> The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.
This is a paraphrased quote by the American author William Faulkner from a speech he gave at the Nobel Banquet in 1950. I’ve never read any of his works, but authors I have read have used this quote as something that guides their way of writing. It’s also a quote I’ve had on my mind for a long time now.
I like telling stories. If you’re reading this on the day of its posting - my 33rd birthday - you’ve probably already figured out that something has changed and I have quite a story to tell. It actually happened some time ago, but before I tell the story, I want to talk about why I haven’t told it yet;
My heart has been in conflict with itself about what to tell and how to tell it.
Imagine this
Imagine that you’ve realized something big about yourself. Like, really really big. Life changing! For the first time in too long, you’re happy. You feel good. You’ve found answers to questions you barely knew you were asking. You’re proud. You want to tell the world. You tell people. They are happy for you. You’re over the moon. Everything finally feels fine for the first time in forever. But then…
…you meet backlash. From people close to you. Unexpected… backlash. And, so much more than you could’ve feared. It hurts. More than you could’ve imagined. Doubt starts seeping in. What if you’re wrong? Is this just a ploy for attention? The happiness fades. The pride falters. You start feeling sad. Maybe you should try to figure out what’s actually wrong with you and fix that rather than… whatever this is? Then for some reason, the sadness fades. You don’t even cry about it anymore. You can’t, for some reason. Apathy sets in. Months pass. You don’t really… feel anything at all. It just feels… empty. Like nothing.
You realize that you’re back to square one. You feel like you did before all of this happened.
A story about a story never told
I’ve wanted to talk about this. I wanted to boast about how proud I’ve felt. But then I didn’t feel proud anymore. So, I wanted to talk about what happened. But, I don’t want to be the person that publicly airs their grievances with people close to them, so I didn’t want to talk about that either. The only thing I felt was left was to talk about how it hurts, but I almost want that even less. The world is sad and dark enough as it is. If anything, I want to spread some kind of joy. But I guess writing about the hurt is what I ended up doing. What this is. It’s not what I hoped, but right now it feels like the step forward. The only step forward, probably.
I’ve kept all of this deliberately vague and abstract. I’m writing about how something felt for me, not what that something was. I’m also writing about it to try to wrap it up and put it behind me. My last few months have been defined by this and I want to move on. Talking about it any further would just rehash the pain for me. I have gotten the support that I need and now the one thing I need is time to heal. I hope that explains why I’m keeping it vague, and I hope that my wish for privacy about it will be respected.
The human heart in conflict with itself. A stalemate of your own mind.
But, I don’t want to be in that state anymore. I want to break out of that. It makes for a good writing philosophy, but it’s not where you want your life to be. It’s time. So, let’s leave the doom and gloom behind, and go to the happy part of this post;
Hi, I’m Olivia.
I’m a transgender woman. Nice to meet you! My pronouns are she/her.
This is me earlier this summer:
(super big thanks to Jennifer Kilman for doing the makeup 💜)
If you know what it means to be transgender, then me coming out as a trans woman might not come as a big surprise. If you’re not certain what it means, let’s have a super short rundown;
> To be transgender is to have a gender identity which does not match the gender you were presumed to have based on the genitalia you were born with. This can mean a person born with a penis is actually a girl, that a person born with a vulva is actually a boy.
The paragraph above is from a site called That’s Gender Dysphoria, FYI which is nothing short of incredible in how it details the transgender experience. If you want to know more I recommend that along with Abigail Thorn’s video Identity: A trans coming out story, which served as the last nudge I needed to stop being in denial about who I am.
But what’s really important
When it comes to trans things, it’s really easy to get bogged down in definitions and trying to figure out what is what. Especially when talking to those that don’t fully understand the concept. I think it’s really hard for people to grasp the concept of transness if they’re not experiencing it. It’s so out of the norms, and gender is something most people take so fully for granted that the very idea that you could change it is incomprehensible. Because of this, it very easily becomes your responsibility to educate them and/or defend your very existence.
And that… that gets exhausting.
Perhaps understandably, I don’t want that either. Not right now, not in this post. Right now I want to highlight one major thing - the main takeaway that I’m writing about here;
Me coming out as trans has made me happy.
Honestly, that’s the only thing you need to know about me being trans. The rest of it is essentially circumstantial. Knowing who I am has made all the difference, and for the first time I can feel that I love who I am without it feeling hollow and fake. When I do things that affirm my identity, I feel a form of happiness I didn’t know could exist. To go from feeling like an impostor of your own existence to feeling that love songs can be directed inwards towards yourself - that’s a pretty wild trip. And I’m so incredibly happy to be on it.
Of course, there are a million more things to talk about, and many of them are sadly very dark. I aim to talk more about them, but not today. Today is a happy day. Today is my 33rd birthday. One third of a century. It feels like the true closing of Act I of my life, and it feels poetic that it’s the day when I’m finally publicly out.
So hi, I’m Olivia
And I’m glad to finally be here. 😊 I’m about to go on some really great adventures, and I look forward to experiencing them with you.
With tearful eyes and the happiest smile, </br> Olivia 💜