Looking back on what happened

I’ve tried to spend the last few weeks actively reviewing what happened in my life over the past two years. What happened when I was with Clarity and the kids. It’s hard to read my journal entries or archived text messages, I don’t want to know that I had a good time with them I don’t want to remember that. I also hate remembering all the bad that happened and the treatment I allowed myself to accept. Seeing how I interacted with my emotions and own well being is horrid. I fought suicidal thoughts and self-harm tendencies for years in both therapy and my life only to ignore those same symptoms for over a year before I got so close to death I had to do something about it.

The thing that drew me to the kids at first was Clarity, she was my people and I hadn’t been around my people in so long. She listened and saw what was going on, she was a real person of which I feel like there are so few. I was so drawn to her that I didn’t care what I had to do to get her attention to get to spend time with her. I went on many smoke breaks with her at work just to see her for a few minutes. I saw what she was doing with the kids and wanted to help out, it was so obvious that there was a lot of need. I always knew there wouldn’t be money in it, at least up front.

As time went on I started to see that all the progress they all seemed to make would be undone almost immediately. They needed me to be around them all the time or any effort I put in felt pointless. Their need kept drawing me closer that and the reward I got when I showed up for them. I was good at what I did, I liked the challenge and felt in awe of my ability to be so good at showing up for the kids, at first the middle child, then the younger child, it always felt like a challenge I could take on, but I lost almost all of my energy and couldn’t figure out how to crack the oldest one. He knew what I was trying to do and would tell me I wasn’t his family.

And there I was in a weird in between. I didn’t want to be forced into their family but I wasn’t part of their family that was clear. Clarity treated me like family but it only felt like I was family to her. At first she called me her wife or her platonic femme-dyke partner. But the words and explanation got to be too much and I just became a nanny. Erasing so much of the work I did, care I gave and the fact that I didn’t have any life outside of them. Within 4 months of living with them I had begun to almost never see my friends. Clarity became scared of me not being at home with them and tearing myself apart from them to visit my parents for only a day felt impossible for all of us.

I ground myself in other people, I know that about myself. And I grounded myself and my self worth and my meaning up in them. In January a friend of Clarity’s asked me if I was going to stay in their life for the long-term and if not I needed to leave. I said “yes” as though “no” was a preposterous answer. In return Clarity agreed to make space for me to live my life so I could have friends and not have my only experience be with her and the kids. My promise hung over me like a contract, to me my word means something and I stay true to what I say I’ll do. Sadly in return I never did get time to see my friends.

 

When living with the kids I started feeling overwhelmed before I officially moved in, we would try and take turns decompressing, though at first I gave most of my turns to Clarity for she had been through more. By March I was having constant suicidal thoughts, that’s 6 months into meeting this people. A month later I cut myself on my forearm. I stayed because I thought it was going to work out I thought it was all temporary and it was gonna get better. I began looking at my growing debt and shrinking bank account and began to feel trapped. At first I would think about leaving and spending my remaining money doing whatever I wanted, 16 months in I no longer had access to any money, not that we had any money amongst the two of us to access at that point.

Clarity grew apart from me pretty quickly. I’m not certain exactly when but it’s around the time that she starts working fulltime, probably 6 months in. She doesn’t have the time for me. That and she knew I’d stay. I began to feel like a burden to her and she tried to avoid me or at least I imagined that’s what was going on. I tried to hard to get her attention, cleaning, buying random helpful things from the internet, being really nice. I would desperately try to get her to talk to me or like me after she comes home from work. She would just goes into her room. She only talked to me when I do things wrong, when the house is messy, when I fuck up something.

There was always a corner we were gonna turn and it was always going to work out. The kids were gonna be back in school, we were gonna move into a new house, she was gonna switch her position at work, she was gonna get a new job, we were gonna implement a new system. It was always on the upswing but never really swung upwards. After holding out for things to get better for months it became clear to me that it was never gonna get better and I was going to die if I didn’t leave. I waited 22 months for it to get better and it did, we lived in a home we rented, had 2 cars that were legal. But I was miserable and not treated well. I was never good at setting boundaries but I began to realize it was because I knew they wouldn’t be listened to. Oh my last day I set a boundary for Clarity’s new boyfriend to not come over, and then he did. So I left.

It was the beginning of a new story that has been really difficult thus far but is finally going to be my story. Not anyone else’s story, not a story where I’m a side-kick but a story where I am the one leading it. It’s great, I’m doing things I only dreamed of. I’m standing up for myself in new ways, and since digging through a good chunk of what happened I’m excited to begin figuring out the question I’ve been wondering forever, Who is Jenny? I don’t know the answer yet but she definitely likes riding bikes still and she likes music a lot and can play at least a few songs on the Ukulele (even singing along to them while she strums). I’m anxious and kind of excited for the future. I think it’s gonna be an alright place for me.

Against Me And Myself 2018 Mixed CD

For about 8 months I primarily listened to Against Me! It was a hard time, and it’s hard to touch all of the emotions that were present in that time. Music is the easiest way for me to have a snapshot of an emotion and this is a snapshot of that time.

Against Me and Myself 2018

1. We Laugh at Danger (And Break All the Rules) – Against Me!

This song is screamed at the top of my lungs in the car, so loud that a friend heard and saw me jamming and texted me to send me her approval.

It also inspired this line in a poem from May:

Screaming punk lyrics in the car dreaming of being homeless. Wondering what the future smells like searching for convertible tights in the kids section of target.

“Mary, there is no hope for us
If this GM van don’t make it
Across the state line
We might as well lay down and die
Because if Florida takes us
We’re taking everyone down with us
Where were coming from
Will be the death of us”

I feel those lyrics. While I can’t relate to those lyrics anymore I know I did in a way that startles and terrifies me. “Where were coming from, will be the death of us” It feels odd and scary to me that I would feel suicidal feelings in such a way. People congratulate me for leaving the situation with the kids but I have to tell them I left because I knew the other option was dying. I knew those feelings would only get larger and larger and would end in an inevitable way. I didn’t decide to leave so much as I decided I didn’t want to kill myself and the only way to prevent that was by leaving – something I had been considering for many months.

