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Almost leaned back into old eating disorder behavior today.

I was counting calories, then I realized, I am far too obsessive and neurotic to ever be able to do this normally. It's never going to happen. I cannot do this it will ruin my life.

So I deleted all the notes I was keeping and stepped back.

I like to think this is growth.

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I'm halfway through Jennette McCurdy's "I'm Glad My Mom Died" and...jesus.

I've been putting off reading this for a while, because I was afraid of how much it might reasonate with me.

But today, because of some events, I decided it was finally time.

Our relationships with our Mothers are so similar. Mine was far more distant and uninvolved, but so many of the sentiments remain. The emotional incest, the lack of boundaries, forcing her eating disorder onto her daughter, the hoarding, the rage, the emotional instability. Jennette and I even share a mental illness as well as her specific type of guilt, resentment, and anger.

Whenever I try to explain my relationship with my Mother to other people, I end up wordless. How do I explain the years of awfulness? *Am* I overreacting? I'm betraying her by speaking ill of her, I need to stop talking. Those are my thoughts.

I write off my Mom's behavior a lot, and I tell people her behavior has gotten a lot better. But I'm not sure this is true. I think I've just become a pro at handling her. Like some sort of zoologist. Walking into the tiger den every day.

I don't know how to deal with any of this honestly. I have a hard time admitting all this stuff even as it destroys my life. But maybe this book is the first step.

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My secret little dream these days is to buy a house on the outskirts of my hometown with my boyfriend. No one would bother us there, but we could go into town whenever we wanted to hangout with friends or go to music shows.

We'd have a lovely vegetable garden and lots of native plants and grasses around the house. A greenhouse, a coy pond with a little waterfall.

We'd have chickens, and dogs and no cats because he's allergic but maybe we could befriend some neighbors barn cats to satiate our love for cats.

We'd make dinner together and watch the sunset often on our little porch. The sunsets are the best in my hometown.

I'd reconnect with old beloved friends and meet new people. We'd become part of the small town queers and always volunteer for queer events.

Our home would be a safe haven for queer youth, whoever needed a bed, a roof over their head, hot meals, and gay Dads to give them advice and teach them how to be adults would have all of that and more if they wanted it.

We'd have dinner parties regularly, and always host friendsgiving as well as gay Christmas dinner.

We'd have such community, and enough routine and stability that our mental illneses would only eat us a little bit sometimes.

We'd argue like an old married couple, and play bored games, and never stop laughing because we are both the funniest people on the planet.

We'd live long, and well, and fully. Taking all the bends and changes of life gracefully. Together, in our little cottage.

Maybe we'd get goats but I am convinced every goat I have ever met has hated me, despite my general Disney princess effect on animals. Maybe they think I'm too full of myself. Someday we will be friends goats.

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A silly conversation between me and my boyfriend.

Being severely socially rejected all your life for being a "weirdo" (neurodiverse) leaves pretty deep cuts, but little by little I am healing them with the help of people I love <3

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When you've been dating for 4 months but you've also been friends for 2 years and so you're already thinking about marrying your boyfriend but you don't want to seem pushy or too fast or too intense or impulsive so you tell yourself you'll wait a few years to bring it up

but then he brings up your future wedding all casually

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OHHHHHHH MY GOD I AM GOING TO MARRY THIS DORK 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

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Sometimes I think about how if my younger self would have met my boyfriend they would have been obsessed with him.

Naturally black hair WITH BLUE EYES? EYELINER? BLACK NAIL POLISH? EARRINGS? FANGED TEETH???? AN ARM TATTOO????? GLASSES????? A BARISTA? HE ACTUALLY ENJOYS MY YAPPING???????? HE LIKES ALL THE SAME THINGS AS I DO???????????? HE LISTENS TO ALL THE PLAYLISTS I MAKE HIM AND THEN MAKES ME LOVELY PLAYLISTS IN RETURN?

Listen, I'm in love with him now, but I think his presence would have knocked my younger self the fuck OUT.

Good for me.

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My boyfriend said that I'm his dogs step parent today

This is more serious than a marriage proposal actually

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My boyfriend took that Myers Briggs test after I showed him my result, it turns out he's extroverted. Tragic.

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My boyfriend lost his debit card a few weeks ago and after he got a replacement he found the "lost" one in his wallet.

