Beneath the Fear Is Love

this leaf-rubbing is on the back of a voter registration form. He named it "Ms. Jane in Autumn" because the colors reminded him of me. It's the one piece of his artwork that I didn't give back. 

I don’t mind saying that I am a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy champion. After eighty-bajillion years of therapy, I can argue down almost any distorted negative thought that depression and anxiety send my way. (I often think our political system could use a course in CBT. ALSO, all of our other systems.) But there’s one negative idea I just can’t get away from: The conviction that I will never again find love.

I understand that I have no way of knowing. I would never tell a friend they were too ugly, too fat, too old to be loved, but this is what my brain thinks, particularly when it comes to my (main) attraction to masculine-presenting people. I don’t even believe in those standards, but they are so, so hard to refute. It’s sort of the core of my belief system that everyone deserves love, and I know it gets found in a million different ways by everyone, including by me.

There’s no real reason to assume that the romantic part of life is over for me, but in some ways, it would feel like a relief to let it go. Mostly, I go along buoyed by gratitude, goal-setting, and Prozac, but the yearning, well, lets go ahead and call it loneliness, is still there, stubborn and ardent as life. Sometimes, a flash, a mini-panic that SOMETHING IS MISSING AND I’LL NEVER FIND IT.

The last time I really-and-truly fell for someone in a (briefly) requited way was in fall of 2016. It’s startling to realize that that was THREE ENTIRE YEARS AGO. In my brain and heart, it feels like not very much time has passed at all. The love is thorough, the pain is fresh, and it makes me SO MAD AT MYSELF. I would never stand over a grief-struck friend and yell GET OVER IT ALREADY but that’s exactly what I feel like doing to myself.

We met at my old, dear library afterschool program job—he was the cutest security guard. He’d take frequent shifts in the children’s department and draw or play Legos with me and the kids. One day, we painted galaxies, I forget why. Okay, so neither of us was being particularly amazing at our jobs in those moments, but the kids made more art that school year than I’ve ever facilitated before or since. So that’s something.

One Friday, we played Monopoly—I forget why, usually I banned it because it stresses the kids out and who wants to play a game about rent, anyway? But that early-evening, it was like we were all counting money and being play-tough in a bubble of peace. His knee was touching mine under the table and it was maybe the deepest sense of belonging I’ve ever felt—like he and I and the students and the library and the city and the WHOLE world were a family for a few minutes.

On the day after Daylight Savings Time ended, we were supposed to have a Pokémon walk but he had to cancel.  He texted, though, that he really did like me back and we decided to plan a date. It all felt so settled and hopeful: I would canvass my ass off, Hillary would win, and then we’d snuggle. (That is maybe the saddest sentence I’ve ever typed in a lifetime of sad sentences.)

The day after Hillary lost, I walked into the library, where the podium for our kid-election was still decorated with red, white, and blue stars, and started sobbing. He was summoned from upstairs to come and comfort me. Holy Jesus, that hug. That love, that man, that end-of-the-world day.

Our date was that Friday—I remember that it was Veteran’s Day because he was off from the library and could come visit me on the Rosemont campus, the bookstore being one of my three jobs at the time. (Oh bookstore, another lost love.) As soon as I took his hand though, he changed his mind, or maybe he’d come to let me down easy? Either way, he did nothing wrong, it was just dating, just life. We spent a few hours chatting, shivering, and half-cuddling under a beautiful yellow tree, bright with cold sun. Nobody did anything wrong, just a shift that couldn’t be unshifted.

Logically, (ha) there was no need for a broken heart. A bad match isn’t personal, I know, I know. But after the election, I needed a win so much, TOO MUCH. (It wasn’t really registering yet how important Kamala Harris’s win would be to me.) I needed the pre-election hope to somehow come back, and I needed that hope to be him. Now that I type it, that’s a lot to have put on one human being, and on myself as well.

Now, whenever a cute guy starts to seem even a little possible, I’m petrified. I’m like a spooked horse who wants to kick down every barn wall and escape to a meadow of infinite Gilmore Girls episodes.  The littlest hope from a blushing handsome face makes my unhelpful brain want to convince me that IT WILL ALL COME CRASHING DOWN, that love or even just a little spark of attraction with somehow make it 2016 again, with the panics and the sobbing and the rage-driving and the Thanksgiving ruining.

