Sans Seraph

Tag: burning-man

  • Up to speed

    I’ve recently returned from my tenth journey to Burning Man. Since I’ve been back I’ve been trying to think of how I’d write this article, something summarizing the changes I’ve seen in the event, the denizens, etc, but I find myself not having a lot to say, or, at least, I haven’t puzzled out quite what all of those thoughts I had in the Great Desert K-Hole meant.

    It was a hard burn. With the weather and a flurry of emotions in the beginning of the event, I found myself falling back into old habits. It is a lesson I’ve learned a few times now, but it is truly hard to disassociate who you were in certain places and certain events with who you are now, especially when those prior actions were, at best, coping mechanisms for a hollow life.

    It has become very apparent that my attitude and relationship toward the event needs to change, and I’ve decided to take at least next year off. I’ve been planning to do so for a while, but I’m going to follow through this time. Think of it less as a retirement, and more of a licking of the wounds and returning with vengeance.

    All of that being said, I had a great time with my absolutely wonderful campmates, and I greatly enjoyed showing my darling, patient girlfriend around my favorite place. I promise, beautiful, burn was better next year.

    I haven’t posted in a while, and that irks me. I really hope this gets me back into the habit of writing regularly. I need it. I think I can make something of it, if I can just maintain momentum. It is the thing I was always best at, afterall.

    This summer, nay, this past year, has been hard. It constantly astounds me how polarly opposite this summer and last were. Here is the part where I’d tell you about how my job has been kicking my ass, I seem to be incredibly emotional all of the time, I live with constant anxiety that my rights are being taken away, and I’m one dark alley away from being tossed through the gates of a modern Auschwitz.

    In fact I’d usually, at this point, start lamenting how my depression has returned after being basically eliminated by HRT. I’d talk about how every day I read the news and cry out into the void as only one who truly doesn’t understand what to do in the face of such reckless hate and idiocy can.

    I won’t. I won’t do it. I spent this morning crying and I won’t do so again. Not today. Not for that reason at least. I just cry all of the time now, so it’s bound to happen later. So let’s talk about what’s going right, and we might as well start with that.

    I cry all of the time! I have emotions! How wonderful (and no, that isn’t sarcasm!) Now that I’ve used up my lifetime allotment of exclamation points, let me just say, that being able to feel this deeply is one of the highlights of the past year. Sure, it makes the bad stuff really bad, but the good, dear reader, the soaring in my soul when I play with my dog, or eat something delicious, or feel hope, the good things I feel almost make up for the pall that has fallen over the world.

    On top of emotions, I look great. Modesty be damned, and I know that I have a long way to go, but I don’t hate looking at myself in the mirror every day now. Things are starting to match. Just earlier I noticed my silhouette, something that has always bothered me, and I didn’t have an instant aversion to it. I had a lot of dysphoria at Burning Man, but it was apparently unwarranted. I loved the pictures. I’m starting to feel confident in my body, and why anyone wants to take that away, I’ll never know.

    I took Jenny to her first pride, and she took me to see her camping spot, and, just, Jenny. She is so good to me, and so patient, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so understood by someone. How I have not annoyed her to death at this point, I’m not sure.

    I went to the ren faire with my friends for my birthday, and we had a great time. In fact, I have wonderful friends. I am really hard on myself, but these people let me hang around despite the despair and self-loathing.

    I’ve been writing. I think I’m actually starting to get back into the swing of it. Currently I’ve got two stories I’m sort of hashing out, as I’d like to start diving into fiction again. I think at this point it’s safe to assume I’ll always be far too anxious to make it as a reporter, and that’s okay.

    Things aren’t always going to go well. In fact, I’ve spent increasingly more amount time assuming that nothing will be good ever again. I’m still not sure I’m incorrect on that. There are dark clouds on the horizon. The overwhelming sense of agitation I feel on a daily basis just existing in this most broken of timelines is immense. I’m not going to think about that for the rest of today. I can’t. To do so pushes me farther into the realms of burn out, and I’m already circling the rim. There may be a time where my will finally breaks, but not for the rest of today.

    Fuck it all, and stay safe.

  • Things have changed

    The first time I ever did hallucinogens was at San Francisco Pride in 2009. I consumed what I at the time didn’t know was a rather large dose of mushrooms. Within an hour I began to lose myself as the roar of the crowds and general chaos and over-stimulation consumed me. I remember saying to my friends that “things have changed” as what was already an incredibly over active mind and socially awkward person began to unravel.

    Then something beautiful happened. I let go.

    It wasn’t a conscious decision, but as the psylocibin coursed through my synapses, I let go. I had crossed the abyss of what has been termed “ego death,” and while the drug fueled search for self of my twenties is the topic of another post, the important part to focus on here is that when I let go, things got better.

    One major lesson I’ve kept learning in my life is that attachment is the root of suffering. Yes, that’s very Buddhist of me, but it stands. Even in the past year, as I keep navigating the choppy waters of transition, I keep realizing that holding onto the past is really not doing me any favors.

    Last night I attempted to do something that the old me loved. I got all dressed up, grabbed my beautiful girlfriend, and we drug ourselves out to a bar to go see some local punk bands, and support a charity for trans youth. Yet about fifteen minutes into being there, I was ready to leave. Between knowing I couldn’t have more than one drink, since I had work the next day, and just generally not being a fan of crowds after spending a decade in the event industry, I realized that a lot of the things I was looking forward to doing from the past as the old me aren’t really part of the new me.

    I’ve done this four times now in the past year. It is the very definition of insanity.

    Things have changed. I have changed, to which you say “of course you have.” Which makes sense. My body is changing, my mind certainly has, but what is astounding is just how much all of those hormone driven changes really do change who I am. I’m still me, in that I’m still him, in a lot of ways, but more and more I realize that a lot of him was just bits of personalities strung together to cope with the depression, and dysphoria, and anxiety.

    I’ve said a lot in the past year that I finally feel like a real person, and that before transition I was basically just waiting around to die. A person doing that isn’t really a person, they’re a shell. Even though I never had a real strong sense of “being a woman in a man’s body” I certainly wasn’t okay with being a man. I was so against it, in fact, that I operated like some cheap children’s restaurant automaton. Faded from age and neglect, the face smiles and the song plays while there is an audience and the lights are on, but then when the doors are locked for the day the false life fades and the body slumps. That’s what it felt like for me.

    I took my old ID and put it into the temple at Burning Man last year. It wasn’t something I had planned to do, but it felt right. I felt like I had to honor the pain and suffering he went through, but also draw a line in the dust saying that “this is where he ends and I begin.” It was one of the most defining personal moments of my transition so far. Yet last night I found myself still trying to pretend that I’m the same person that I let go in that conflagration.

    So from now on, I’m going to push myself to try new things. To accept that I need to figure myself out all over. I’m older now, I have a day job. I don’t drink as much. I prefer a small gathering of friends over being squeezed into a room with loud music and strangers. That’s okay. I can be a different person, because, in a lot of ways, I am.

    Give yourself a little bit of grace, girl.