Tag Archives: relationship

trans talk

A variation

variation

 

on an unrequited love theme:

Him: I like her.  A lot.  And the fact that she has a penis?  Hotttt.
Her: How do I know I’m not just a fetish object if he’s so damned turned on by my penis?

A conundrum, indeed.

It’s not just about the body parts, it’s not objectification but a turn-on is a turn-on.  Historically, it seems that anything that deviates from the publicly broadcast hetero-norm (ahem homosexuality) is quickly labeled deviant or a fetish.
How conveniently dismissive.
How fucking willingly ignorant.

I sit at a trans bar as my friend crushes on this beautiful-cute woman.
“So…how do you describe your sexual identity these days?”
“I say I’m bisexual.”

I look at him, confused, and we simultaneously blurt:
“But I—you’re not.”

“Right?”
“Right.”

“But what do I say?”
“Hmm…you’re not gay.”

“I’m not gay.  I like women.  I just, you know…”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So do we say transwoman-oriented?”

It’s a tough, lonely world for transsexuals.
But.
In a sad twist of irony, it’s pretty lonely for those who are trans-oriented as well.

I hold this thought and questions happen.

Then I hear S in my head: What’s the point, if he wants me pre-op and my entire aim is to eventually have SRS?
He wants her to stay as she is, honing in on the one thing that causes her enormous grief.

Okay, so probably she ought not date a pre-op-trans-oriented individual but to assume that those who show interest are probably fetishising her for their fun time isn’t the fairest attitude.  People want romantic relationships and usually it’s best with those who turn us on sexually.

And what about the inevitable pre/post-op question?
(Or is she undecided?)
Asking this upfront is an awesome way to lose and get dismissed as a prying fetishist.
Besides, it’s really about getting to know her.
A-n-d…sometimes, say, even though pre-op is usually his type, it doesn’t matter so much when he discovers she’s had SRS.
Because he likes her.  A lot.

They don’t know about lasting into the future but in the here and now, they’re happy.
Maybe they’ll try a happily ever after, maybe it’ll be a damn fine chapter, maybe they’ll make each other shudder in the next six months.

Either way, the romantic in me wants them to have the story.

 

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trans talk

She gets jealous

jealous post

and it’s really fucking cute.

But also, the fuck?!
This is unexpected.  When she was my boyfriend, he didn’t have an iota of jealousy in him.  I tested his J-meter: nada.

So what gives?
Becoming female.  With boyfriend.

He’s a really good guy, one who doesn’t shy from expressing feelings of love and hurt.  He freely compliments her physical and mental everything as he feels it, which is pretty damn often…so sweet, new love.  Insecurity doesn’t exist, yet as soon as she hears another female in the background, a knee-jerk response articulates: Who’s that?  She surprises herself with this iteration— a serious first— but in that moment her heart can’t help but feel a possessive tug and a quick flash-beat of disquiet.

As she tells me this, I can’t help but quietly wow at the psychological change I’m witnessing; for a split second my emotional whirlpool produces a thin line of sadness, reminiscing that I never did trigger this kind of possessive want from him.  But that was a different time, a different relationship, a different person.  I snap out of my flashback moment and smile; the woman before me is a changed individual, indeed.

Which leads me to another funny-cute moment of late.

S is really popular with the boys, especially Americans from the West Coast.
“So he’d fly me out to visit him.”
“Wow, S…he’s really into you.”
“Yeah…but I’m not so into him.”
“Oh?”
“Umm…squirmy gaze avoidance…”

I wait.
This is going to be good as she’s rarely shy around me.

“He’s trans.”

Oh.  Interesting.

“Except he doesn’t even fully realize it yet but he totally is.  I think that’s partly why he likes me so much.”

Head cocked, slow smile, raised eyebrow.

“Shut up, Rumi!”

I continue to look at her, put my hands up and shrug to show amused non-judgment.

“Look, I can’t be with a transsexual.  I have no interest.  Plus…he has the whole coming out and transition process ahead of him and…I just…can’t.  He needs so much support, I’d feel like I was his…mother.”

