It’s 2022. A fair and equitable marriage should be something that you and your partner aspire to no matter who you are right? I mean you’re a feminist. Or at least in the sense that you believe women deserve the same rights as men. Of course you want your partner to have the same opportunities you do. 

And yet…Easier said than done. 

I ran away for 3 nights to untangle the gnarly knots in my heart and soul…

I almost went into an explanation of why I needed the time away. But there doesn’t have to be a special reason. I don’t need to earn time to myself. Time to think. Time to rest. Time to dream. Psst. Either do you. Find out how to make a solo retreat a reality.

The show starts. The Discovery+ logo makes that fun sound and zooms across the screen.

Just like that it begins. “Every year, 2 Million Americans renovate their homes,” starts the narrator, the music is intense. The cinematography is beautiful, “it’s one of the most stressful” she carries on ”YOU’RE PULLING OUR HOUSE APART!” interrupts Katherine with a shriek. And there we are.

Our family flashes across the screen.

This is my wife, Katherine. Not only is she hot, and smart, like write books, smart. She’s also the fiercest woman I know. The we should all be just a little bit scared of her, in the best sort of way, kind of fierce. What can I say, I like em feisty.

DO YOU MAKE A “DID IT” LIST?

I don’t know about you, but I always enter the end of the year with a fair amount of angst, especially as a parent it’s easy to end the year feeling at least a little bit like a failure, and 2020 was no different. Until I stop and list all the actual shit I did this year in my annual “DID IT LIST!”

WE ARE SO CUTE!!

And super in love! And even Wallace F. North joined in!!! Except that less than an hour after these photos were taken I made Katherine cry in the car. ⁣ Because that’s marriage am I right? Anyone who says it’s not well, either they are lying, or they aren’t “all in” cause loving someone fully and loving yourself fully is super elaborate dance it turns out. ⁣

ON WEDNESDAYS WE DO LAUNDRY!

I stand drinking my tea (coffee is an after the kids are gone activity) in the front landing and holler up and down the stairs simultaneously (5 kids means we store some of them in the basement rooms, my wife @declaredominion is scandalized by this, this is what I call not being independently wealthy while having 5 children) “IT’S LAAAAAWWWNNNNNDRRRRRY DAY, BRING FORTH YOUR DIRTY UNDERWEAR!” And they all come like aunts with trails of dirty socks following behind them. ⁣

Three years ago today we took the three bigs to their first @teganandsara concert. ⁣

T&S are my favorite band. If you know me you probably know this fact more than you’d like to. Their fans have a rather “cult” feeling, that I’m pretty pleased to be a part of honestly. ⁣

This is where I’m supposed to tell you how awesome it was. ⁣
⁣
Except the whole thing went sideways. ⁣

TELLING KATHERINE THAT I WAS TRANS WAS THE EASIEST PART

The truth is that without her, the steadiness and fierceness of her love, I don’t know that I would have found myself. I was way more afraid to admit my transgender identity to myself.

Who would I become. How would I change? Who would I lose?

Everyone, I was sure.

It turns out that life just got better.

CO PARENTING IS HARD!

Why did no one say? “You’ll be more frustrated about this than almost anything else in your relationship. But remember to hear each other, really listen, past the fear, and to the value you are trying to teach, focus on that rather than the very specific path you think you should take to get there and you’ll be okay”

Nope just some BS about “how the days are long but the years are short.”

I’ve been in a low grade agitated state of panic since I woke up this morning.

Why? Because it’s our wedding anniversary.

And tradition states that I have to write a very romantic post about it. I can write all sorts of romantic things, if I have to. All of those things are true.

But that’s only one half of the story.

PARENTS NEED VACATIONS

This was our mantra as Katherine and I snuck away from our suburban family life for 4, childless nights in the Bahamas.

“But didn’t you just GET back from vacation?!?” I can hear you ask quizzically. 

No miggy figgys!!! No, I did not just get back from a vacation, I just got back from a trip! With my kids. Where we do all of the same crap like laundry, and cooking, and fighting over screen time, and bedtimes and all of it, but we do it in a new, more challenging place, without any of our creature comforts!  

The state of my “cloffice” (closet-office hybrid) is a direct match for the state on my inner world.

One look at my desk and you’ll know where in the scale of overwhelm/somethings going on, I am. Right now I’m at about an 7/10. My Cloffice is creeping up to an 8.

But before everyone freaks out and checks in on me, asking if I’m okay and how they can help, know that it’s not always bad to be high up there on the scale. Sometimes being at a 7, 8 or even 9 just means we are living a big, full sometimes stressful life. Because that’s how we grow. That’s how we change, that’s how we make our dreams come true.

I felt grateful that my big, beautiful, queer family gets to show all sorts of people a different way to live, and love, and thrive in the world. We get to show all sorts of people that they can be whoever they are and find love.

It shows trans kids, folks, their partners, their parents and their friends that they aren’t alone, they aren’t broken, they can and will be loved, and not just crappy settling for someone kind of love, but the BIG WONDERFUL BADASS KIND OF LOVE!

LAST YEAR I PUNCHED A HOLE IN THE WALL

The reason isn’t important, I know because I truly can’t remember why I did it. I do know that never once did I punch anything before transitioning from female to male in my 30’s. For me, the thing I noticed was that all the places in life that used to make me sad didn’t anymore. Instead they filled me with rage.

THIS IS MY EX HUSBAND CHRIS,

Without him I wouldn’t have 4 out of 5 of these humans I call my kids. And they wouldn’t be nearly as loud or tell as interesting of stories, or have any musical talent at all.

Ughhhhh who wants to post a before photo.

Nobody. And yet here we are.

The sun shines in through the curtains, we wake slowly. I roll over in bed and put my arm around my love, and kiss her cheek. “It’s time to get up love,” I whisper and she nuzzles into the crevice in my neck between my jaw and my shoulder. She is soft and warm and sleepy.

Katherine is the love of my life. 

No doubt about it. .

But not that long ago she was my far away best friend who I was secretly so very in love with.

Katherine and I had a fight about parenting the other night.

In the bath. Super romantic I know. It was a good one.