2. Walking is Still Honest – Against Me!

“Can anybody tell me why God won’t speak to me?
Why Jesus never called on me to part the fucking seas?
Why death is easier than living?”

Walking over homestead bridge, walking through squirrel hill for hours, walking for hours and hours, every time I need. Walking until 2am because I can’t fall asleep.

I relate a lot to her, with spirituality calling me the Christian concept of god felt like it was constantly rejecting me. I spent years reading the bible, I went to several bible studies and studied an Evangelical Christian group for a class. It never felt right, and now I am rejected by most of them. which is pretty alright to me. I found my spirituality in Buddhism, it’s sufficiently empty and non-judgmental.

“Dear mother
This is just survival
Cannot promise your children everything
But you would lie so they can sleep tonight”

I didn’t listen to this song at first because of these lyrics, I didn’t hear them for a while or think about them because of how they may or may not reference Clarity and the kids. I continue to not really look into it while feeling it relate to me and my life with the family.

3. Cavalier Eternal – Against Me!

This song caught my ear and made me laugh, I sung this in the car, I sung this in front of the kids. I hid this from Clarity and I told my therapist I knew why this song spoke to me – because it was about Clarity, that was probably April that I told my therapist that, wasn’t but a few weeks later I told her I couldn’t do it anymore.

4. 1-800-237-8255 – Logic

“I’ve been on the low
I been taking my time
I feel like I’m out of my mind
It feel like my life ain’t mine”

I hated the second half of this song for a while, just like I always re-winded Blink-182’s song “Adam’s song” half way through every time.

5. Because of the Shame (Black Crosses Version) – Against Me!

I found this song after reading Laura’s book, I didn’t believe her at first that she didn’t write Thrash Unreal about CC. But after rereading it and listening to both songs, I believe it. The White Crosses version reminds me of Queen’s Album Made In Heaven, the Black Crosses version will make you cry with very little to separate you from her words.

6. Searching for Former Clarity – Against Me!

The first time I really heard this song was late April and I was at home in the basement. I played it at again and cried on the floor the type of crying that is angry and hurts. I cried and flailed about kicking random things in the basement, it was the hardest I’ve cried in years.

The second memory is a 9 days after I wrote the Poem, “Today’s The Day”

The day I want to kill myself
it isn’t the day I have a crisis
it isn’t the day I cry for hours
it isn’t the day I cut myself
it isn’t the day I am angry, miserable and filled with rage and hurt
That’s the day I want to scheme
to tie a noose
to make sure it fits over my head
to find a spot
to make sure it’s hidden from sight
to find a stump
to make sure it’s easy to knock over
to write a note
to cry and scream in frustration and hurt when I realize today isn’t the day
The day I want to kill myself is
when I feel the cool breeze over my face
when I can hear the birds chirping around me
when I feel calm and present in my body
when the day has gone well and there isn’t a thing in the world making me knock over that stump
That’s the day I want to kill myself
a good day a happy day
a day where I say that was a full life
a day where I say that was a good time
a day where one tear escapes my left eye and runs all the way down my cheek until it reaches my chin and then it hops off to land on and be absorbed into my shirt
a day where that tear has to run past a smile before I knock over my stump.

I went to Schenley Park, parked the car, called my therapist and left a voicemail as I had promised myself the night before. And I put on this song. I felt calm and collected. I smiled, I smiled as tears rolled down my cheek they were happy, relieved tears. “Not yet,” I told myself – fearing that I’d get too emotional and threaten the certainness that today was the day. I played the song over and over again as I searched the park for a rope, any rope to hang myself with. After walking for 2 hours I found a tent held together with ratchet straps and as I was surveying which one would be best to remove my therapist called back. I was fucking pissed and I told her so, she made me talk about it over and over again and eventually I tired of trying to kill myself.

7. 8 Full Hours of Sleep – Against Me!

“When you sleep no one is homeless
When you sleep you can’t feel the hunger
When you sleep no one is lonely in a dream.”

This song is my first week out of the house. No where to go, uncertainty around sleeping spaces and what and how I would eat food, with my main goals being meeting basic needs. Biking around listlessly in the morning before anything opened trying to find a place I could go, trying to find a place I could sleep following a hot, miserable, sleepless night with rain, mosquitoes, trains, and a fox barking. I found myself at the Cathedral of Learning on Pitt’s campus and chatted with a new friend on text as I tried to figure out how to survive in this new world.

“The sun’s always rising in the sun somewhere.”

8. The Disco Before the Breakdown – Against Me!

This song is about dysphoria

“And if you follow the jawline down over the heart. Because of your bone and muscle that make up your head to toe. it’s just skin and threat stitches and ligaments.”

9. Creature Comfort – Arcade Fire

This song is driving fast in the silver car, faster, faster! Maybe you can outrun these feelings, vooRRRRR, vooRRR, vooRRRRR. Or if not maybe I can crash into a median and die trying.

“Assisted suicide
She dreams about dying all the time
She told me she came so close
Filled up the bathtub and put on our first record
Saying God, make me famous
If you can’t just make it painless
Just make it painless”

This is a song I put on repeat, over and over again, this is a song that I would cut myself to as soon as I heard it a nice quick slice on my almost unscarred inner forearm – shit you are supposed to cut under your underwear, on your left lower abdomen the equals sign you’ve been etching in over time. What will they think at the JCC, what will the other parents think!

“It’s not painless
She was a friend of mine, a friend of mine
And we’re not nameless, oh”

10. Tonight We’re Gonna Give it 35% – Against Me!

This is my favorite song by Against Me! right now. She wrote it in Pittsburgh while Anti-Flag was trying to court her to sign onto their record company. “On a balcony overlooking nothing”
First I caught the beginning and I laughed at the lyrics, and read how much she despised bottled water and thought of how much I did esp at that time (2002) (not that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable now).
“We drank bottled water together, and talked business, I think I played the right moves.”

“My heart is anywhere but here”

“How tired I was from the past couple of weeks from the past couple of years, but it hit me all at once.”

