I adore who I’m becoming. I’m outgoing and flirtatious, I help people feel seen, my body feels fantastic to live in. I want this for everyone. I want everyone to be as fully themselves as they can be. The dark things I talk about are an important part of this. I, and people like me, have to pass through some soul-rendingly dark places to be ourselves. That horror gives context to the joy. I write about the dark parts because the dark was portrayed as too much. Even being aware that it was there was considered eldritch knowledge that might damage me, might unsettle others.

*I found my own way out of the dark, and I learned how to be a person, and I learned how to be in community.*

I know people who don’t say these things where their parents can read, some who wait until their parents die before they let themselves know their own truths. I would normally let that stand on its own, as its meaning is clear in the context of <gestures to everything else I’ve written>, but I’ll elaborate here. I’m privileged that I both have the means, sort of, to risk my parents’ opinions, and that it might be the case that being open with them will produce change and growth in them. More likely my father than my mother, but even so. But beyond that, I’ve chosen a course of living out loud, and while that’s clearly atrophying many connections, the new ones that sprout and the old ones it nurtures more than make up for the losses, for me. I used to think this was me being harsh, but it’s me being gentle and nurturing with myself. Not everyone I know will benefit from me being myself, but I benefit both by valuing myself and by connecting in positive ways with those who are compatible with who I am.

*It was unrelentingly hard, especially the unlearning, and doing it the hard way taught me about how important community is.*

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