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.

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.

It would be silly for me to say I’m the exact same person.

I’m not.

The world treats me differently now. And I am different because of it.

I feel more confident. I feel more free. I feel a deep down sense of me.

And yet, I also have this new set of rules and societal expectations on me.

“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.

“But what about the kids?”

People asked me about them all the time when I first came out as trans. 

Like I had somehow forgotten I had these 5 small humans to love and take care of.

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!

Did you know that approximately only 1 in 3 Americans have a woman for a boss?

That statistic always makes me feel sort of funny.

On the one hand I’m not surprised at all.

Truth is, I haven’t had a boss in close to a decade, self employment for the win, BUT when I did have a boss of one form or another they were mostly dudes.

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?