CW: body stuff, trauma, death

I bent over the sink to wash my hands. I was dressed in workout gear I had mostly purchased during the pandemic, for use mostly at home, with no one watching. The rest of my gear was drip-drying at home. My leggings with copper sparkles, a jogging bra of dark purple, with a thin, almost halter style orange tank I bought on discount. Move like everyone is watching, and like you don’t give a fuck. I looked up at the mirror, my shoulders looking more masculine and broad than I’m used to seeing. It’s not surprising, though. I’ve always been built like this. When I start doing strength stuff, I start building muscle rather quickly, and it doesn’t take long for it to change me, or at least how I see myself.

I thought about this being gender affirming - which is funny to me because fundamentally, I don’t believe in gender. Or, I don’t believe it matters. Or, I think for me to think of things as feminine or masculine is based on other people’s presumed gaze, not my own. The other day, I noticed my quads gaining definition again. Today it was my shoulders. This body that delighted in wrestling the boys in my grief support group until we hit middle school and they suddenly became much stronger than me. This body that found revelry and release in weekly devotion in the Chicago goth scene, being fully myself, and unlike the gay clubs I went to before, not being creeped on by some weird dude. This body that loves EDM, that went to a slightly ecstatic place this morning thanks to a soundtrack and too many squats to count.

Like many trauma survivors, dissociation is second nature to me. It’s not just how over the past few months I’ve found myself lost out of time, out of this present moment, but how I can become so disconnected from my body that only extremes can bring me back to it. When the body is the home of the trauma, when all the senses remember, who wants to be home? 

Being asked to be present and breathe during my first few yoga classes after Jon passed brought more tears and wracking sobs than I even expected. Having watched the panic, the air hunger, the only option to relieve being higher doses of opiates so the body would forget that breathing was required. Breathe in, honor your breath, and in my mind all I could see was the panic in his eyes when the oxygen cannula wasn’t enough. He chose his mind be present to the point where he started to lose it due to oxygen deprivation. That was the wager, you see. Risk the panic and be aware, lose the panic, slip into sleep. Away.

I didn’t get to do this kind of movement I’ve been doing over the past few months for so long, due to trying to shield Jon from any illness I might pick up. It was hard for me. My chronic pain got worse, I felt more and more alienated from my body, my community, my sense of pleasure. Covid consciousness never stopped for us. I’m realizing it came at a cost to me, though, and lately I’m trying to use movement as an anchor to the present, and to this ridiculous meatsack. Three days a week strength and cardio, one day per week of quiet, Yin yoga. All in community. 

This is for me. The workout I do is in a fishbowl, clear view to the passers-by. But I’m defiant to that inner-critic, alive for now, for as long as I’m lucky to be. What else is there to do?

The Two of Wands reversed has come up a few times regarding my present situation. I loved a reading of that card that I found the other day that basically said, in sum, “Stop looking at these frickin’ cards for your future, the future is yet to be determined, be in the frickin’ now!” I so much want to escape the present for beautiful pieces of past or imagined beautiful futures. Missing the now, and the beauty in there… but also the pain. So much pain. It still hurts. Still so much to do. We leave behind so much for others to manage. We leave behind so much to remember. 

It’s hard to hold it all.