FRAMEWORK: NEW YEAR

I bookend my year in synthetic hormones: where January was flush with the rush of testosterone coursing through me, December jolted itself into 18 days of non-stop bleeding followed by an estrogen-progesterone combination.

Divine justice or simple cause-consequence, regardless, a tumult, a direct changing of the body before me, before I have time to catch up, before I understand what it means. Four months of an undiagnosed digestive system issue I am smaller than I’ve been in many years, down by 15% of my overall size, once again chasing my image to match myself to it. Or perhaps: fit myself inside it.

I remember many years ago, more than a decade now, I used to write long emails to people I knew (not necessarily loved, just knew) on the first day of the year. I opened one or two of them last month and recoiled in embarrassment. Then went back in to touch the text, the intensity of it, the clarity of it. In one of the emails I had written to the recipient that while I appreciated the work that went into putting it together, I didn’t like the vibe of his house. He never replied. I never cared.

For three years after I sent that email I spent the first day of every year with him. I don’t remember most facts of our time together but I do remember the feelings. Once again, they nauseate me with embarrassment. Once again, once the wave passes, I go back to it, ready to absorb the loudness of the feeling, not what it’s saying but how it’s saying it, with my mouth in my heart half the time my teeth chattering.

As I write now my one cat, Mara, has put her head into the bucket in which we’ve kept a birthday bouquet of orchids that still need to be vased. My other cat, Moon, is sleeping contently on her latest cat tree, the fourth and the largest of her five years of life. My dog is in his bed, sleeping with two small teeth poking out the side of his mouth. My beloved is sleeping too, their arms and legs at strange angles, their cheeks so round they press against the sheet they’ve tented over themself. I learn love from my perfect household of copious rest and uncontrollable chaos.

This year I also learn love in the form of knitting and sewing, of building a new voice from testosterone and retraining it with singing lessons, of starting martial arts training, of attempting to write a book that is never meant to end, of cooking the best food I’ve ever made and then suddenly having to shift to cooking Assorted White Goops that I can somehow coax through my system, a talent in itself, dealing with loss gently and deftly, dealing with it as if temporary.

I learn also love in the form of catching up on work for myself and my friends, of successfully listening to audiobooks for the first time in my life, of dancing wildly after years of being stiff with pain, of going on 6 months of near-daily walks by the lake, of throwing kickass parties, of singing Britney Spears’ Womanizer at every single karaoke, of doing infinite laundry, of getting a hot pink flip phone and mostly-quitting social media, of months of clear-headed sobriety, of doing whatever I want whenever I want, whatever I can whenever I can, doling out energy to myself hour by hour, pushing against the walls of my disabilities to make some room, just enough, just enough to feel feverish with love.

Back in the day I used to write poems to mark the passing of time. My favourite new year poem is one I wrote in April. I loved that time so much I even remember the facts, not just the feelings, I remember everything about it other than the words. The words of it are just a paperweight they just hold the moment down for me. In my now-life, my new-life, I am always holding onto the heart of that poem, I am always remembering how it felt to write it, to live it, the first day of the first year of my second life.

It is possible that I am now entering my third life. This time the change is not abrupt but slow, it trickles in, it’s thick and creamy, it’s hot and heavy. I haven’t yet written found the words that will give me a point to give to this new life. I did knit a sweater in five days this month though — perhaps that is — the way of the new life — not the flimsiness of words but the sturdiness of fiber — but the learning of love as myself in this new body — but the learning of life as myself in this new life —

birthday orchids in forever buckets

my beloved snoozing beside me

before-afters and after-befores

the best the best the best
I could have ever done

with all my love