new beginnings, sticky ends

02/08/2023

much has changed in the past week. i started the process to begin hrt; i moved to a new apartment; i finally went no contact with my family. i will use the space below to wiggle around in these new changes and the thoughts entangled within. this is not a fluffy post btw.

when it comes to gender identity things, i am still figuring it out! i am nonbinary, and i seem to be finding joy in exploring the more masculine side of things. so perhaps also transmasc? i feel as though i must sit with the idea some more before fully accepting the label. regardless, i'm hoping that starting t will make it easier to exist in the world. one of these days, perhaps i'll write something more substantial about the gender journey things, but today is not that day!

after a few months of searching for a place, i moved to a new apartment! is it farther from work? yes. but the joy this space gives me is truly priceless.

on the most basic level, i am near my dear beloved ducks. there is something about being able to just sit and observe lil creatures. i'd like to think that the duck world is one without significant drama. they live a simple life and, for the most part, peacefully coexist with each other. when the world feels too heavy or complicated, this perspective helps to ground me. we truly are just specks of dust on this lil rotating egg in a big ole universe. although the problems in our lives are real and important, i remind myself that the world will continue to turn, regardless. and for the time i am with my feathery friends, i am able to clear my anxiety-ridden thoughts and be fully present in space and time.

diving a bit deeper into my reasoning for making this move, i am now, for the first time, living amongst people that look like me. i was born in China, and i was adopted and brought to the US when i was 1 yo by white people. this experience has impacted my life in a great deal of ways; however, something that i didn't realize i needed until this past year was a local community. moving here has given me the opportunity to experience this. i now have a walking distance friendo! amazing! unseen! and unheard of! when i go to the grocery stores, i see families that look like me and look like what i might have had in another life. it brings me both joy and grief to see these families, but both have been healing in their own ways. finding community in environments where i have historically felt out of place has been such an unexpected shift. i look forward to continuing to explore and engage. perhaps another thing i will write about in the future - the stickiness of the adoption industry (x.x).

what i believe is the final layer, though with the twists and turns of my brain you never really know - i moved so that my family would no longer know where i live. this is of course, directly related to the final major life change from this past week - going no-contact with my family. there is no one thing that has led to this decision. there are simply too many things to ever make healing this broken thing possible. our relationship started with my parents effectively purchasing a child from another country. that's a really shitty start. then there's the narcissism, gaslighting, manipulation, homophobia/transphobia, lack of emotional maturity or stability, and so on. i was left to contort my very presence to try and fit into a family that has never truly known me or shown any intent to change. with every interaction becoming more unbearable, i finally set my boundary and ended all future communication. in return, i received a thumbs up.

in the final loose threads of our relationship, i still manage to be disappointed in their lack of compassion or effort. i didn't realize it at the time, but i must have subconsciously convinced myself that they would finally pull through in the end. that they would do the whole big apology (though for all that we have been through i can't imagine an apology big enough to have much meaning), finally understand, and do the work. but that very much so did not happen.

and now, i am here. there is some peace in knowing that i won't have to endure interactions with them. but at the same time, there is so much grief. as if i hadn't already been processing enough of that! before, there was the grief for a family and heritage i will never know and for a family i wish that my own would be. now there is also grief for a family who has caused me so much pain. there is grief for the years of future holidays that will be spent alone; for the conversations i will have to endure with others, dancing around the uncomfortable idea of estrangement; for the fact that they will never get to meet and understand the person that i am and will become; for the memories and images that i do not hold myself and now will never be able to access. i know that i am not alone. there are people in my life that care about me. but at the same time, my already small corner of people in this world, has just shrunk significantly. for someone who allegedly was left by their first family at mere 20-something days old, i seem to have lost another family at 20-something years old. what a lonely concept. though perhaps they never really were mine. and can you really lose something you never had?