Snail’s pace (part 2)

Dear Daring Reader,

Are you hanging in there? How do you feel about this new version of “normal”? Whatever that is…

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-fc3ejAlvd/

Sonya Renee Taylor is so spot-on!

This is a continuation of the last post on my journey to modify my life to adjust to having little to no energy. And this entire blog is on the journey from shame to radical self-love and it includes all the adjustments, reframing and unlearning required by this quest. Essentially, all of this involves a word that feels heavy with subtext: quitting. Quitting the pills meant to feminize me. The wig. The desire to please. Matching what people expected. Hiding.

Quitting is another word I am using here, like loneliness, to reclaim it as mine and as neutral, or even positive. Not facing that it can be a catalyst for change means that the direction we are going in never requires pivoting and/or a reframing of the struggle. And it often does.

Sometimes you head in a direction at full speed, just to end up in a corner crying, or on a one-way street you don’t recognize, or in a cul-de-sac. Being good-looking and with a full head of hair was not something I wanted to excel at anymore, so I had to look for a new horizon. It’s a dramatic nature hike, and one that takes me to the wildest places.

The less we rely on mainstream culture for guidance, the more we need to know where we want to go. As a bisexual and non-binary baby queer*, who is now visibly different, bald and gender non-conforming, I realize every single day that growing up closeted has prevented me from learning about my identity behind the mask. Your true nature shines through once you peel it off, but it takes time to make sense of the missing information.

Preferences, places, people and looks that were out of sight don’t just jump into your life after coming out to a few fellow humans. You need to look for the pieces of things you weren’t allowed to explore when growing up.

While it feels empowering and freeing to step off the beaten path (terrifying sometimes), it also tells me I have lost my compass and map. Following directions from people who wanted me molded into something they could see as beautiful was something I needed to quit to come into the person I always was beneath the surface. Hence, a new “GPS system” is in the making with the help and guidance of queer people like Sonya Renee Taylor and many others, to know what my paths and destinations are. With the radical and fluid system I can follow comes the need to always question the status quo, no matter what. It has betrayed me in so many ways, enough times for me to know it is not working for many, and that it is built to work only for a few.

New journey, new life, right? Yes, well, life usually includes detours and rocky parts, and now my problem is setting expectations that match my goals and values at my current pace: snail’s pace. I have spent so much time thinking about all the things I wanted to do after the end of the lockdowns! All of those expectations stumbled into a new, and sometimes unsettling, reality. (Gentle reminder: the pandemic is not over.)

I know I am not the only one in this particular predicament, many are struggling to meet pre-pandemic levels of expectations that are now unrealistic and damaging, even assuming that we have learnt a lot during this pandemic.

Once again, I am quitting the path I thought I was going to stay on. I am modifying the hell out of life to simplify what I can do, and eliminate or limit what I can’t do with ease anymore. Before the pandemic I decided to work less for health reasons, yes, but also to write more. Well, that’s not my life anymore. Painfully crawling through the week is! 🙂

I quit the notion that working full-time is an unquestionably moral and fitting life choice for everyone or even most people. I quit the pursuit of mastery that comes at the expense of my mental health and self-esteem. I quit the idea that I need to explain every deviation from the designated path to everyone who asks. I quit the idea that blending in could reliably protect me without negative consequences (e.g. the constant necessity to hide). I quit, once again, the rush of shame that might come with not conforming to societal expectations and rules.

After the quitting, a tight embrace comes. Reading “Unmasking Autism: The Power of Embracing Our Hidden Neurodiversity” by Devon Price helped me tremendously with the re-calibrating of my internal value system. It contains the stories of people who had to completely rethink the way they lived to match their way of processing information, socializing, and their sensory sensitivities.

I am trying to do the same. What I am learning about myself needs to have some serious practical applications for me to stay afloat!

What could you simplify or modify to match your speed?