I relate to so many parts of this song and I relate so hard to it.
My memory associated with this song is on a sleepless night, one I knew all I could do was walk if I ever wanted to sleep. So I drove the silver car fast as a rocket through the tunnel and over the bridge, eyeing up the Jersey barriers for future spots that I could crash with our crappier car. I parked the car at the top of the Homestead Gray Bridge. And walked over to it and dreamed of jumping, instead I just walked it. With this song on repeat. Tonight I was stealing hours from my sleep time so I could live for a few minutes. But I didn’t know how to live anymore. I only knew I wanted to die. Tonight wasn’t the night, I was to frustrated. Tonight was a night I had to walk down the bridge.

These were some of the first nights I lived in so long, one of these nights I walked across a long railroad bridge while a cargo boat past underneath me. I ran the final bit worried cars would see me, no longer scared I would fall through the rickety floor, I was more worried I would die before I was able to do this crazy shit again. I finished the night by burning a small American flag on the middle of the bridge as I walked back to my car.

“I can’t believe how naive I was to think this could ever be so simple.” (how I feel about the family)

11. Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart – Against Me!

I found this song on another night I stole the same night I was walking on Bigelow Boulevard past the french fries trying to finally find out where the sidewalk along it goes Something I’d been wondering for 4 years.

Packaged between, “Problems” and “Even at Our Worst We’re Better Than Most” This is the soundtrack of that night. As I walked on the sidewalk I found where I would hang myself. A quest I had been on for over a year. In one of the parts of this sidewalk near the strip district there weren’t any businesses but instead there were trees that would hide me, hide me from anyone seeing me. I would simply tie my rope to the fence and dangle against the concrete wall attempting to scurry up it until I could no longer breathe.

12. Even at Our Worst We’re Still Better Than Most – Against Me!

“You can have it all, I ain’t got the heart to fight, no.
Total exhaustion, complete breakdown. For the asshole I am,
apologies in full, please leave me alone.
Pull over the van, let me out.”

Exactly, that is exactly what I wanted to scream every day after every conflict with Clarity for the last few months with the kids, I was just truly exhausted.

13. Problems – Against Me!

“An inventory has been taken of every belonging
An estimated value sold in event of emergency
The only back up plan in case it doesn’t work out
While losing semblance of coherence to a former self
You know I am becoming the choice’s we’re making”
This was my plan. I had a car, I had a no obligations. I was going to get my shit sorted out a little bit, sell a bunch of bikes and bike parts and then go on my road trip. Then my partner never changed the oil in my car that she drove all the time and it imploded.

14. What We Worked For – Against Me!

“May the likes of this song never make one fucking dollar, leave it for a demo tape to be played until it’s broken and be remembered for only what it was, that we gave ‘em hell”

“There is a distance beyond the freeway” was going to be the motto of my road trip

This song so much reminds me of who I was in college and what I believed and what moved me. And what is moving me once again, I understand that you give up on the idealist things that you believe, but I don’t want to, not yet. I want to live them for a bit more time, I still want to be a child, because it’s more fun that being an adult, because it’s what makes me glow.

“Sleeping under plastic stars glued to the ceiling…. But we gave ‘em hell”

15. Burn – Against Me!

“Burn burn burn, like they did to the anarchists at the stakes
Burn burn bun, like the histories they stole from us”

Laura said they never finished the lyrics of the bridge, which is why it sounds weird and she sings hurriedly, “One day patriot thugs will dance to songs of justice, and cringe and rack guns of shame.”
All I hear when I think about this is this famous picture of a Nazi book burning. This isn’t just a library this is the Library of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science. Hirschfeld was the founder of modern transgender theory, and it was his students who fled the Nazis and founded transgender advocacy in the US. This book burning was a theft of transgender history a theft of my history, a history that if played out differently could’ve easily drastically altered my life. #fuckfascism #noplatform

16. White Crosses – Against Me!

“I wake up in the morning and I drink from the fountain
I wake up in the morning with the same unanswered questions
I don’t know what’s going to cure my unsettled stomach”

This song feels like walking through Squirrel Hill, wandering around after dropping of the kids. Loud head banging music to forget my woes and softly head bang as I walk though the quiet streets of Squirrel Hill.

17. Thrash Unreal – Against Me!

“No mother ever dreams
That her daughter’s gonna grow up to be a junkie
No mother ever dreams
That her daughter’s gonna grow up to sleep alone”

My First Few Days Alone

That first night, I felt free, I felt liberated and proud. After my phone call with Majesty I ended up wandering through a street fair in Bloomfield called Little Italy Day’s. I didn’t find anyone I knew but as I walked my bike through it I felt powerful and so few worries. My tank top was baggy and long and my tights were short, so short you could hardly see them under my tank top. I didn’t care. I was excited for what the world had for me, for days where I could live and experience my life instead of running through it too fast to even notice much less process what occurred. The first night was full of socializing as was the following day. I tried to keep up the momentum but quickly I found it impossible. Instead I was left with nothing to do and nowhere to be. The novelty of free time turned into a burden of what to do. Time went by hour by hour and the first few days felt like weeks.

When I got to Grease’s house that first night they let me spill out my whole story. I felt like I was overflowing with feelings and thoughts and trying to make sense of what had happened in the last 4 hours that had altered my entire week. My plan was to stay at the house with the family until Thursday night. Now I was suddenly free 5 days early, having not packed or prepared. The following morning Grease skipped work to hear more about my story and my life over the past couple years. We chatted about life, bikes, gender, and how to live out of a tiny home built in the forgotten woods of Pittsburgh. I had been stewing over building something in the woods to live in for weeks, they told me their partner’s friend had done just that with a wood stove for heat/cooking and all and had been living in their little house for a couple of years so far.

The fact that their friend already had built something really excited me. My original plan after leaving the family was to live out of my car for a couple of months. In those first few weeks on my own I had wanted to sell possessions to fund my road trip to Philly, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado and maybe even Vermont. I had talked to Cook about this and he referred me to several webpages on how to live out of your car. I was prepared for the trip to fail at some point, but I expected it to fail when I was on it with my car breaking down, or running out of money. Three weeks before I was supposed to leave the family my car broke down. At this time Clarity was using it as her car. It needed Power Steering Fluid, and snapped a belt because it didn’t have any, turns out there was also no oil in the car so there were metal shavings inside the engine. The engine was shot, the car was shot. I figured Clarity would fix it, but she made minimal effort to.

