september 22

i've spent the last 5 months living with my two partners, maddi and ryan. it's been the highlight of my life up to this point, we've grown close and comfortable together and shared a lot of experiences, and while things have been less than ideal in a few ways we've all been working to make things better and help each other.

between when i got here and now i managed to get a job to try and make living here easier on ryan and more permanent, but lost it. i couldn't move as fast or carry as much as i used to be able to because i hadn't been eating as much, and hrt has affected my strength. it proved i could get a job on my own though, if i worked hard enough.

ryan's been the one supporting us financially while i look for another job and maddi does school, but he's about to lose his job for reasons outside of his control. after this hammer falls, i have to go back home, ryan has to go back home, and maddi has to go back home, because none of us have any other support but our families right now. i've kept getting interviews but none of them have panned out in time to prevent this. on the 16th of next month i'm scheduled to leave a home where i'm surrounded by people i love who know me as myself instead of my deadname, to go back to my closet in a great plains shit village whose only noteworthy features are hate crimes.

so far in the days leading up to this i cry at least once every day and spend my time fantasizing about ways i can stay here, close to at least one of my partners, and steer my life away from turning into what it's otherwise about to be. i knew on some level this couldn't last, but i thought i had more time to try and put something lasting together. i keep hoping one of my interviews this week will pan out, so i can scrape and claw together a life for myself here where i won't be so alone and dependent on my family to survive and not be stuck in the hate crime hamlet.

in the aformentioned midwestern hellscape, my grandmother is charitable enough to give me a place to stay and help me find transportation on the condition that i go to school. the prospect of a car gives me a lot of hope. it's really kind of her, but she just doesn't have enough context to know the full extent of how much i detest the prospect of being shackled to this place and forcibly isolated from my partners and forced to hide who i am for my own safety, for the amount of time it would take to finish two years of school or be able to transfer credits. everybody in my family i've spoken to makes suggestions about what to do with my life that, while ostensibly for my own good, only reflect their anxieties and privelege and following them would coincidentally make it harder for me to not be closeted, lonely, depressed, immobile and dependent. i'm not sure how to balance my dependent relationship with my family with my strong desire to get somewhere i can be myself and be with the people i love.

<-prev (home) next->