I love this man.

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Ugh I am so obsessed with him

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Something is really nice about dating someone who has also always been the "parent" friend.

My boyfriend has always been the Dad friend and I was always the Mom friend, and in the least heteronormative way possible, those aspects of our personalities make our relationship work so well.

We both have the instinct to take care of other people and ignore our own care, so in our relationship we are always taking care of each other and teaching each other how to take care of ourselves, which is AMAZING.

We also both understand what it's like to be a caretaker without receiving care and what that does to your brain. There's just so much shared empathy and mutual respect.

I never thought I'd have a relationship this good, and I feel so so incredibly lucky.

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So, something I've been doing as a neurodivergent trans person in their first relationship who has never witnessed a healthy relationship irl (my family is kindly, fucked)

Is lots of *research* about healthy relationships (because of course I am)

and something obvious, but depressing, is that a lot of relationship research isn't helpful, because it's done on straight people. And then, when there ARE some gay people included, there are no trans people included.

And I'm not critiquing anyone, science is hard and expensive, we'll get there eventually hopefully.

But this does leave me with a problem. No statistics apply to my relationship. Which is a T4T trans masc relationship.

And yes of course, basic dating advice is good for EVERYONE, communicate, date someone with the same values, date someone who treats you kindly, etc etc.

But when you get to the nitty gritty of relationships, no one talks about T4T relationships.

I'm not sure how to articulate my point properly, but there's just something about NEVER witnessing a relationship like your own that leaves you feeling a little stranded.

One part of me says, well we can just make up our own rules of course!

But the other, monkey brained part of me, wishes for examples.

Examples of old trans couples showing how they made things work, how the rules in their relationships differ from cishet people or even cis gay people, talking about the issues they have that could only arise in a t4t relationship, talking about how their socialization effects their relationship, and honestly...just talking about existing. Because doesn't T4T feel so new even though we know it isn't?

I don't know. I think there's this assumption that all romantic relationships work the same, but in my experience of queer people, and specifically trans people, *they don't.*

We may love similarly, the base feelings may be the same, but the way our relationships function isn't necessarily the same.

Perhaps because our relationships have always been for love or at least good company, and never really about societal expectation (although I know some gays parents definitely want them to get married these days lol)

Which is sort of the best thing about queer relationships, they're completely our own.

But then, all advice that's given to us, all information we receive about relationships, is through a straight lense.

Through a lense that's been created through generations of misogyny, and marrying for good business, and marrying for survival.

And it's not that straight people have no valuable relationship information, I love nothing more than listening to very old straight couples who still love each other talk about their relationships (other than perhaps very old gay couples)

But even so, I get this disheartened feeling anyway. I've never seen a relationship like mine age.

The best I'll ever get is maybe a few worn sepia photographs of couples people debate the transness of. And I'll never know anything about them.

I hope that we can become those old people I need, for the future generations. I hope I become the happily married 90 year old trans person I need now, for someone else.

But for now, I'll just try to appreciate the beauty of painting my own picture, even if I wish I had some rulers for the perspective.

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Been thinking about this kid I knew in elementary. We were both gender non-conforming social outcasts with social anxiety. He wore his hair real long and loved wearing dresses, and everyone bullied him for it, but he just refused to change himself. In my small conservative home town. I was a notorious tomboy with a bad temperament and knotted hip length hair. All the boys were afraid of me, accept for him. I was mean to all the boys because I thought they were assholes, but never him. I'd hit and insult other boys. But me and this kid would just sit in comfortable silence together at parties, always choosing to be next to each other even though we rarely spoke. I thought he was the prettiest person, and I respected him for always being himself and never choosing cruelty like the other boys. I looked him up recently, and he's doing well. He's still completely himself just as he always was. He still lives in our conservative hometown (but they have their own pride parade now, so maybe not as conservative as they used to be) There's something about seeing the queer kids you grew up with doing well that's so healing. Like people treated us *so badly*, but we all survived. We survived to see our town become better. We carved out our own little places in life, and we are living them no matter what. I'm glad you're still kicking ass, T.

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This one goes out to my happy trail, I was taught to hate you in high school but you are my BEST FRIEND now. Happy trail indeed.

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Dating your best friend who loves to embarrass you