At this point I’m outright smirking as S tells me to shut it for the nth time.
We can’t help but bust out laughing as she’s heard those exact words come out of my mouth when we were going through a painful break up.

“I get it, Rumi.  I thought I did then but I really get it.”

I get that life is often full-circle but shit, I wasn’t expecting that one just yet.
Sure does give me a smile moment…significant changes.

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random love, relationshipping, trans talk

Why do you blog?

teehee
Asks a dear friend recently.

Hmm…

The why changes.
In the beginning, it was a way to deal with too many changes.

Because life, y’all:
BF, whom I thought I’d spend quite the future with, tells me he’s a cross dresser as our plans to move out of the country are finalized.  Tokyo minus 5 months and he has come out as transsexual.  Once we’re moved, visas, leases, laws, jobs— everything, basically, must be negotiated and conducted in a fairly foreign language.  Add to that hormones, transitioning, open relationship, re-identifying sexual identity— oh Jesus, this is ridiculous.

Enter blog.
There’s a certain accountability when I hit ‘Publish’ even though I feel anonymous as fuck; in the back of my mind, I know this record will remain.  So I’m forced to be more considerate, analytical, objective; these things in turn bring clarity.  And instead of simply boo-hooing (awesome readers aren’t going to stick around for a yawn pity party), the blog encourages me to laugh at myself.

Because truth:
I cry.  (A. Lot.)
And humor— it’s important.

These days I’m not conflicted about how to navigate a relationship as my partner transitions.  We are no longer together though we’re married (it helps a visa) and we’ve mostly come out the other side of a challenging breakup.  Our romantic ending has been messy and there have been many emotionally frustrating moments that I’ve documented here— cohabitation post break up, enough said.

Soon we will be living our independent lives and separate chapters will begin.
On which continent, in which country, neither of us know.
It scares me sometimes.
Her too.

And this blog?
Though it’s impossible for me to be in a relationship like I was with S, one which prompted this blog, I’ll continue to share stories about my oddball adventures.  There’s no shortage to the delightfully unique company I keep and trust that S will keep me updated about her most recent exploits en route to finding The One.

I started this as a release and coping mechanism.
I’ll continue because the share and response is another meaningful slice in this very short life.
Because it’s not real unless you share it.
And I’m a sucker for processing.

 

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relationshipping

Heady beginnings

are a weakness.

Loaded pauses, hypnotizing and consuming conversations— but about what, I don’t remember because what I’m left with is how I feel, which is simply great.

The newborn teenager that is potential love is a beautiful beast.  Its insistent and unignorable presence is such a flood of feel-good that all energies revolve around It.

I agree to help him out with an art project.  I’d said five? words over the course of a year to him before that night.  Project tasking goes well; the chat that follows, even better.  There’s something that we see and feel in the other; a significant something where four hours pass like twenty minutes.  Then the almost-nauseating nerves(!) that strike before I call him, just because I want to hear his voice.  I’m nervous because there’s no practical reason to call, nowhere to go after, “Hey…”

But he makes it so easy.
“Hey…I can hear the smile in his voice, which makes me smile.  I was wondering when you’d call…”

And the only awkwardness is the bit I created in my head.

When I next talk to him it’s in person and before I know it, we’re on the floor of a gallery, fucking.

It’s amazing the number of firsts that so quickly and effortlessly happen with this new, fascinating stranger.   Before two weeks pass, I realize how many ‘I would nevers’ have occurred.  It’s exciting and it’s so damn fun.

The ordinary becomes extraordinary and the hitherto unfamiliar, forever memorable.

A different beginning, another time: I’m so caught up in thoroughly romantic feelings that when I open a ring box, expecting jewelry and see instead, a single perfect-in-its-imperfection delicate coil shell, my heart immediately goes, “Aww…”  Then when I unwrap an even more delicate coil of paper with four simple words and a question mark, of course I whisper, “Yes.”

I’m young, naïve, and utterly in love.

Recently, a friend observes that I write a lot about endings.
Yes, I do.
I learn the most from endings as they’re so varied and often a mindfuck— but wow, do I learn my limits.
But I get his point.
Why not include the priceless, unique and intoxicating pure awesomeness that starts every good love story?
Without that heady start, we just don’t fall so hard.