As that reality set in for me I realized I wasn’t going to be living out of a car I was going to be living off of my bike, and that’s not really a thing, that just called experiencing homelessness. I kept trying to wrap my brain around it and it made me feel unsettled, I’d have no space of my own, none at all. That’s when I stumbled upon something I’d viewed years ago, a post about a guy building homes for the homeless people out of garbage. I became inspired because it gave me something to do when I was free in the world, somewhere to put my things, and a possible back up plan in case I couldn’t stay at a friends house. This worried some friends I told about it but I reassured them this was temporary. After this conversation with Grease I was excited to know that someone else had already done the crazy feeling plan I had. I planned to retrieve materials for my project in the coming days.

A tiny tiny house, I wanted to emulate the basics of this and especially the rain barrel roof which lit up the interior.

I left Grease’s house at 4:30 and called some friends to check-in with them and talk more about what had just happened. No one picked up. But that was okay, I had some time to just chill before going to Librarian’s place for sleep around 9:30. I ate some food, rode around and just waited. It was Sunday so the library was already closed, and most things were about to close meaning there was nowhere for me to really go. I ended up sitting in a park most of the time. Eating and sticking my feet in the water fountain as I waited for it to be 9:30. When Librarian got home she was worn out from the day. We talked briefly, which was alright because I had to wake up early to get to the kids school so I could see the kids off for their first day of school.

When I awoke in the morning I got ready real quick. Librarian made sure I had something with me to eat before I left, I was too filled with anxiety to eat then but I took a snack bar with me. I got to the kids school building super early not sure if Clarity would be early or late and I waited outside of the school. After about 30 minutes of waiting they all arrived. The kids showed off their new shoes and first day of school outfits. The oldest hurriedly went into the building with Clarity for his first day at his new school building. I stayed outside with the other two, they go to a different building. When Clarity came out we all got in the car for the half mile drive. I sat in the back shoved in between the little two happy to be in their presence and doing my best to avoid any encounter with Clarity. After the middle one was dropped off I left Clarity and the littlest one (whose first day of Kindergarten was Wednesday) and walked back to my bike.

After hemming and hawing I decided now would be a good time to bike back to my old house in Brookline to get some things. Clarity had already said that she had to go to work so I didn’t need to worry about her being there. I talked to Amber on the phone on the way there which felt great. I ended up walking most of the hills causing it to take me 3 hours to get there. When I got there I settled in and enjoyed myself. It was nice and cool in the house. I drank some apple juice and cooked some pot stickers, I even watched a show. This ended up being the last time I was at this home when it felt like home. After eating I gathered the things I needed, extra clothes I neglected to bring, more stuff sacks to organize my things, my camera, a replacement rear wheel for my bike. And shoved in a backpack all my equipment to build my tiny little house: Screws, screwdriver, saw, hand drill. I loaded up everything and went to attach the bike trailer and realize I couldn’t find the mount to put on my bike. I searched all around and still couldn’t find it.

“Fuck!” I said under my breath. I had to go, the kids were coming home soon, I wanted to be as far away as possible. I put the trailer in the basement and shoved everything on my bike, attaching it with string. Half way through my ride the wheel got loose and started wobbling around, making the whole rest of the ride unsettling as this wheel flopped from side to side shaking the entire bike with it. I biked to the bike shop I used to work at with plans to fix up my bike including installing my new rear wheel.

The shop was in the same state of disarray as the last time I was there. My old coworker and one of the new guys talked about being understaffed. I said I’d be interested in a job. He talked in circles a little bit about having someone hire me. There was no manager so technically no one was in charge and no one was able to hire me. The new guy said something like, no one would stop you if you came in and punched in on Saturday. Eventually I just said to him, “When should I start? Saturday?” After that he tried calling the owner, who didn’t answer. I got a text later that evening from the new guy and he said I could “start anytime.” I asked if Wednesday would work, he replied, “totally.” Day 3 I’ve already got myself a job, 3 days before I was even planning on leaving! I was stoked.

Me biking over a bridge one cool summer morning

After I left I got some food, ate by a fountain in the park. I got ahold of my friend Boots from Philly and chatted with her for a while, which felt really nice. It started to drizzle a little and looking at the forecast it called for rain. I went over to Target and spent $10 of my 110 dollars on a tarp. I hadn’t found a place to sleep tonight, so this was my first night trying out the good old outdoors. I had a hammock, a sleeping bag, string and now a tarp, I was ready to go.

I set up my hammock and tarp and tried to get some sleep. The cloudy sky had made it not cool off at all from the day. Instead it was hot and humid. Too hot for a sleeping bag, but I hadn’t a choice because the mosquitoes were out with vengeance. It took me a long time to fall asleep, As I walked the line between overheating my body and being bitten by mosquitoes. When I finally fell asleep I kept being awoken, by texts from Clarity, a passenger train passing, foxes barking (which scared the shit out of me until I found out what they were) and finally a steady rain that made the loudest noise on my tarp. I slept for only a few hours until the sun came up and I was finally able to have some uninterrupted sleep.

Eventually the sun was too bright and my body was somewhat rested, I woke up. I packed up all my things and shoved them on my bike. I wandered over to Pitt’s campus and found a single occupancy bathroom that I could shave in and try and clean myself up. I felt filthy from all the sweat, and had gotten a good bit of mud on me from the trek out in that rainy morning. I vowed to buy a mosquito net so my back up plan of having somewhere to stay if no one would have me wouldn’t be as horrible as that night. I had already made plans to stay at Red Beards house the next night, something I was very happy about.

That day I had nothing to do until 3:40pm when I picked up the kids from school. I waited with anxiety for that time to come. I didn’t have anywhere to go so I hung out near a water fountain while I read about what to eat while you’re homeless. I settled on cheese and refried beans burritos. I made them myself and ate trail mix for snack/lunch and oats and brown sugar for breakfast. Food was so uninteresting to me so eating food as unpalatable as that didn’t bother me. As I waited I began to realize the most unsettling thing for me about not having a home or a space of your own is that you can never relax knowing your stuff is safe where it is. Both you and your stuff are always loitering, always unsecured. It leads to a constant anxiety a constant thought in your mind about everything you own/have access to being stolen and suddenly not having the luxury of a change of clothes, or a sleeping bag.