By some miracle, I’ve made a happy, angry, protest-filled life in the past three years, but it feels like the slightest loss of control, the smallest step towards vulnerability, would take it all way. When I was little, I used to wish so hard for anyone (besides, so amazingly, my mom and my three closest friends) to protest with, and now, though the world is so full of suffering and fear, I, by some crazy grace,  have a version of the life I’ve always wanted, connected to ALL of my fellow humans in a way I would have never thought possible, with every march, every sign, every letter to congress. For the last three years, my love has been the whole world, which is wonderful but not conductive to snuggles. Still, I don’t want risk anything taking that connection away.

As I wrote this out, I could feel my heart loosening a little, letting out a little of that vast reservoir of love I had in fall of 2016. I’m grateful to have reached the point of honoring that love. I would like him, the beauty and trauma and tragedy and silliness of loving him, not to take up so much space in my heart, but he does. Maybe I’m a little bit trapped in the amber of that week because it was so important, because he was so important. That’s good. Maybe I’ll just love him as long as I need to, which is probably forever, and then maybe I’ll love someone else. Maybe even that someone else’s someone else too, who knows?

Maybe time isn’t frozen in my heart. Maybe it’s just going at its own pace. Speaking of time, this took forever to type because I’ve been texting two cuties on Bumble, so it’ll probably be okay.

Why D.C. Is My Happy Place

Last Sunday was the Equality March, where LGBTQ folks, allies, and Women’s March stalwarts gathered to show our pride and solidarity and to protest the Trump regime. As my BFF/ex-wife and I walked into the crowd at Farragut Square, we happened upon a wave of woohoos. A marching band in matching purple T-shirts played “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and I felt old when only a few people looked fired up about that. When they played “Born This Way,” I jumped around in sincere joy at my people’s unofficial anthem.

It was certainly the biggest LGBTQ demonstration I’ve ever been in, though of course it was teensy compared to the D.C. Women’s March. Amy was carrying a pinwheel she’d made herself!

 and I’d painted a sign that said this:

Since November, protests have come to feel like a second home to me. I take so much comfort in the signs, both the clever puns and the classics:

I’ve been chanting “This is what democracy looks like!” for twenty years, and I was amused by the addition of “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Donald Trump, sashay away!” The crowd grew at every intersection, and was ebullient until we reached the White House—you could hear the boos and the “Shame, shame, shame!” chants from many blocks away. When we got there, we noticed snipers on the roof, but maybe they are always there. Though we were literally targets of the Trump administration, I felt completely safe. I know that’s partly a function of privilege, (It’s much safer for me in protests than it is for people of color, Muslim folks, and trans folks, a fact I try not to take for granted.) but being with The People tends to make me feel at home, whether I’m canvassing, marching, or just going in for my weekly therapy appointments at Women Organized Against Rape. Connection is what keeps me strong and happy, the opposite of helpless, knowing that we are many and we will not be silenced.

            After the march, Amy and I sat down in the shade outside the Museum of Natural History to catch our breath and have a snack. I needed to go in to use the restroom, and as I got metal-detected and wanded to get into the museum, a thought occurred to me: Everything in the entire Smithsonian is mine. The Hope Diamond and all of her mineral friends, the Ruby slippers, the Washington Monument, every fountain and path and sunken sculpture garden, it’s mine. Ours. It belongs to everyone at every intersection.

This is not and has never been a country that belongs only to straight white men, and I’m glad that so many of us are working to turn away from that default and toward ourselves and those who need our support.

On the way home, Amy and I happened to pass the National Cathedral (Picturing Jed Bartlett there, crushing out a cigarette in the transept…)I wanted to gaze up at the architecture and see if I could get inside to look at the stained glass, which I hadn’t seen since a school trip when I was twelve. (The fact that I ran out of film on that trip still haunts me. Thank goodness that’s not a concern anymore!) Amy, legs sore from marching, kindly waited outside in the turnaround while I went to explore.

The outside of the building was as awe-inspiring as I’d expected, but it was the windows that really transported me, brighter to my eyes because of all the rainbows I’d just spent the day with. Pictures don’t do justice to the saturated colors, which looked like the other-worldly light that I picture when I do chakra meditations. A choir was singing, and as I walked around lit up and mesmerized, I realized that I must look odd walking around a cathedral with my rainbow-ribbon pigtails, pride fest beads, spiked collar, and beribboned leather cuff, but I thought of course I’m in a cathedral all prided up, this is my cathedral too. Doubly so.