And falling is…everything.

 

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relationshipping

I lose

my best friend every time a major relationship ends.

They’re kind-of annoying as shit to deal with— as am I— because we’re simultaneously trying to sort our own shit with our heads pretty far up our individual asses.
And those lingering details…

Who gets which car?
Joint purchases?
Debt?
Ha.

The shit overwhelms at moments and I deal by listening to band du jour on repeat and smoking dope until the banking day is over.  I procrastinate until I can’t, otherwise I’ll bust a vein in my pretty face from a massive panic attack threatening coronary.  I breathe, get my coffee and pull up the calculator.  Let’s go.  Okay, not so bad.  These digits aren’t too bad.  Oh fuck.  There’s another set of cards.  And loans.  And car payments.  And insurance.  And just…more shit.  Life costs.  Ten years of shared life is damn expensive.  Oh crap this is going to take— just add.  Keep adding.  Finally.  Moment of grand total truth.

So I suck at math.
I don’t really know what a budget is.
Whenever I’m at break up point, I have left the finances in the hands of the other so I have NO IDEA what debt situation awaits me.
My saving grace is I hate being ingratiated because that makes me breathe not so well, my brain gets spinny-cloudy and I’m incredibly impatient about getting my freedom back.

My real saving grace?
We didn’t buy a house together.
In America, getting divorced is so much easier than unjoining a house purchase.
We did one undeniably smart thing— yea!

You’d think I’d learn from the first time around.

I repeat my mantra, not only to myself but to him:
No cohabitating, no joining finances.
No cohabitating, no joining finances.

No cohabitating, no joining finances.

I maintain this.
For three months.

Then he falls on hard times and it’s easier to stay in the same house but more than anything, I can’t see past love, laughter, commitment, and an ever tightening vision of a permanent future.

I tell myself:
Even if it all goes to shit, I’ve done this before.  If I can untangle 10 years, I can work through however this may end.  But he’s also really kind and I know he won’t lie to me or screw me over financially so…what’s there to fear?

Not shit, really.
The headache and annoyance of separating seems like a disrespectful and shallow thing to consider when there’s true care, consideration and love present.

Years pass.

Then we break up.

When we’re young we hesitate to date our best friends because the potential double loss of best friend and lover is a big risk.
But I tell myself the greater the risk of hurt and loss, the greater the love.
So of course I run that risk.

Then I realize there’s even more to lose: we had become each other’s family.

The ending is damn hard.  And lonely.
But always worth the risk.

 

 

 

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relationshipping

The joke

My eyeballs need cocaine

is on me.
Again.

So there’s nothing like time and distance to get over someone.
I excise the other from my life to move on.
It really helps.

I think I’ve got recovering from heartbreak down— yea!
I create emotional distance through physical distance.
I make sure our worlds don’t collide and my brain-heart is trained: the second I sniff voluntary distance (from me or the other), emotional detachment follows.

As usual, when I’m pretty confident that I can get through one emotional puzzle, the universe throws a giant hamster ball in my path.
I get a conundrum wrapped in the guise of a three-part love present.

1) I fall for someone.
2) I fall hard.
3) It’s. Long. Distance.

Of course it is.
Motherfucker.

I have trained my instincts so well that this situation is a mindfuck.
What— get close to someone when they’re countless miles and time zones away?
Are we really establishing a foundation over text?!
This sounds stupid and I shake my head at myself.

Except for the damn love, people.

And we meet so seldom that every time feels like the first time.
What am I doing?

Usually I fall in love and into a relationship like the oldest lesbian U-Haul joke we all know.
I need to learn how to pace myself in a relationship but I don’t know if this— the complete opposite— is the answer.
But it sure as hell is a lesson in a different kind of patience.

I tell myself to stay in the moment and relax when we meet even though my brain knows the moment has a very short lifespan.  There are so many thoughts, stories, feelings of the mundane and extraordinary I want to share but when I’m confronted with T minus 150 minutes and counting— I am rendered mute because my heart beats in time to the tick-tick-tock of the countdown clock.  And what are words when I can actually touch this person?  Because we’ve been wording 6,000 times over for the past too many days.