The days I’d experience went so slowly. There seeming to be no point or purpose, I began to just wait for the next thing to happen. Wait until 3:40pm to see the kids and then wait until my friend came home so I could talk to someone and eventually go to sleep. I didn’t feel particularly driven to do any of the things I had wanted to. I just wanted human connection, I wanted something to do some purpose. But I had very few. I picked up the kids on Tuesday and Thursday from school, and I started work on Wednesday. Life felt empty, like a wide open space with nothing in it, nowhere to go nothing to do, just wide open space.

How I left

I left my home on August 18th around 8:30pm. I had planned to leave, I had planned to go visit my friend Grease. They were a friend I didn’t know that well, but always felt a connection to. The plan was part of my bi weekly hangouts with friends. Most Wednesdays I’d hang out with Library and then on Saturday I would find a different friend to see. I leave around 8pm and come back around 3pm the following day. But leading up to this event Clarity crossed a boundary of mine I wasn’t okay with. My plan was to leave and return, but my plans changed and this became my first day on my own.

She had started seeing a guy on Monday, I made space for her to see him and it made her truly excited. She came back after seeing him and talked about how great everything was going to be. How despite the fact that I was moving out in 8 days that it would all work out great. That she still wanted us to be a family unit at some functions, that she didn’t want to add anyone to the family and wanted to keep raising the kids with just me, just have me living somewhere else but giving input and such. It felt great, Clarity just seemed on top of the world.

I saw Library Wednesday night, per usual. I left her house and met the family at their school’s open house. Clarity was so stoked about this guy that she was staying the night at his house on Thursday. Unbeknownst to me the night with her ended by him hanging out with the kids for an hour before they left. He wooed them, and generally frustrated me. I think it’s fucked up to have your kids meet someone you’re dating, especially someone you’ve known for such a short time. It was also uncomfortable to me because I didn’t even know this was going to happen and just two days prior Clarity had said she wanted the last week for me to be special and make it more of a celebration. I’m sure it was part jealousy, but this just felt like the opposite of how I’d like to spend my last week with the kids, hanging out with Clarity’s new boyfriend as the kids fawned over him.

On Friday she went to work and I got a text from her saying, “Jenny [boyfriend] said he will bring [me] home and also cook dinner.”

I texted her saying, “If you are saying your boyfriend is [coming] over I’m not into that.” Adding, “If [boyfriend] is coming over I’m leaving. I’m not getting involved in your dating world. I’m good. I have 6 days left. Id appreciate if you at least have the courtesy to replace me after I leave.”

She responded, “There is no replacing you.” and then pressed me about why I didn’t want to hang out with her boyfriend. Dredging up old topics she texted, “you also chose to leave. Why are you opposed to someone else joining the family?” She kept asking for further explanation, at one time saying, “I am repeatedly asking why?”

Finally I clearly stated, “I am simply stating I don’t want to have him over tonight or in the last week with the kids. I’m not talking about anything else. I’m not dredging up tentatively connected topics. Just talking about this.” I didn’t find out he wasn’t coming over until she texted me making it clear she needed a ride to get home because he wasn’t bringing her home.

Friday the youngest was sick, and I stayed home with her as Clarity took the other two to go shopping for back to school. They all got back around 6pm and by that time I’d already signed up to take the oldest’s to his friends house. As soon as Clarity came in the door she got on facetime with her boyfriend and had the youngest, who was laying sick in her bed chatting with him. Then she said something about him coming over while I was taking the oldest to his friend’s house (90 minute journey in total that she pressed me to commit to), to which I mouthed, “that’s fucked up.”

I took the oldest to his friends house which was a 30 min drive there, 30 minutes of him getting to see his friend and 30 minute drive back before it was time for me to leave to go visiting my friend Grease. Everything changes on my way back.

I went home and her boyfriend was still there. Every time I’ve seen him he was super confident, well dressed and clearly in charge. Today he looked terrified. I calmed my anger when I saw him, he wasn’t the person to blame, it was Clarity. It was Clarity who continuously walked all over my boundaries, it was Clarity who didn’t listen to me. He broke the silence between us by awkwardly asked me how it was going as I walked past him. I continued and said, “alright.” then half turning my head around I said, “I’ve been better.”

I secretly gave each kid a hug and told them I’d see them on their first day of school. I didn’t want Clarity to comment or know what I was doing. I knew I had to cover my bases and do this right, even though I was being forced to do this so wrong. I loaded up my bike with slightly more things than normal and with Clarity’s boyfriend still there I biked off.

As I was biking to Grease’s house at 8:29 pm I called Majesty and talked with him for over an hour. And I think the feeling I was left with was pride. I was proud that I left finally standing my ground, finally standing up for myself. I hoped this would be a new chapter of my life, one where I stood up for me, not everyone else.

Summer Solstice Gender Realizations (How I got here part 2)

The next part of my story follows what I realized in therapy, something I knew I had to do, I had to leave our family home. And the struggles that re-emerged regarding my gender. With an attempted attempt at suicide under my belt I realized I no longer had a choice in the matter, my body knew what I had to do and I had to leave unless I wanted to die. Hence me writing the nicest letter in the world to Clarity, a letter certainly inspired by my desire for it to be over and no arguments to come from it. I very much feel the lyrics of the Against Me! song: Even At Our Worse We’re Still Better Than Most.

You can have it all, I ain’t got the heart to fight, no,
Total exhaustion, complete breakdown. For the asshole I am
Apologies in full, please leave me alone
Pull over the van, let me out.

You all saw my letter to Clarity, she took it pretty well. We talked about how we could make this work for everyone and how this was something good, something we all needed. I pledged to stay on until the kids started school since I had been involved in the conversation about the kids not going to camp over the summer. Instead they would be with me, because, well I knew they would want that. There were only a few weeks of camp that she had booked and by the time we had this conversation and I told her I wanted to leave all the camps were full, at least all the cheap ones.

