#60 | bank head
The rest of summer slipped through my fingers, a whirlwind of travel, friends coming to town, and more late nights on the dance floor. In late August, I spontaneously booked a solo trip to Copenhagen and spent a whole week wandering museums and shops, biking, and journaling while eating buttered bread and sipping on glasses of wine. The singular black muji pen I packed ran dry from recording every observation and reflection, especially with nobody else to talk to but my notebook. Every night I would return to the hotel at 10 pm, shower, and then watch tv until I fell asleep.
In September, I went to St. Louis to spend a weekend with an old friend. I hadn't seen them in a few years—we're both not great at texting or calling, and are from different hometowns—but I still considered them a close friend. In high school, we frequently stayed up all night doing homework and then slept together in their twin-sized bed. They were one of the first people I called after my breakup happened, but I underestimated the feeling of being reunited in-person; I was overwhelmed with the peace and affirmation I felt in their physical presence. They and their girlfriend, both therapists, live such a beautiful queer life in a townhouse brimming with sunlight and sheer curtains and three cats. They fed me pasta, soup, lassi, chai. Each night the three of us rolled joints, cuddled, ate fruit, and chatted until we couldn't keep our eyes open.
The last day of the trip, we had some delicious tofu katsu and then took shrooms at the museum, but the shrooms were incredibly old, so all we experienced was three minutes of funny sensations staring at an ugly Matisse painting. The two of them dropped me off at the train station and I asked if they were in a closed relationship. They said yes, but that they were potentially opening to sexual partners. I coyly said to let me know if I can ever join their polycule, and that the night before I wondered if we would all kiss or not. The two of them immediately smiled and said they felt the same way, so I would just have to come back another time.
That weekend was an inflection point in my healing. I had successfully experienced, identified, and expressed desire. I felt truly confident and sexy and joyful, and it turns out when I feel that way, other people feel that way about me too. My year of making myself busy, even if just to avoid anxious thoughts, was paying off in ways I had not imagined. Upon returning to new york, I felt so renewed and marked this new phase of my life by spontaneously going to a lesbian bar alone. Someone hit on me almost immediately, and we kissed until close.
I was then determined to take action on a crush that had been brewing in my heart for a couple months. I texted them to hang out and we got tofu pudding lattes and 油条 in flushing. Two days later, I was thrifting for a halloween costume and coincidentally saw them looking at a rack of neckties. I walked over, spun it around a few times, and said, Oh sorry, were you looking at those? They laughed and we wound up spending the whole afternoon sitting in the park with some other friends of ours. The next day, we took a dance class together and then got a late dinner, where they challenged me to speak in mandarin the whole meal, and I agreed in exchange for them paying the bill. They're a teacher and native speaker and made it feel so simple and fun.
We walked toward the train and I stopped and asked if we could talk, then made a beeline for a park bench beneath a streetlamp. I told them the truth: that I wasn't ready for a relationship but felt attracted to them and was interested in something casual. I knew they preferred no strings attached, but I felt too strongly to suppress the feeling and the words just came out of my mouth. They were flattered and surprised and asked for a week to think about it before hugging me good night. In the days after, we continued to text and flirt, and I rode the high of my confession.
Then, I suddenly received word that my ex was dating her best friend's ex—the man I had been so insecure and afraid of, the source of so much gender dysphoria, anxiety, and jealousy. The situation I had been terrified about had gone from paranoid hypothetical to reality.
When I found out, the only thing I could do was scoff. Now, of all times, when I was feeling so wonderful? How was everything that had happened in the last year actually real, and how does it continue to unfold in such a bizarre and challenging fashion? But to my surprise, although I did feel wistful about the idea of him sleeping next to our cats in the apartment she and I previously shared, there was no envy or jealousy. I did not wish to be in his place. I realize that she was quite unkind to me in the months before we broke up. She would lash out at me, flake on me, and blame me for things that weren't my fault, without a single apology. Grief transformed her world into bare necessities and comfort, which did not include a relationship like ours that was previously so expansive, intimate, and vulnerable. So I suppose she simply found someone with more straightforward commonalities, who could shut off when she needed to. I knew I could never be him, in the same way he could never be me.
None of this is to say that I didn't care or was unfazed. The day I found out, I booked an extra therapy session and ran three miles in prospect park, autumn leaves crunching beneath every step. I took time to again mourn the innocent people we used to be, the deep care we once shared. Tears streamed down my face as I thought about her during my friend's ambient music show. I'm so sick of this pain, yet it refuses to end because of how callously she disappeared, so I confusingly, resentfully carry it with me, and try to not let it stand in the way of joy.
Later in the week, I met with that crush of mine in madison square park and we sipped on hot milk tea and watched people pass by. They said we could try, so I laced my fingers through theirs and kissed them. We ate dinner and went home together. Nobody has properly held me in so long; my hands trembled and desperately ran over their skin. It was beautiful, but intense and fearfully intimate, so they said we shouldn't do it again. I was sad but understood the value of control, to get to know them slowly instead, to keep my infatuation in check until I know I want and can truly handle commitment. I am prone to losing myself in another, but have been rebuilding myself bit by bit—this new person who is intentional and generous and patient with her mind, who kisses people in bars and parks, who takes rejection in stride, who doesn't require complete certainty to live well. I like her, and she's ready for whatever lies in wait.