Hello, From Across the Vision: My 3rd Year on Hormones
Outside, I see the twinkling lamp-light cut through the growing darkness across campus. I hear the gentle voices and laughter of other students' conversation, carrying them to the buttery-warmth of the dining hall across the street. Yet, I remain trapped in the solitude of my own room, blocked off from the outside with a thin inch of cold taunting glass.
I'm drowning in my sheets. My mattress exerts its own gravitational force, pulling my center down and down into its cheap college dorm-stained foam. But, the weight pulls on me long after I get up. It bears down on me at a lecture when the professor squints across rows and rows of seats and calls for the gentleman that he thinks is me. It compounds when my teammate wonders out loud if I'm wearing lipstick on the field and shakes his head in amusement while I can only sheepishly nod. It crushes me when I've endured the fifth tearful phone call with my parents that week as they beg me to shove myself back in the closet that I'd so desperately clawed out of merely months ago.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. My unironically-ironic string lights shine above and I stare fixated, desperate not to think of anything else. I close my eyes and think for the thousandth time what it'd be like to fade into nothingness. I'd imagine it's much like falling asleep - gently sinking and sinking, letting the weight drag you down until, like the day you were born, you become nothing: the same way a wave rejoins the ocean on a warm summer day.
Then, like sunlight breaking apart a blanket of clouds, a vision washes over me. I see a woman who struts with airy confidence. Her long legs climb the stone steps without hesitation. A light breezy smile washes across her face. She wears a pair of long baggy dress pants and a tight form-fitting top - an outfit chosen with a seeming effortlessness that clashed strongly with the gaudy middle-school-like fashion experimentations that I painstakingly selected and wore day after day. But most important of all, I finally realized with a jolt, is that this woman was me - a version of myself years in the future and after a hundred more stories.
I come back to my cluttered dorm room. I suddenly realize that I've been holding my breath. For the first time in a long while, I smile.
Hello, from across the vision.
Three years. Three years since I laid in that bed, depressed and hurting, split apart by the trauma of the past and anxiety of the future. Three years since that blisteringly cold February afternoon when I first put those sweet oval tablets under my tongue. Three years since I embarked on a venture that has changed my life for the better.
Babe, we’ve done it. Really. We made the impossible possible. We’re surrounded by people who love us for who we are. We lead a life where labels exist but do not inhibit us.
It gets better.
I know how dark it’s been. Those long freezing Chicago winters… those moments of silence and solitude where all you wanna do is scream and scream but you don’t wanna be a dick so you keep it all inside you, bottled up and shaken up like a soda can, the pressure building up inside.
I wish I knew how to fill you in on the wonderful adventures we get to go on - to choose the perfect combination of words to get you to realize how beautiful transition is and what a gift living can be. But, I know you need time to process it all, so I wouldn’t say that to you. You’d think that I’m being cheesy, that I’m a walking cliche - that if the world was so fucking peachy then why do you feel like shit all the time?
.
.
.
There’s a scene in Jo Jo Rabbit - you know, the World War II satire that you’d initially scoffed at and labeled as ‘problematic’? Well, it eventually becomes one of your favorite movies of all time. In 2021, while escaping the pandemic to the mountains of South Carolina (oh yeah, the world ends and an illness ravages the Earth and, worst of all, you escape to SOUTH CAROLINA for vacation), you watch one of the most beautiful exchanges on screen unfold between Scarlett Johansen and Thomasin McKenzie.
Elsa Korr: I don't know anything about being a woman. Is that what it is? You do things like drink wine?
Rosie: Sure. You drink. Champagne, if you're happy. Champagne, if you're sad. You drive a car. Gamble if you want. Own diamonds. Learn how to fire a gun. You travel to Morocco. Take up lovers. Make them suffer. You look a tiger in the eye. And trust without fear. That's what it is to be a woman.
You stay out way too late. Dance whenever you fucking feel like it. Feel the sand between your toes at midnight. Be fast asleep still at three in the afternoon.
You get messy. Cry, when you're sad. Cry, when you're happy. Cry because, honestly, what’s the point and everything will be awful until you wake up the next morning.
You grow strong. Carry heavy boxes up and down the stairs. Stare men defiantly in the eyes when they offer to help. Carry even more heavy boxes up and down those goddamn stairs.
You become someone’s girlfriend by the glittering lights of the Chicago skyline. Sprint across the streets of Logan Square, holding hands and giggling past the hordes of grumbling adults. Kiss each other greedily and hungrily, surrounded by the dry husks of the corn maze, hidden away from everyone else. Bask in her warmth on those freezing October nights. Cuddle together while getting through all the Marvel movies. Feel your heart crumple up inside your chest when she tells you that it’s the end.
You stay too late at parties. Flirt with boys. Trash-talk them the morning after.
You people-watch with your best friend, laying on your tummies on that fluffy comforter. Travel together. Brunch occasionally. Gossip often. Cry into her shoulders and feel her kind words mend your soul. Listen to her dish on the latest with her boyfriend - all the good and the bad and the beautiful.
You pick flowers because you earnestly think they’re beautiful. Sob unabashedly at the movies because the lead reminds you of your granddad. Listen to albums stoned because they sound better that way.
You wear a dress because it makes you feel sexy and feminine. You wear plaid shirts because they make you feel strong and masculine. You wear overalls because fuck the binary and because you just like how comfortable they are.
You go on first dates. Last dates. Drink too many and burp too loudly. Spend too much and curse too freely.
You stress-eat popcorn on the way to work. Crush on someone who you literally just met. Learn how to knit. Dive into Lake Michigan. Giggle with your friends.
Your dad calls you his daughter for the first time. Holds your hand. Lets you lean on his sturdy shoulder during family movie nights.
You get into snowball fights. Freeze down to your fingertips. Pelt your enemies with balls of ice.
And you love. You love with all you got. You love because it’s the best thing people do. You love because you remember being alone and so you wanna protect everyone you care about. You love and you love… and you never stop loving.