I give in to the clock; I acknowledge but don’t begrudge its presence.
I experience the moment since this moment is what I have.

I am grateful.
And excited.

And terrified.

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relationshipping

Denial vengeance

Inpatientis a thing and it is NOT fun.

We go to the show and my <10-day ex tells me, “The singer’s totally checking you out.”
“Really?!!”

That’s awesome for my self-esteem.  I look over to their merch stand and as I make eye contact with the singer, she walks to the bathroom.  My ex follows her.

They emerge some minutes later and my ex tells me about her conversation with the cute singer:
I told her I liked their set, that we came from Memphis to see them.   She asked who ‘we’ meant, I pointed to you and said, my girlfriend.

Oh.

Except we’re broken up.  And you have a crush.

My ex continues:
Since we’re not going to have sex, I’m going to see *** (her crush).

Slam my heart against the wall a little harder, why don’t you?  Just like that my ex has simultaneously cock-blocked someone I could have some random fun with AND informed me that she’ll be driving two hours to see her crush, leaving me no way to get around this small unknown town for the night.  Awesome.

It’s a damn shitty, gross feeling to know that as I’m sweating stale beer and starving, my ex is out talking to, kissing? fucking?! her crush.  Love has no rules and new love doesn’t suffer fools gladly; it is too young, wild and headstrong to pause for words like consideration and other people’s feelings.

Insomnia hits.  My stomach growls because I want greasy, hot, melty food (preferably of the starchy variety) to sop up my show alcohol, but I can’t NOT think about my ex potentially fucking her new someone and that instantly nauseates me.  I stare blankly at the TV.

3:30, 4, 4:30AM.

Thank god my little compadre pooker is with me; her familiar muzzle and warm little body comforts me.  I hug my little Izzy dog and we try to sleep.

5:30, 6, 6:30AM.

Sleep never comes but my ex comes back to drive us home.

She looks exhausted and I almost offer to drive the first bit so she can crash but I just. don’t. have. it. in. me.

I think a fuck of a lot the whole way home.

We had a remarkable decade

but

I have no regrets of an ending of us.

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relationshipping, the sex

The last time

Inpatientis a mindfuck.

I never know that the last sex will be the last sex.
It’s a hollow shock once realization hits.

***

We break up.
Oh, right, we did buy those tickets for the show next week.
In another state, hotel room for the night.
We decide to go.
Ol’ times sake.

We sit at a famed meat-and-three joint on the road to the show.  We’re quiet, but able to maintain conversation.  Things feel comfortable for the first time in our post-break-up world.  I look out the window, breathing in the cloudless Missouri sky; it’s a beautiful blue and suddenly—

Her: What?  What is it?  Why are you looking like that now?
Me: I’m just processing…you really want to know?
Her: Yeah, you got obviously sad and quiet all of a sudden.
Me: It just hit me that we’ve had our last sex.
Her: Silence.  Whoa this is weird; she’s never at a loss for words.
Me: What’s up?  Are you okay?
Her: I thought we’d have sex tonight, you know, because…it’d be the perfect ending.
Me: Seriously?!  But we’re broken up…and I need to process that and…I just…can’t.

She’s affected, which surprises me.
Slow tears roll down her face, which floors me.

Neither of us eat anything else and as I pay for the check she gets on her phone.
She’s texting her crush, who happens to live not so far from where the show is.

I can count the number of days we’ve been broken up.  She has a new crush.  Why the hell would I think she’d want to have a last sex?

She drives.
I think.

A meaningful last sex sounds sweet but sweet sentimentality like this is not a language I speak.  As she grieves over a last sex that won’t happen, I recall and play our last in my head.  Only because it was fairly recent am I able to remember any of the details: she came, I came and a plastic bottle, one-third full of orange-colored Vitamin Water stands on the edge of the platform bed.  Wow, that was our last time.  That the damn bottle of Vitamin Water is the most detailed part of last sex memory indicates how unremarkable it was.

***

A decade of sex: many firsts, orgasms, toys, locations, positions, the list goes on.
I believe in the decade of messy, innocent, funny, awkward, loving, real moments…not in a perfectly designed last memory as my heart still breaks.

