EVER WONDER IF YOU’RE A TERRIBLE PERSON FOR BEING JEALOUS OF YOUR KIDS’ LIVES?

Yeah, me either.

Except. Yes. I TOTALLY WONDER IF I’M A TERRIBLE PERSON FOR BEING JEALOUS OF MY KIDS!

BECAUSE I AM JEALOUS OF MY KIDS

EVERY FRIDAY

I plunge this badboy into some muscle on my body. Except that mostly I forget. BRAINS ARE FUNNY, RIGHT? When I first started taking testosterone I counted down the hours until my next weekly shot. I painstakingly obsessed that not a drop was wasted. And now... now I kinda dread it.

“TICKLEY TICKLEY ROUND YOUR TUMMY,”

She would whisper in a sing song tone as she traced her fingers across my stomach. The two of us snuggled up on her couch. “We Yike, jeopardy, don’t we Gamma.” the 6 year old version of me would look up at her and smile. “We sure do!” she smiled back, returning to her tickling song. “Tickley, tickley round your tummy, if you laugh you’ll be a mummy.” her long fingers making loop da loops on my belly.

When I was a kid I didn't know that people like me existed.

I DIDN'T KNOW THAT I WAS POSSIBLE.

AND YET.

MY NAME IS NICK. I’M THAT BIG SCARY TRANSGENDER PERSON YOU’VE BEEN TOLD TO FEAR.

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.

I BELIEVE IN MAGIC

I believe we all have magic inside of us.

It’s not the kid of magic we wish it was.

We all want the type of magic we see in others.

Never the kind we already have.

Have you ever built a house?  

It sounds exciting right?

It is! It’s one of those dream come true moments!  You get to choose all the finishes.  Have everything exactly like you want it. With in reason, like you know, within the 5 options available to you plus a splurge on a upgrade or two here or there.   I was drunk with power!  

Turns out raising a boy who is basically a carbon copy of me has given me all the feels about my own childhood.

Not all bad, some good, but mostly a sense of loss.

The boyhood I didn’t get to have.

THE VATICAN HAS ISSUED A STATEMENT REJECTING TRANS PEOPLE, SAYING THEY ‘ANNIHILATE…THE CONCEPT OF NATURE’.

It seems like religious organizations are being asked to make new ways of being in the world to match the global climate, to realize maybe they’d been wrong about the queers all those years ago, like they were wrong about many many things over the years.

Sometimes you get included on lists with people you feel so inspired to be doing life with.

This is one of those times!

Thank you to Kelly from @Romper for curating such a great list of really great people talking about the real parts of life. I feel super grateful to be 1/22 of what’s going on here!

I love my hands.

They are my fave body part hands down.

Sure, I guess it’s because I can do cool stuff with my hands. I can hold my tiny humans, I can stroke Katherine’s face, I can open doors and bottles and all sorts of crazy things with my opposable thumbs.

Close your eyes and think of your school photos.

No really take a second, and pour over them in your minds eye.

How did it make you feel? Where did you go first in your memory?

Ughhhhh who wants to post a before photo.

Nobody. And yet here we are.

A friend of mine recently welcomed a new baby into their world.

They are in their 40’s and it’s their first. They are Ivy League educated, have thriving careers and are all around wonderfully, delightful, amazing humans! They come from a different world than me though. They went to all the right schools, learned all the right skills, have all the right pedigrees.

I realized something when a pal slid into my DM’s this afternoon.

(Yes, I know all the cool kids like @Lizzobeeating use “slid into my DM’s” to talk about sexy times, flirty talk, but I’m a 34 year old Dad of 5, I use it when talking about my pal Charlie. Deal with It!)

Ever find yourself scrolling through the gram on a Friday afternoon loosing more minutes hiding in the bathroom avoiding work on your phone than you care to admit when all of a sudden a post smacks you in the face.

You know the smack. It’s the one of deep shame and guilt that “I’m not more evolved… “

“And now what?” I wonder sometimes.

“Is this it? Am I here? Did I do the thing? Am I happy?” I think so.

As happy as most anyway. 

But is happy even really the point? 

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

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

My body and I have been at odds for as long as I can remember.

“At odds”. 

That’s a gentle way of putting it. 

As a kid I had chronic pain. And asthma. And this thing where I would wake up in the middle of the night throwing up only to have nothing wrong with me. In the 6th grade I had my legs put in 45 degree angle casts to “fix” my leg…