I ended up negotiating two nights off during the week, and we talked about how that number would increase over time so that the kids would see less and less of me and I would successfully transition out of the house. Those nights off became my respite and a haven for me. I got to see friends I hadn’t seen in years and restore myself more as a person. At the same time I reduced things I did in the house and stepped back from my care for our dog instead focusing on not overloading myself anymore.

This new time and freedom made me begin to feel like a real person and also opened up a space for things I hadn’t struggled with recently to come to the surface, notably the gender dysphoria that I was so terrified of. By the beginning of June I would go up to my room and feel compelled to tear of the skirts I was wearing. At this point I’d been wearing skirts 99% of the time for 3 years and that’s after not wearing skirts 99% of the time for 6 months (and really only wearing skirts and dresses occasionally for the 6 months prior to that and hardly ever before that). I didn’t have enough time to really delve into this, I was getting off one night at first and I was still spending this time with people so I never really let myself idle in a real way, I would rest for some of my day following my sleepovers when the kids were at school but you can only do that so much when you have to pick them up at 3 and be prepared for the coming night and dinner and such.

It reached it’s peak when I went to my littlest’s preschool graduation. The night before I stayed over at a my friend Library’s house and as soon as I got there I threw my skirt across the room and told her, “sorry I just can’t wear that shit anymore.” The problem was I didn’t bring a change of clothes so I had to wear this same gorgeous skirt the following day. And this skirt is just so pretty, it’s a vintage styled skirt with an beige ruffled under layer to make it poof out and the outer layer was beige, a linen type material with these gorgeous large black flowers covering the skirt. I got compliment after compliment walking around the halls of the preschool, all while being disgusted that I was wearing this truly pretty skirt. I didn’t know what to do or what to wear, I had recently been talking in therapy about gender and wanting to wear less feminine clothes while still being gendered properly, and that was exactly why I wore the skirts as a protection against misgendering.

On the summer solstice I cracked. And two memories helped me get there. The first is buying a jean jacket and trying to navigate which one to buy, a men’s jacket or a woman’s. Did I want to look like a tomboy or did that just look like a boy’s jacket. I went back and forth finally settling on this great women’s jean jacket, but not after contemplating something I’ve neglected, something I’ve refused to contemplate for years, me being a tomboy.

Here is a picture of my new jean jacket, and not wearing a skirt!

The next memory is an interaction between me and my oldest that Clarity interjected into. My oldest was talking about how he was bored and didn’t know what to do (because he wasn’t allowed to play on screens). I told him I understood I remember being bored a lot as a kid because I was only allowed to be on screen or watch screens for a short period of time each day. He said, “No, mine is different, I’m boy bored,” and explained further to assert that ‘boy bored’ meant he had energy and was bored. I told him, “I was a little boy too and I had a little brother so I know all about ‘boy bored.’”

Overhearing me Clarity interjected and said something to the effect of, you weren’t a little boy because you’re a girl, and you’ve always been a girl, so you were a little girl. I shrugged in frustration and said, “yeah, whatever.” But that felt like a mis-telling of my story. When I was a little kid I was a boy, that’s what I remember being. I felt frustrated but didn’t have the time to think about it or understand why this co-opting of my story to validate the identities of the little two (both trans girls) felt so frustrating.

A few hours later I went to see my friend Library and as I was about to leave she called to warn about the heavy rains and that there would be flooding on my route and she suggested an alternate route. She said she wouldn’t be talking to me on the phone or texting her it was very important I focus on driving. I said, “Fine but I need to tell you something real quick first… I don’t think I’m a girl and I’m pretty sure I’m not a boy.”
She calmly but clearly startled and aware of the weight of what I said told me, “We’ll that’s something we’ll definitely get to talk more about shortly.”

I began to drive in the pouring rain, with some streets turned into rivers and proceeded to call everyone who mattered, Majesty, Heart and my friend from Philly. No one answered but I roughly told all of their voice mail boxes with increasing confidence that I wasn’t a girl, that I wasn’t a boy and that I think I’m something inbetween. I told them I might change my name but I was unsure of what to, I might change my pronouns but I wasn’t sure about that either. And I told them the two stories above to explain why I had come to this conclusion. It felt freeing and nice.

When I got to Library’s house I excitedly texted Clarity and told her the news too. Library was tired and a little irritated that I was texting while I was there. But I was budding with new found energy and excitement over my gender. The excitement lasted for a little while and then fear erupted. Fear of what that meant, fear that I needed to change my name or my pronouns. It became terrifying. I talked a bunch to Library about this before she got tired and Clarity told me she would call me tomorrow to talk about it and that she was excited for me. She said it was an exciting new chapter of my life. I went to bed in more a state of panic of not knowing who I was or where I was going, calming myself down in time.

I was scared of the journey I was about to go on, scared of being misgendered and not knowing what gender I even wanted to be gendered as. I initially clung to a gender I had previously identified with in the spring of 2010, 4 years before I came out, genderfuck. Genderfuck is someone who fucks with gender in an intentional and often political way. I liked it because it made gender something political that you could fuck with people’s understanding of it, and thus originally it was more of a protest than my own identity. Now it felt like a bit of land I was on, like I was out of the murky mush and on ground that wasn’t where I wanted to be but it felt more secure and was honestly a good place to rest. When people would stare at me confused I could take that as an affirmation of who I was instead of an affront to who I was. I began counting their WTF looks with glee instead of with hurt like I had before.

Searching for a life that fits

Been thrifty my whole life, eating out of dumpsters digging through people’s trash. Pieced together how I should act from the letters they threw out.

Must’ve been 10 when I started thinking of bulk trash day as a holiday. Taking people’s furniture trying to arrange my room like theirs.

Too scared to be myself, too worried what others would think. So I borrowed someone else’s life, they had an extra room.

Living in their attic wasn’t bad, I can be myself in one room. Too hard for the mom to climb up so she hasn’t seen the new window I put in.

Breathe in deep every time I climb up, finally feel at home in a house I spend all day as a homemaker in. Wondering if it’s the cleaner making me not able to take a deep breathe in the rest of the house.

