it's my birthday
i can have an existential crisis if i want to
hey y’all,
okay i’m ready to talk about my 31st birthday now. but first! my incredibly supportive, endlessly patient, unbelievably thoughtful life partner threw me a birthday party at home full of charcuterie and bespoke cocktails.
my husband, who does not drink, made me the most perfect autumn pear margarita that they mixed and tasted themselves. tequila blanco, mezcal, and a rich bourbon are my spirits of choice. in a cocktail, i’m looking for the spirit to be celebrated, not hidden, and for fresh, bright ingredients. i’m not looking for a ton of sugar, or for any one note to dominate the other.
my husband is a barista, coffee roaster, and musician by trade, so even though they don’t drink, their pallet is trustworthy. this cocktail is maybe my favorite thing i’ve had to drink all year.
they spent 3 weeks crafted all the decorations, making the invitations, and getting all the ingredients. they coordinated with our friends without me knowing, so that i could just enjoy the day. they encouraged me when i said i wanted to make my own cake, and helped me finish decorating it. they calmed me down when i had a meltdown about cracking one of the layers on the cooling rack. they sent me off to the pottery studio, and when i returned they had decorated our whole house.
when i was little, i dreamed of a love like this, but it was mostly a fairytale. completely perfect and utterly unattainable. the reality for me is that love like this is hard-fought, not with my partner but with myself. to be able to accept this kind of love required a metric fuck-ton of internal work on my limiting beliefs and self-worth. it still does.
sometimes i still don’t believe them when they say they’d hang the stars for me, but they do it anyway. they assure me that loving me is easy, despite so many others having told me otherwise over the years. i have avoided speaking too specifically about my marriage for fear of jinxing us, or inviting in criticism. but, it is the single greatest thing in my life and the thing of which i am the most certain.
it is an extremely frustrating paradox that this great love that i’ve found makes me terrified to live. i feel like a vulnerable and wounded wild animal, who will do anything to survive and protect. i had no sense of self-preservation prior to loving otto. my life was not worth very much to me. the life expectancy of trans people is only around 30 anyway, so risks were of no concern to me.
this made me a better creative, a better activist, a better friend, and a better worker. it gave me a clarity to my decision-making, because i did not have to calculate my own safety into my risk assessment. i would have happily died on the front line of the cause, if it meant securing freedom for even one other person. i couldn’t have cared less about preserving my reputation, because i was absolutely certain i was doing the right thing and my legacy would speak for itself after i was gone.
being so deeply and wholly in love has made me afraid of death. this is terribly inconvenient during the fall of the empire, where every effort of resistance is crucial. it makes me cowardly in the face of oppression. it makes me susceptible to the 24/7 terror cycle. it makes me fear my own voice. it makes me want to act against my values and hoard resources to keep my own burrow safe.
i never planned my life past 30, so in many ways i am learning how to live for the very first time. when i thought of my future, 31 was a black void. i thought i would have done everything i set out to do, and would have paid for it by now. the whole world stretches out in front of me, with endless possibility and endless obstacles.
i have to decide, now, what i want the rest of my life to look like. i have to determine who i am, and what matters, and how to spend my time. i have to recalibrate my risk meter to make rational choices. i never predicted i’d be reckoning with the fear of losing my life. in my fairytale version of love, the fear of loss did not occur to me. i thought that when otto and i found each other, i would never fear loss.
we pledged forever to each other one year ago, and that was that. i never once concerned myself with the possibility of divorce. after surviving heartbreaks from past partners and family members that i thought i’d never recover from, i know what real love is now. it is the choice we make every day, to welcome every part of each other without judgement. to listen, to learn, to understand, to make changes. to be gentle in all things.
the widespread attempt to remove us from public life has excavated a new fear that i’ve never known which is that i could lose otto or they could lose me, against our wills. the state will sever us from each other, if given the chance. it makes me furious and dangerous. it makes me suspicious and cruel. i begin to question - what kind of person would look at our love and feel anything but reverence? it is so sacred and pure. how could anyone look at us and see depravity? violence? threat?
it makes me angry at my peers, too, who remind me every day that the worst sin we could have ever committed was to be men who love men. every day, our transness and our marriage is diminutized by our “community” because it has a masculine shape. we aren’t racialized enough to claim racism, we aren’t feminine enough to claim homophobia, we aren’t androgynous enough to claim transphobia. we have no allies, so who will protect us if not me?
every single day, i am fighting this animal instinct. i have to intentionally soften myself, give people the benefit of the doubt, extend grace and understanding even in the face of blatant disrespect and hostility. it takes an enormous amount of emotional and psychological energy to be actively defensive against a hostile government and unwelcoming allies at the same time. who can we trust to care for and defend us? who sees our humanity in all its complexity?
i share this because i write endlessly about empathy and compassion for all beings, even those same beings who would like to see me dead or worse. i truly believe that compassion is the pathway to freedom. we have more in common with each other than we have difference. we are all deserving of a life with dignity and safety, and it can only be achieved by loving each other fiercely.
i want you to extend your hand toward those who are lost and confused. i want you to help me and others build the bridge of solidarity across commonality and shared humanity. in doing so, don’t forget to love those who are already suffering. i never want to be a victim of my own life, which is why i often reject help. i try to take responsibility of everything that i possibly can, so that i am the only one to blame. but the reality is that i cannot single-handedly prove that i deserve to live.
my humanity should be enough, but it simply isn’t. i am doing life calculus that many others will never have to consider, despite the immense amount of privilege i have. i have a responsibility to liberate those with less power and privilege than me. i must also accept that truth about those with more power and privilege than me and expect the same dedication from them.
being who i am and seeking happiness, calm, stability, and security in this country is an act of audacity that will be punished by the ruling class unless you make that unacceptable. i hope that you will.
xoxo,
kuya von
i showed you my gooey center, please respond 👉👈
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“don't you remember how we used to split a drink? it never mattered what it was. i think our hands were just that close. the sweetness never lasts, you know.”
jet pack blues, fall out boy
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