Castaway

I have the opposite problem this morning then I've been having the last while. I have so much on my mind, a lot of it blogable, that I'm not sure where to start or even if I can make this all coherent.

I've never forgotten how social I was as a kid, or teenage, did I ever like people. This may sound conceded but looking back I didn't feel like I had to try to be anyone's friend, or at least be liked by random students. Grade seven wasn't awesome for me but eight through high school I didn't have a lot of friends, but I was liked well enough by just about everyone.

More importantly though I loved being with the friends I had, the close ones. I spent every moment I could spending time with my friends. Sure they changed through the years, as do most people during those years, but I wanted to be around people more then just about anything else. Even when video games started coming into our lives, I'd always rather let my friends play and me watch. Let them have the fun and I had fun in that. Honestly I used to like watching them interact.

But then the reality of being transgender started to creep in and I, almost over night, became antisocial. It was an online game that led me away. My friends didn't seem to appreciate how into the game I was getting, but it wasn't entirely the game. Sure I can get sucked into a good game but I played this in my room alone. Why? Because the people playing with me, talking to me didn't know the 20ish boy going to university and seems to have everything moderately together. They knew an "elf" that had a very confused, but kind person behind it.

I started shutting out everyone in my life except those I was using to figure out who I was. That, of course, eventually led me to few friends, none actually. There have been several points in my life that the only people I talked to were co-workers and roommates. All of whom had separate lives from me, work or a house being the only things in common. After coming back from atlanta I didn't want to let anyone in that close again, ever.

I only ever approached people through girlfriends. I feel like I owe all of them an apology now. The reason they felt I got so close, the reason they felt so loved was because they were getting all of it I had, I wasn't sharing with anyone else. The reason I did get close was because I had to, almost every one of them came at a point that the lack of human connection was getting unbearable so I'd let someone in a little, and suddenly I'm in a relationship. I tell myself often that I tricked these people into liking me, but that's not entirely true, every emotion that came out was real, it was just half real. I was in a constant sword fight with my girlfriends and they never knew. Some of them certainly have the wounds though...

God fucking dammit that was brutal to say.

One of the large hopes, and astonishing real side effect of transitioning was that I'd become more social. I went from having three good friends (not including my partner) to several groups of friends, it's unreal. I've met so many new people over the last few months I know I won't be able to keep up with them all. Besides the hugging, and hand-shaking, and invites to places, and recognizing smiles reminding me how warm people can be. It has generated this new feeling in me. I've always felt outer space is actually where I'm from but now I feel like maybe I could be human after all.

It's like I've been stranded on an island for a long long time and I'm just now coming back to civilization. People sort of treat me like that too, and you know something? I like it, fuck it, I do. Before I felt like people would think of me like, "See that guy over there... Don't look! Jesus! He'll kill you.". Now it's more like,  "You know, that's a woman over there who could really use some help." and they all do it so well. I don't know how the hell I got so lucky with the people I have met or re-met that every one of them seems to have a least a hint of that little bit of welcomed pity (something I would never have done before) but they wrap it up in such caring it makes me feel... warm. It makes me want to do something to give them one big collective hug.

Or a bunch of individual hugs, I could go for that too.

I've felt so attacked all my life it's like walking into a new world to have all of these people be so incredibly caring. And I believe them, that's the crazy part. Where the hell did that come from? I'm not very good at accepting help and that is a little of what I mean, but mostly I mean I actually believe their sincerity when they somehow express they care. Something I simply didn't have the peace of mind to allow to happen before. Not just peace of mind but self worth. I didn't think I was worthy of anyone's care before. Now, I don't think I'm really that much, at all, but I almost feel like I could be part of something now, and that's not bad, right? It's intimidating honestly, the caring attention, but it's quite invited I'm just left with nothing to say most times. I hope they all know how much it means to me.