My Catholic ancestry and upbringing means that I share responsibility for the horrors of our past, but it’s never occurred to me that I could take ownership of the beauty too. Every rich, shining pane of glass, every flying buttress, belongs just as much to my queer, pro-choice voice-having lady self as it belongs to the pope himself. Maybe I’ll go to the Vatican someday and check out my Sistine Chapel, my Rafaels, my golden dome. As much as the horror is mine to inherit and try to correct, so is the light.

And the same goes for America. I’m used to taking part of the responsibility for the Native American genocide, for slavery, for the School to Prison Pipeline, sharing in those problems and knowing they are mine to help fix, but I’m also ready to claim the good things. I visit the Hope Diamond as often as I can because it’s beautiful and ours, just like President Obama’s legacy is beautiful and ours. We can hold hope in our hand and let it sparkle, never let anyone take it away.

Gratitude List for 2016 (Brought to You in Part by Prozac)

Depression is a superpower. Because I have to fight hard to see the good in order to survive, this damaging, heartbreaking year still looks like my best one yet—even with getting hit by a car!

1. I’m grateful that I had Hillary Clinton with me in my heart every day. Her courage helped me to stand up to the biggest bullies in my life and pushed me to fight for my ideals. Fighting for her was fighting for me, for all of us. She married me to the premise that women are people and that LGBT people deserve equal rights and equal respect. She faced so much ugliness, gaslighting, horror, and humiliation and stayed herself throughout it all—working hard, doing her homework, having a plan, and standing up for those who need it. She and my wonderful campaign organizers and fellow volunteers made me into a better, stronger, and more hopeful person, and any future good I get to do will be thanks to them. Working on the campaign made me more connected to my neighborhood, my country, the world, and myself, and I hope to cultivate and honor that connection for the rest of my years.

2. I’m grateful that I fell in love this fall. It didn’t work out, but he’s a good sort, and something that doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal profoundly changed me. He got me writing a million paragraphs (and one poem!), kept me company through my election work, made lots of art with me and the library kids, and reminded me what it’s like to feel beautiful and sparky and ridiculous with someone. I remember the day I went ahead and let myself feel it: I drew stars all over the paper he’d given me to read and gave him an A+. Oh yeah, and then there’s the music—what if Frank Ocean hadn’t found his way into my heart? The most exciting thing is that even though the love is unrequited, I can still enjoy it—the love itself feels like a companion, even separate from him, and it keeps me warm and hopeful most nights. I think I’ll owe my future loves partly to him.

3. I’m grateful for retracing my steps and reconnecting with dear friends whom I briefly lost to divorce grief. It’s so heartening how friendship can just stay there and wait for you to be ready for it, how these reunions sometimes feel like no time has passed. I’m lucky to have so many generous and reliable hearts in my life.

4. I’m grateful for Hamilton, especially getting my niece and nephews obsessed! I got my four-year-old nephew a “Not throwing away my shot.” T-shirt for his birthday. My niece and I bond over our love of Lafayette (Well, he IS everyone’s favorite fighting Frenchman!) (Did you know he’s currently on black-ish? Merry Christmas to me!) I’ll never forget the drives to the comic shop belting out the king’s song, or the drive back from apple picking belting out everything. As a bonus, it seems like Hamilton might be one of the things holding our nation together, so yeah, I’m pretty glad it exists.

5. I’m grateful that I got to march for the Pulse victims, for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, for reproductive rights, for religious freedom, against the evil Nazi president elect. It’s a good thing I like marching, because it seems like it’s time to do a lot more of it.

6. I’m grateful that I got to thank John Lewis, Hillary Clinton, and Cecile Richards for their work. Also very grateful that I didn’t faint when I met John Lewis—his handshake was so warm and his “Thank you for your work” was so humbling that I’ll feel fortified by it for years to come.

7. I’m grateful for my neighborhood. In Mt. Airy, you can staple a watercolor to a phone pole and it just stays there! That’s how loved and safe and curated I feel.

8. I’m grateful for my jobs. All three are rewarding, relaxed, and fulfilling. I’ve gotten to make so much art and friendship and happiness at the library, help so many students at the bookstore, and create a warm and productive bond with my tutoring student and his family. I’m especially grateful for my Lego Day playlist, for singing “Lean on Me” and “Shine Bright Like a Diamond” and “Love on Top” and “Everything is Awesome” with the kids and feeling like the luckiest person in the world, like a goddess surrounded by beautiful treasures, because that’s exactly what this year let me be.