I thought I’d be alright, the life fit okay, ’til it gave me a rash around my neck I couldn’t stop scratching. When I realized I was itching for a rope I knew something had to change.

Done tried this before, wearing some boy’s clothes for 25 years. Found myself on the edge of a parking garage, convinced if I was flying they’d fit right.

But here I am again, smile popping on my face when they call me mommy on accident. Thinking about how I should’ve been a mother, should’ve been a wife as I tire of being a true trans soul rebel.

Saw you and thought you needed a side kick and you were an impersonation I could do. 19 months later I realize I’m just kicking myself right now.

Know how to be that kind of mom but I know it ain’t me. Digging through your change purse trying to find someone else to be.

Now I got three kids staring up at me asking what’s for dinner. Ain’t cooked nothing for myself in months, been starving myself with gummy bears and ice cream.

168 hours later I don’t think I can keep it up. Catch myself staring at the sheets counting how many threads, wondering if they’ve been washed in the last 4 days.

Peering in the garbage cans as I walk into the kids fancy preschool wondering why I’m here. Hiding the dirt under my nails only to show the scars on my forearms.

Screaming punk lyrics alone in the car dreaming of being homeless. Wondering what the future smells like searching for convertible tights in the kids section of target.

Trying to piece together which way to go. Feel like I’m juggling chainsaws but I ain’t got the certification to even turn one on.

Got 5 people talking to me making sure I don’t practice tying knots. Wondering what’s the point in not cashing out now.

Can’t make sense of what else I could do. Trying to play poker by myself because I’m tired of solitaire.

Dear Clarity

Dear Clarity,

I love you and the kids with all my heart. Nearly all of my energy over the past 20 months feels like it has been dedicated to healing you and the kids. It’s been rewarding and satisfying to watch your growth. It hasn’t been sustainable or healthy for me. As it continues it also doesn’t seem healthy of helpful for any of us.

I got to watch the littlest child come out of her shell, watch middle child emerge from the boy she was, watch the oldest begin to verbalize his emotions in a way that few adults can. And, of course, watch you grow immensely as you shed years of trauma and break through old patterns as you begin to remember the real you. You all are hardly the people I met, it makes me cry tears of overwhelming joy and hurt to think about it. I think I can confidently say there isn’t much I would trade for that.

All the while I have pushed and pushed myself to do my best, better than my best to show up for all of y’alls healing. This has caused me to deteriorate. Suicidal thoughts and self harm was nearly gone from my life but has now reemerged and is stronger now than it ever has been. I spend hours some days unable to move as I collapse on the ground, feeling like there is someone standing on my chest. Irritable, depressed and apathetic, I’m starting to see the kids trying to avoid me, trying to get away from my angst. I am starting to see this not only as unhealthy for me, but unhealthy for everyone involved. As I snap at you, as I distance myself from you, as I am unable to show any love towards the 4 people I love so much. Instead I feel myself growing increasingly irritated with you, and increasingly view y’all as burdens.

As I take a step back I realize just how overwhelmed and stressed I am. I step back and realize how unhealthy this is and how I have immersed myself in your family’s world to the point I feel like I have almost ceased to exist. This isn’t a new struggle, it’s an old one that’s tied in with being trans. It’s a clinging I did and still do to other people and getting lost in them and their problems.

I can’t do it anymore, I can’t do this anymore. I wanted to be everything you needed to help you grow and get better, I wanted to want to be a caregiver, a parent, to have 3 kids and a dog. I wanted to want all of these things I was given and all of this security. But I don’t, I just want me, I want my life back and I want you to be in it, but not be it.

It’s not about holding out for the next time we move, or the next routine we develop, or that break through in therapy or that new job. It’s about me needing to be Jenny, a person that has only existed in name for 4 years. I am not ready to be a parent. I’m not ready to have 3 kids a wife and a dog. I have so many dreams of my future and what it looks like. This life feels suffocating and I don’t want to have people I love so dearly feel like they are just burdens suffocating me. I want them to bring joy and desire to see them, I want to have glee playing with and seeing y’all. This is something I haven’t felt in a long time.

Now, I’m sure you want to talk logistics now that I got my feels out, you want to understand what I’m even asking for. I don’t have a solid grasp on a healthy and thoughtful way to make this transition work for everyone but I know what my soul needs and I need a break before I can plot out long term logistics, otherwise I’d be planning based on my current desires to be around y’all. My end goal is to be an auntie and a nanny at times. I love you all so much I can’t imagine being happy not seeing y’all.

I know I’m going to be needing days instead of hours. I know I desperately need to heal to feel like a person to have time to connect with my people. I don’t want to disappear. I want to step back and become less involved. I think that would be the healthiest thing for all of us. I don’t have a timeline, but I do know I want to live elsewhere within this year.

I hope you understand how much this has torn me apart thinking about how I do and don’t want to do this. But I know in my heart that this is what is the best for me and what i have to do. I think this will also be great for y’all though it’ll definitely be hard at first but it’ll allow for a lot of much needed growth.

I want to talk more about this and can whenever you’d like. I was hoping to share this info last Monday at our group therapy since that didn’t happen I had to write it out. I will always love you in a way in a way I have never felt before.

Love, with all of my heart,

Jenny

Who’s supporting who?

you promised you’d care for me
you promised I’d be fed
you promised you’d support me
while I supported you

we’ve got a lot of healing
we’ve got a lot of work
we’ve got a lot of kids
just got a lot to do

don’t matter if it’s paper of plastic
don’t matter how we get it
don’t matter why we need it
if we need it for the healing work we need it

I’ll cover this
I’ll cover that
I’ll cover anything
Anything for healing cause that’s what we’re doing, plus you say you’ll make it right

you’ve got a plan to pay em off
you’ve got my trust it’ll happen fast
you’ve got a way to make it happen
so I gotta believe in you, gotta focus on the work we’re doing, even as the numbers grow

Turned over my bank account when it dipped below four hundred
you spent that four hundred promptly and never did a thing

three months later my bank is calling me
they say they ain’t my bank no more
they say that I gotta pay them quick
they say they’re gonna send it to collections

