accepted or understood, when I might have to fight over my gender or drop the topic altogether, and I am still being cautious about communicating it (I choose other options than “male” or “female” in forms but I’m not ready to put “they/them/their” at the bottom of my email signature nor is it something I communicate immediately to people I’m meeting for the first time at just any social event). But I feel that I’m in a different place now: I am so happy and grounded, tuned in and whole with my identity that I am not only ready to let it come out more and more to the world, but also want it to come out to the world. Step by step, at the right moments, I want to show who I am, I want to express how I feel in a whole, complete way.

And this sense of wholeness for me is truly new: I don’t think I’ve ever felt this type of wholesomeness before in my life…

Today I’ll be pouring my heart out so it feels scary but also necessary.

I’ve been back at home for almost a week now and gone climbing four times already: bouldering, top-roping, climbing outdoors with some buddies, and even starting the two-day class “Learn to Lead Climb”. I’ve bought myself new, more aggressive, technical climbing shoes; I’m practicing and seeing confirmed those new skills and strengths that I gained as a climber in my outdoor experiences in Colorado; and I’ve mostly being climbing in fun company and engaging activities. Yet, every time I’m at my climbing gym, I still have the instinct to look for that boulderer and wish that we would run into each other, as we used to so often before — and I’m always a little disappointed that it hasn’t happened.

I am not going to judge or berate myself for my feelings; but I am going to flesh out the reasons why I feel this way: several reasons, all very clear to me and all stemming from a newly found position of grounded confidence (being at last comfortable with my gender identity and my “coming out”; comfortable/happy with my physical body; getting back into a relatively satisfying and balanced professional and social life here at home). 

The first reason is very old, and has played out for me in another relationship in the past (with the partner with whom I had that long, toxic relationship): a little part of me is seeking my father’s approval, that approval that I never really got enough from my parents, as a child, of being an “amazing boy” — now it’s this stronger, more experienced and braver climber in me that I would like to have recognized, specifically by someone who is a good climber and used to be a better climber than myself. 

The second reason is plain habit. This person and I have known each other and interacted for two and a half years. Meeting and having to interact in a professional environment for over a year, and then COVID-19, made the situation “weird”, at best, often complicated or confusing; so climbing and the gym offered us a space — both physical and figurative — where we could interact more closely, on a safe personal level. Apart from actually going to climb together several times, we’d often run into each other and chat a little at the gym — so that’s where the habit was formed for me. 

The third reason is simply fun: despite all the complicated, confusing and often even frustrating situations that arose for me with this boulderer, we connected on so many different levels (beyond climbing), the conversation flowed and the emotions were super intense in ways that I just cannot find with any other of my climbing partners — and while I was in Colorado, I got super intense emotions in other ways and with other people but here I don’t really anymore, so I miss them a bit. 

And finally, the last (but not at all least!) reason is closure. I need closure. I want closure — and I want it even more from this position of grounded strength that I have found again. Before leaving for my summer trip, this boulderer & I were still interacting, hanging out as well as running into each other at the gym by accident. And right before my departure, we had a couple interactions which, on one hand, made me really angry, while on the other implied that we’d see each other when I got back from my trip.

Traveling; seeing different, beautiful places; meeting and being with wonderful people; exploring and doing so many amazing activities, having so many fantastic experiences — all of this helped me to find myself, my confidence, my balance again, as well as to give a new, more detached perspective to the situation with that boulderer. Often when I put a physical, geographical distance between myself and an upsetting situation or person, I regain balance and perspective on that relationship, and most of the time I end up wanting closure. And this is what has happened for me this time, too: I am simply tired of that situation, as I’ve realized how exhausting or upsetting it was in so many unnecessary (and maybe even unhealthy or dangerous) ways. But I also want to honor and treasure the beautiful moments I had, the lessons I learned, in that weird, confusing, indefinite relationship: and I want to say all this to that other person involved (who might not even have a clue of any of my feelings!). I want to tell the boulderer how I felt in the past and how I feel now. With no anger or resentment, but as a gift: as a gift to myself, and maybe as a gift to them.

For me, it’s also important within this whole phase of “coming out” and finding my voice: it’s part of this journey together with these posts I write here; together with my “coming out” emails to my friends, embracing and stating openly my non-binary gender identity; together with taking up the courage to express my emotions in words with/to other persons, finding my voice. Getting closure by telling this boulderer my emotions relative to the situation with them, would be another important way for me to find my voice — finding my voice after two and a half years of holding it in with them. 

Since getting back home in California from my fun, healing, liberating, and empowering vacation in Colorado & road trip, there have been mixed feelings for me. 