Thanks 2015! "Countless Small Acts of Courage"

The most incredible thing happened at my mom's Christmas party last weekend, something that was worth a million rainbows. My fourteen-year-year-old niece, AKA the coolest person in the universe, and her BFF (my also-quite amazing bonus niece) were regaling us at top volume about the byzantine love lives of themselves and their friends, stories that included all kinds of straight, gay, bi, and trans characters. It made my heart just shine with joy. Though there's still such a very long way to go toward gender equality, the world has expanded and gotten so much more glittery since I was these girls' age.

I'm so proud of the nieces for their ingrained inclusiveness, so I wanted to stop and appreciate all of the little things that got us to that conversation and to that rainbowiest of days last June.  Not the political things, though those are surely important, but all of the many little moments of connection, of engagement, of expression that helped us to make more room for love one honest interaction at a time.  And I'm so proud of all of us who went ahead and got married anyway (even if I personally failed at it) and of the families who created and supported those weddings, especially my own.

I want to hold June 26, 2015 in my heart as a reminder that there is hope for all of the projects of progress, that every time we speak up, show our love, or work for change in the tiniest of ways, we're getting ourselves to that place where we can stop for a second and say, holy Christmas, things really did get better. The future belongs to my badass nieces and my sweet, thoughtful nephews, and for that reason, I'm wholly optimistic.

Talking With My Childhood Self About Bill Cosby

Photo by my Uncle Steve

Before I get to the soul searching, I want to say that I think Hannibal Buress is a hero for bringing the reality Bill Cosby’s victims into the public consciousness, but I really wish that women were taken as seriously on the same set of topics—Jen Kirkman has been censored and Julie Klausner vilified for pointing out similar allegations  and hypocrisies, (about Louis C. K. and R. Kelly respectively) and I would very much like to live in a world that isn’t trained to dismiss women’s point of view, especially on this particular matter.

For a lot of my adult life, I’ve been a trusting, open, jump-in-with-both-feet kind of person. I made friends and became devoted to them instantly (okay, I still do that) got crushes on poets and wrote reams about them, greeted nearly every person and new situation wholeheartedly.  I’ve never been afraid to walk alone at night and I’m still not, but in the past few years, I’ve ended up seeing the world through rape-colored glasses, seeing facets of coercion and exploitation everywhere. The problem with this lens is not that it isn’t true, but that it isn’t helpful; it’s not taking me where I want to go.

I want to slay those dragons and really start to live knowing I have agency and hope. The personal reasons that I tend to see the world this way are well-documented; they’re private and complex, but the psychological impact, the pulling-the-rug out-from-under-me that Cosby-as-rapist has wrought matters.

Like probably so many little girls, I LOVED Bill Cosby. This is not an overstatement like “Oh, I love Netflix,” but real, abject human love of a child for an adult man who seemed more than deserving of that love. My dad had all of his records and my brother and sister and I listened to them so much that it was almost like we were the siblings in those stories.

But The Cosby Show. It was one of the few shows we were allowed to watch—somehow that Thursday night block was highbrow enough for my dad (who before long would give into the slippery slope of Growing Pains and Perfect Strangers) (Mike Seaver didn’t do much in the not-letting-me-down department either, did he?) so we watched it as a family every Thursday night, like everyone.

Was there ever a more appealing paragon of manhood than Cliff Huxtable? He danced with his wife. He goofed around with the kids. He lovingly and hilariously laid down the law when necessary. And sometimes, as I think was pointed out once on Community, an entire episode could be about making a sandwich with his daughter. He was a perfect picture of what it means to be a man in a family, exactly the beautiful grownup my ten-year-old self needed.

There are a lot of factors that combine to make me generally skittish, but the shift from what I felt about Cosby then to what I know now exacerbates the feeling I have sometimes that if I relax for one second, if I trust for one second, the world will turn upside down and I will be completely fucked. But I certainly don’t want to approach the world that way.

So.

Dear Little Self,

What you loved was a story, and that story is still true. Everywhere there are families with singing and laughing—you’ve lived in one for a long time. Everywhere there are men, dads and brothers and friends and strangers who wish you and everyone nothing but love, safety and happiness.

You can grieve for Cliff Huxtable and be mad that Kurt Cobain was such a creep to that girl in high school and still be pretty peeved about that one episode of Buffy. I will always be mad with you and on your behalf. I will always be on your side.

But let’s look for other, better examples, and allow them to be true. I’ll do my best to keep you safe, if you’ll do your best to let it go. Take all the time you need.

Love,

Grownup You