You said you’d sort it out
you said you’d pay the bank
you said you’d make it right

all I see is you making off with
everything you can carry
everything you can haul
everything you can imagine

you’ve gotta fill this hole
you’ve got a lot of loss
you’ve got so much need

you fill it up with household goods
you fill it up with clothes for kids
you fill it up with lots of things

For the kids, for the house, for the future, for the past, you got a lot to make up for, and you ain’t gotta make up a thing to me

now we ain’t got nothing
now we hit the top
now they’re all maxed out

we were spending all our future
we finally spent it all up
we’re living with what we make today
and today we ain’t make much

Now there isn’t a bill to share between the two of us, pinching pennies constantly, I even had to beg for gas

Can’t trust me with the money
can’t trust me with a bill
can’t trust me with what I buy

so here I am driving around on empty
so here I am 3 kids all hungry
so here I am with 25 dollars, wondering what to do

wondering how I’m gonna feed them
wondering how I’m gonna make it home
wondering how it’s gonna work out
driving home on fumes, I spend my last money on getting these hungry kids some food

isn’t ’til I pull up the reality dawns upon me
new curtains, new pillows, and new cushions too, new rugs on every floor and new clothes to boot

wondering why I was pinching pennies
wondering why I’m driving on empty
wondering why the fridge is still empty

wondering if we’ll make it to the next payday like this
wondering who’s money we’re even spending
wondering if there is any hope to remedy this

go home and check my voicemail
go home and check the mail
go home and check my accounts

Just crossed the 20 grand line, came here with 6 thousands, saying you’d be supporting me
when I look at my accounts, it says I’ve been supporting you

Dreaming of a future

When I was young we acted poor but we weren’t
We always had enough in the bank account but we would hardly spend it
Nice House
Tree house and garden
Summer vacation in the woods for two weeks

Straight cis married families surrounded us on all sides
I knew folks who got free lunch, there weren’t a lot, I knew of the broken families, there weren’t a lot
Good school district
Kids down the street
Quaint neighborhood

When you come from that background you just believe you are gonna always be there
Like it’s always gonna work out, you’re always gonna
Get married
have a good job
have money

Then I transitioned from handsome young man to gangly transwoman
The tomboy in me refuses to let me pass
refuses to soften my voice
refuese to wear makeup
refueses to wear any bright colors

Suddenly I don’t see a future that looks like any semblance of what I had
I look around at my community and all I see is a hot mess
Divorce,
shitty exes
messy complicated relationships

Haven’t had a real partner since before I transitioned, I’ve only dated straight ladies
Haven’t had a girlfriend to dream about for a long time, so I don’t
empty dreams
unsure future
hopeless life

Now I have a partner and three kids, we aren’t intimate, we hardly even talk these days
The kids live in a reality I’ve never lived in, a reality separate from ours
hockey, ballet
designer clothes
private lessons

They think they’re rich while we scrounge for for gas my putting 10 dollars in the tank at a time
Pulling from friends and food banks to make sure there is toilet paper and food in the house
EBT
NSF fees
maxed out credit cards

Spending away our future makes it hard to dream about anything
Living in a sea of straight people with mangled families makes it hard to see another way
sex with my ex
Books by queers
trips to the east end

Are what keep me alive, dreaming of a future where I still exist
Dreaming of another world that isn’t straight cis and bland, A world I’m allowed to exist.

What a Luxury

I have come to a lot of new understandings in the past year due to changing experiences and perspective aka, being poor and having 3 kids. These aren’t the things I want to share, they aren’t the joy, the love, the compassion, the growth, the power, the strength I have gained. No these are the ugly, the horrible, the depressing and the crushing I have experienced. I share this here because I have nowhere else to share it. No platform, no time, no people except y’all. Thank you for lending your ear, err your eyes.

And remember, I am currently the best person I have ever been, I’m struggling, sure, but I’m growing. Growth doesn’t happen in times of happiness and joy, but through hardship and challenge.

Luxury is so very perspective based but whatever you deem luxury feels luxurious.

When I was a kid luxury was a bar I couldn’t achieve. Over time it lowered and a few years ago luxury felt like a watermelon, and fresh cooked corn on the cob. Now my bar for luxury is much lower. Peeing alone and undisturbed is a luxury, having 3 dollars on me feels like luxury, having time to write, make art, putting up insulation in my room in the attic feels like luxury, having the ability to ride a bike or a long board or even just go on a walk feels like a luxury. Heck, having a adult conversation feels like luxury.

The luxury I failed to fully comprehend though I acknowledged it was the luxury to dumpster diving. There was so much joy there and the bounty was just that, a bounty of luxurious goods. But this luxury no longer feels like one though, my bounty has begun to feel like a burden. That’s because food from the dumpster feels much more liberating and exciting when you don’t need it to be there. It seems to be how you come at it: without expectation. Meanwhile I jump in these cans questing for a lunch, I have 5 pennies in my wallet and $8.55 of my ACCESS card and I plan on using that to buy something for the kids. These frozen donuts feel like my salvation. Yet they crush me when I realize their importance to me.

Immersing myself in emotions, while normally these were negative emotions, cutting, suicidal thoughts, depression, now feel like luxuries too. I long to feel my hurt, to have the space and the energy to have them consume me. I currently feel a dark cloud that I used to call nihilism and depression. I keep it at arms distance most of the time, but I call upon it when I have a chance to feel it’s overwhelming pressure. I can conjure up tears sitting alone for just minutes now. Time has become so much more valuable and much more well used.

I even have a fucked up day dream along that same line. When the kids are older and the time is freer, I desire to go on a journey like the journey’s I once had and often dream of. A journey of nothing, no destination or point, no resources or burdens. A wandering journey where I just go. A journey where I have my bags and my transportation. Maybe I sleep in a tent outside, maybe I sneak into a hiding spot in a building somewhere. I use what there is around, I just walk a lot, sit a lot and ponder and explore. Then when this time comes to an end, when I am off the map alone and lonely for a few days or few weeks, I disappear to hang my last moments from a noose or dead in a ditch.

I hope to be back to write more for ya’ll. I have a poem called “Bloody Fists” coming out next week or so.