Loneliness is always looming and is intensified both by the cold, wet, foggy weather where I live and by the limited social life I have so far built here.

But exercising, getting back to work, and seeing some friends is helping. And despite the cold, unwelcoming weather, I have received a warm welcome from several persons here: a friend from the swimming-pool eager to meet up with me ASAP and very supportive of my recent “coming out” (which has truly contributed immensely to me feeling accepted and loved just as I am); climbing already this weekend with the new “climbing buddies” I just started connecting with in June; dinner with one of my closest friends here, at her place. And that evening, there were two particularly sweet moments. I had just got home from my road trip that afternoon and for dinner I immediately visited this close friend, who has two daughters. First, while we were getting dinner ready, the younger girl made me a little gift with some craft work that she had just been learning at summer camp — so spontaneously… Then, as I was saying good-bye/good-night to the kids, the older girl asked me, “When will we see you again?”

WOW. That simple, straightforward, sweet question went straight to my heart and filled me with warmth and joy. I went home feeling very loved that night. 

Okay, I’m ready, the time has come!

Yesterday I sent a “coming out” email to most of my close friends, sharing how I realize that, although my “biological sex” is female, my gender identity is non-binary, it’s part female/part male, and I would now define my gender as “androgynous/gender-fluid”.

So I let them all know that I have finally decided to adopt the pronouns “they/them/their” for me. 

It felt a little scary but also (and mainly) liberating and empowering. It gave me a sense of “coming into myself” more wholly, a deep sense of contentment. And for the moment, I have received very supportive, accepting, loving, encouraging, warm replies, which gives me an even deeper sense of contentment and joy: I can be myself fully and openly, and still be accepted and loved as I am — WOW!

Arys is an athlete, a committed amateur athlete, and has been her whole life. And her whole life has had a love-hate relationship with her body. 

“Technically” or biologically a female and brought up in a family where sex and gender — and their “appropriate roles” — were very binary, she has always felt “androgynous”. The full, deep realization of her non-binary, gender-fluid identity, though, has become really clear to her only recently: and this gender-identity breakthrough shed a new, bright light on her body-image issues, on the reasons why she always hated that little layer of fat on her upper thighs. It explained, all of a sudden like a ray of sunshine through dark stormy clouds, why she loved her narrow hips, her small breasts, her flat abs, her relatively broad shoulders, her lean arms and strong upper body, while being unable to accept those round thighs… those shapely round thighs that nevertheless gave her that much-admired round butt, that allowed her to get her period regularly and thus be truly strong and healthy. Because those round thighs were “feminine”: they were the ultimate signature of her “femaleness”, almost a quirk in her androgynous body. She wanted a “line-like” body, not a “thin” body: it wasn’t about being thin because that’s pretty; it was all about being lean because that’s androgynous. 

Now, at nearly forty years of age and finally fully recovered from a heavy bout of COVID-19 in spring 2020, she’s back exercising intensely again and shifting the love-hate relationship with her body more towards love and acceptance. She looks at her body in the mirror, and while still pondering the shift to “they” pronoun, she tells that reflection, “You’re gorgeous”. It’s easier for her to say right after a workout or when she sees only the strong, lean upper body; she still winces at those round thighs and wishes she could shed that little layer of fat, but slowly she’s learning to love that little fat, too. As long as that fat doesn’t prevent her from running trails or climbing mountains, one step at a time, just as on her trail runs or climbing routes, one step at a time she — or they — will embrace her whole body, her whole androgynous body: the “womanness” of it together with the “manness” of it.

Because that’s precisely what androgynous means: woman and man blended together.

… On the one hand, sadness at having to leave these places and people and activities that I have been enjoying so much for the past three weeks; and some fear because all these wonderful experiences are coming to and end (for now). 

On the other, an itch to get back home as soon as possible, without doing any further exploration (which could actually be fun) on my return road trip; partly because I’m getting nervous about the work that I need to get done; and partly because of my desire to get back to (other) places and people and activities that I love at home as well as an eagerness to keep up the momentum of liveliness that I rediscovered on this vacation and apply it to my daily life back at home, too.

“Darkness on the edge of town” (Bruce Springsteen):

“… 

Everybody’s got a secret Sonny

Something that they just can’t face

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it

They carry it with them every step that they take

Till some day they just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag ’em down

…“

The biggest fear I have now is of going back to the loneliness and seasonal fog where I live in California. 

But after a moment’s thought, I realize that this is the same fear I had a month or two ago, when I was looking at the summer I had ahead of me — at least, the loneliness part. That fear of a lonely summer really motivated me to seek solutions — which I found, even exceeding my own expectations, partly thanks to my initiative and greatly thanks to the wonderful persons I’ve met and been with in the past three weeks. 

