Starting to Heal

Tenderness is a radical act in a world that idolizes aggression. It takes more courage to love than to hate. Forgiveness is the ultimate act of bravery, and self-forgiveness often its most difficult manifestation.

Lately I've been starting to remember my own worth, and it hasn't been easy. Processing grief and loss and coming to peace with the way my identities and needs don't always fit the mainstream has been a journey. More difficult still has been coming to terms with the fact trauma has had permanent impacts on me without judging those impacts or resisting them because of their origins.

Healing can be a painfully slow process at times, and it's never linear. Humans are messy creatures, and never more so than when processing trauma. I'm learning to take my time.

So here's to the journey, and to growth. Here's to relearning how to be alive, to be human, to be the imperfect, messy, worthy people we are. Here's to love, and joy, and tenderness. Here's to honoring softness, and separating masculinity from aggression and ego.

I've wanted to be a quiet force of nature. I too often forget I already am.

Queer, Tender, Messy, Human, and Alive

Homes of the Heart

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of home. Is home where I rest my head? The space in my heart my cat fills? Him snuggled up next to me?

Is where my fiance rests home for me? Waking up with him next to me? Is home my apartment, with its many rooms and meditative space? Is home his house, where so many happy memories dwell? Or is home his cat, who we picked out together shortly after we started dating?

Is home the lake by my apartment I sometimes watch the sun rise over? Is it the nearby tree, scarred by lightning, that has greeted me every walk through the park since moving across the country? Is home my parent's house, where I spent most of my formative years?

Maybe home is found in all of them.

For the first time, though, I'm ready to give one of those homes up.

The first night I fell asleep next to my fiance after beginning to move my things into his spare room, I woke up in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes full of wonder at the fact I could wake up in the same house as him from now on, and snuggled closer, falling back asleep with a smile on my face.

Then a second night passed. A third.

I keep waking up smiling.

I brought my cat over. He's been purring on his heated mat when not curled up in my arms. My fiance's cat, skittish and shy, is still adjusting, but seems cautiously happy about the changes.

There is so much that is new about this. Sharing space is not a thing I am accustomed to, but I feel so lucky every day I wake up near this amazing man. So lucky to have so many of my homes colliding and combining. So lucky to be alive in a world with cats and the family I've built. So lucky to be here, in this moment, alive.