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relationshipping, the sex

A meaningful first

My eyeballs need cocaineis possible.

“Sometimes I’m grateful that the first time I had sex was someone I was in love with but sometimes I think it set me up for years of disappointment,” says my insightful and beautiful soulmate.

I ponder this as first sex is on my mind this week.  With each new person, the sex changes; it’s always a totally different experience and not fairly comparable in the context of relationships.

I don’t have expectations of grandeur when it comes to first sex.  It’s been boring, unexpected, romantic, fun, exciting, drunk, awesome, exhausting, curious, painful, sweet, incredibly nerve-wrecking and possibly…love?  Never the same and always revealing.  What can I say, the nekked is an interesting tell, from grooming habits to…well, the naked truth.

So no grand expectations but in a relationship, evolution is crucial.  How it evolves depends on the other person and navigating that how has been the most fun and fascinating thing.  I learn about myself, my person, limits, curiosities et al.

Toys?  Sure, but not all and which ones really depend on my person.  And not all the time.  Public sex?  Why not?  But just how much of an exhibitionist is (s)he?  These are interesting reveals.  Cabs are fun, galleries and theaters too but as they give way to tiny, red-bulb bathrooms and I’m increasingly missing a warm bed and lazy sheets, a limit is within reach.  Then there’s open relationships.  Some, like S, can do this beautifully whereas I end up confused and emotionally drained; great in theory but a mess in my practice.  Or, You want me to tie you up?  Not a problem until I realize that I’m terrible at knots which is kind-of a problem and when it’s either do my damn knot homework or move on, I walk.  Then there are the myriad variations within the realm of two people simply doing it.

Oh relationships…sometimes the sex is disappointing and the ending even more so but looking back, I don’t remember the mediocre or even bad sex.

I remember the awkward sweetness of youth, fumbling out-of-sync, habits and routines, random on-drugs camping, the laughter, rocky boats, staying silent, the cocoon of stars so close to the equator we are floating in the sky, the most comfortable bed ever because it’s ours.

I remember making up, rainy days, early mornings, late nights, breakfast in bed, different beds in different cities, states, countries and seasons changing.

I remember the love.

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open relationship, relationshipping, trans talk

I’m the Q

You are a slutpuppy“Bless your heart but you are so not a lesbian,” says S.

The fact that we can have this honest conversation is huge.
The fact that S can have her sense of humor about a hurtful point of conflict is even huger.

Until this moment, S would often wonder why I couldn’t stay attracted to her if she’s still the same fabulous person on the inside and I was in a lesbian relationship for a decade.  In her shoes, I’d wonder the same thing but the best truth I’ve got is: the attraction cooled to something tepid within me and tepid is a pretty lame concessionary temperature for a love relationship.

I nod and recollect, ” ***(my long-term ex before S) said the same thing when we were dating.”
S shakes her head and pats my own.  “It’s really LGBT-supportive and I love you for it but you are not gay.”

I concede this point.

Before S, I maintain that I fall in love with the person, not the gender.  Although that statement pretty much announces my bisexuality, by mentioning gender, I qualify being a lesbian and/or having been in a lesbian relationship.  It’s as though I can’t commit to simply being gay, even though I was in a lesbian relationship for a decade.  No wonder my long-term ex wouldn’t call me a ‘real’ lesbian; it took over half the length of that relationship before I’d say was a l-l-lesbian.  
Then we broke up.

As S transitions, I am forced to dissect how true this ‘not the gender’ assertion is.
It’s not so true.

Without a doubt, my relationship history defines me as bisexual.  However, every person I have dated since S and I have open-relationshipped and broken up has been male, which then makes me feel like a bit of a liar if I call myself bi in the present.  But the second I identify as a straight girl, I have a feeling the universe will find a way to have the last laugh.

So.

In my apparent quest to self-identify, I’ll go with queer.
I’m the Q in LGBTQ.

Because one sure thing is that my past, present and future sexual identity and experiences sure as hell (will) fall outside the hetero-defined mainstream.

Thank. God.

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