So now, I can use my current fear in a similar, motivating way. I cannot change the seasonal fog where I live in California, but I can drive to nearby places with better summer weather almost daily even when I’m back. And the loneliness part I can definitely do something about: by keeping up this rediscovered momentum to reach out to people; by maintaining the openness of heart and mind that I’ve had in the past three weeks; by participating in fun group activities similar to those I’ve found here in Colorado; by avoiding to go back into some old routines of my own. 

I’ve done it so many times before… I can do this once again! 

So as I have been doing with other burdens on my heart, I won’t let this fear drag me down: just cut it loose! 

One of the most concretely healing and liberating aspects of my vacation here in Colorado this summer has been all the rock climbing I’ve been doing, learning so many new skills outdoors (trad climbing, focusing mainly on multi-pitch and cracks) and simply enjoying it thoroughly.

I’ve always had the instinct to climb and scramble anywhere and everywhere — I’ve always been adventurous, restless, and reckless in general! 

But it wasn’t until recently that I really took up rock climbing. Part of the procrastination was on me: I kept sticking to my routine (swimming, running, yoga, sailing; and then just hiking or skiing on vacation, depending on the season). But part of it was also due to the stifling, discouraging, or simply overshadowing messages/attitudes I got from various persons throughout my life: first, my mother, who was scared of almost everything; then, for many years, a toxic relationship with a partner who tried to change me, to force me into a “girly” or “needy” person who was so alien to my true self; and finally, a guy on whom I got a crush shortly before I started climbing in the summer of 2019 and who turned out to climb at my same gym and to be a very experienced boulderer. While the relationship with my ex-partner was stifling and downright toxic in many ways, the situation with the boulderer was just weird and confusing, but each in different ways overshadowed the climber in me or the fact that climbing felt like my own thing, and had always felt like my thing to me. So that’s what is so wonderful and important for me now: that I have come into my climber self, at last! I am doing this because I love it; I am pushing my own boundaries, learning new skills, conquering some of my fears, discovering amazing new places and wonderful new people, enjoying myself and being myself as a climber, just as I want to, freely and independently, with nobody trying to change me or limit me or patronize me or overshadow me.

So yay! for the climber in me — and for all the amazing climbers I’ve been meeting and making friends with recently!

Two years ago, between the end of June and beginning of July 2019, one of my closest friends & I met up here in Colorado for a “ fun girl trip” together, she coming from the East Coast and I from the West Coast. That summer, we were both trying to get over some upsetting and confusing emotional situations, and that trip (apart from being an excellent excuse to see each other again!) was meant to be a fun, healing, liberating getaway. And I believe it really was. 

This summer, two years later, she and I have come back to Colorado for our vacations, independently, with separate group of friends and mostly in different parts of the State. But we were able to meet up briefly again yesterday, after not having seen each other for two whole years. And it was so lovely! We’re both stubborn, strong-willed persons and we each depended partly on other people for our plans, so we almost didn’t make it to see each other. And that would have seen such a shame! Although in some ways our interests have diverged a bit during these past two years and we have each overcome our difficult emotional situations from two years ago in different ways, reaching different solutions at a different pace, our brief meeting yesterday was the highlight of our day — and maybe the most beautiful part of it is that we both felt the same joy in meeting. 

The brief meeting yesterday with my dear friend from the East Coast has been one of many instances of healing through friendship, love, and connection that I have been experiencing during my stay here in Colorado. For over two weeks now, I feel I have been literally surrounded by love, acceptance, hospitality, friendship, and positive aspects of family-like emotions/situations. 

This is turning out to be one of the most healing trips/experiences ever for me. That trip to Colorado two summers ago was lovely, for me, in the sense of fun and liberating (which was exactly what I needed then). This time, I’m being truly healed in a sweet, profound and liberating way — which is turning out to be exactly what I needed now (although I hadn’t realized it so clearly until a week or so into my trip). I think it hasn’t been until this trip that I have totally liberated myself, at last, from that upsetting and confusing emotional situation that I was trying to overcome in the summer of 2019. And this healing liberation has come a lot from the solo part of my road trip, from the adventures on which I’ve been going both on my own and with other people here, from the self-confidence that these adventures and experiences, interactions and connections have been rekindling in me; but this healing liberation has also come in a gentle yet powerful way from the warmth and acceptance I have been feeling — soaking in like the sunshine & heat here — from all these wonderful persons around me, from all these friends, old and new. 

So thanks to you all, my friends, old and new!