Addison & Jace ::: en route

1.) Our new Honda Civic!  After 16 months of living in Denver with only one car, Jess and I finally decided to bite the bullet and go for a second vehicle.  Jess’ mom hooked us up with a small loan at a great rate and we were able to get a great deal on a gently used 2002 Civic with less than 100,000 miles.  It only has 2 doors, but it’s super clean, and super cute!  Besides, we have the Subaru when we want to haul around lots of people, or stuff.  And it gets 10 MPG better than the Suby in city and on the highway, so I’m looking forward to getting tags on it, and getting my commute on!  

2.) Facebook.  This might sound like an odd one, but I really like being able to keep up with everyone back home, especially my family.  Jess and I are fortunate enough to talk with our immediate family pretty regularly, but FB has helped me stay on top of my extended family and friends.  (Congrats on the engagement, Blayde!)  I feel like I know some people better now that I can see what they do on a regular basis, and that’s pretty cool.  Plus it will give us something to talk about the next time I’m in town.  

3.) Friends.  When we moved to Colorado we knew it would be tough not having our wonderful friends around, and there are still some people in Columbia we miss dearly.  But in Denver we have managed to befriend some really wonderful people who have very different backgrounds from me and Jess.  Knowing these people has helped me think about things in a very new way, which has been wonderful for my personal growth.  Thank you, Denver friends!  You’re the best a girl could ask for!  : )

4.) Brunch!  Brunch has quickly and easily become my favorite meal here in Denver.  I didn’t really used to get down with this hybrid meal, and frankly I don’t really love breakfast, but brunch has become a staple of our weekend ritual.  On Sunday mornings, we call it “gay church,” because it’s usually our LGBT peeps that accompany us on this outing.  There’s one restaurant in particular that always seems to have friends there on Sunday mornings.  But there are so many good places to eat brunch here!  It almost seems that brunch is a bigger happening than a Friday or Saturday night dinner.  Actually, we’re trying a new brunch place with our friends, Shanna and LP, today!  

5.) My girls.  Jess and Izzie are the highlights of my day, everyday.  Jess is so smart, passionate, and damn good at her job.  She cares so much and works so hard.  And it’s important work.  Really, really important work.  She’s working so the future she and I imagine with such precise detail can become a reality.  She’s fighting for our relationship, our life, every day, and I’m so incredibly grateful for that.  And she loves me fiercely.  I know that she does, and for that I am even more grateful.  Izzie, too!  She gets so excited when we come home from work, and it’s nice to know that there are too “people” who love me no matter what.  I love my little family!  

Jess: “I’m sorry I spilled coffee on your sweatshirt.”

Me: “Wait, what?  Why aren’t you wearing yours?”

Jess: “I got mustard on mine earlier today.” 

I’ve been thinking a lot about gender of late, and coincidentally, the world has been thinking about gender quite a bit too, given that Chaz Bono is two-stepping on Dancing with the Stars. 

In the past year, since Addison and I moved to Denver, my understanding of my own gender has been evolving. After many years of confusion, I am finally beginning to understand my own gender identity.

I didn’t grow up in a rigid gender world. Although I was taught about gender roles, my parents let me cross gender barriers often, from playing sports to wearing pants (not dresses like many of the other girls in my small southern town). Still, as we all do, I learned what was expected of me as someone who was born female. I learned how I should act and what I should wear. I learned that girls cross their legs and wear dainty outfits of pink and purple.

We all learn these rules. Our society is built upon them. Our world is structured around a gender binary—a system that forces all of us to fit on one end or the another. We are born female or male. And it’s a big deal. We find out the sex of a baby months before he or she is born, and we prepare accordingly. Pink and green nurseries or blue and yellow onesies. This is the way of our world. You must be either male or female. Not both. Not neither. One or the other, the one you were born as. This is life.  

Like all of you, I was born into this world. I grew up in this world. I was taught the rights and wrongs of this world. And I realized that I am on the wrong side of this world.

I was in my early twenties when I discovered that I don’t fit into the binary. I was standing in front of my mirror in my bedroom, getting ready to go out to the club with friends. I was staring at the button-down shirt I was wearing. The shirt had darts in it, a design-element used in women’s shirts to make them more form-fitting. The pants were tight on the thighs and wide at the bottom.

I looked in the mirror, and I didn’t like what I saw. Not in that “Gosh, I look fat today” way. But in that, “This doesn’t feel right way.” I didn’t know what I was feeling exactly, but it wasn’t good. I took off all my clothes, overcome by intense anxiety, and I didn’t go out that night.

Several months passed before I decided to try something new. I think it took me that long to understand what had caused my debilitating anxiety. 

But after months of continuing anxiety, I decided to stop following the rules. I bought a pair of men’s jeans and a men’s sweater. I put them on. I looked in the mirror. I felt like myself.

There wasn’t some glowing light to illuminate why a simple change in wardrobe had changed my anxiety to comfort. I didn’t understand why I felt the way I did. I didn’t try to understand. I just acted. And with every act, I broke another rule. 

Action defined the next two years of my life. I no longer performed my gender as society deemed appropriate. I didn’t think much about why. I was celebrating, enjoying the fact that I finally felt good about myself and my body.

It wasn’t until I moved to Denver that I started searching for the language to explain my feelings about my gender. I wanted words, in part because, if language existed, I would know that there are others like me.

And so I found words. Cisgender. Transgender. Genderqueer.

Cisgender means gender-normative. It means that you perform your gender in accordance to what you were assigned at birth. It means that you feel you are the gender you were assigned. You were born female and feel female; therefore, you comfortably perform what our world has defined as “femaleness.” 

Transgender people grow up feeling like they were born in the wrong body—that the gender they feel inside does not match their gender on the outside. At some point in their lives, transgender people often decide they must live their lives in the gender they have always known themselves to be and often transition to living as that gender.

Genderqueer people reject the gender binary, which means they defy definition all together. They may consider themselves neither male or female, both male and female, or somewhere in between.

It was these three words that helped me understand me. Three words that helped me to know that there is life outside of the binary. Three words that showed me there are others like me, others who break the rules and live to tell the tale.

Which word is me? Today, it’s genderqueer. Yesterday, it was butch (another word I discovered to specifically describe women who are more masculine—-and a word I think I might use to describe myself for a while). Tomorrow? I don’t know what it will be. Because what I’ve learned most deeply of all is that what I am today may not be what I am tomorrow. My gender is fluid; it resists and rejects a binary and instead exists on a continuum. It refuses to follow the rules.

Each day I’m letting my feelings guide me. With each passing moment, I get to know me better. With each step I take, I give myself a little bit more room to breathe, to experience, to live outside the rules.

-Jess

1.) Coffee.  Jess and I have started making our own iced coffee the Pioneer Woman way, and it’s amazing.  Learn more about it here.  We’ve been sweetening with simple syrup, and adding some half and half.  It’s to die for!  

2.) My new tennis shoes.  Just owning those super cute, super comfy shoes makes me want to become a runner.  Maybe I will!  : )

3.) The weather.  It’s FINALLY starting to cool down, at least at night and in the early morning.  Izzie and I walked Jess to work this morning, and it was quite lovely, if I say so myself!  

Actually, this morning was a combination of all of the things on the list.  I walked the dog in my new tennis shoes in the cool early morning air and we stopped to get iced coffee.  I clearly have a problem…