nine years ago, i was living in a sharehouse with a close friend from high school, alex. he was a couple years older than me — i think i was in year 9 and him in 11 or 12 when we met. he ended up getting me a job at a call-centre where he worked after i finished high school, and then when i moved out of home, a place in his sharehouse. the call-centre work wasn’t very glamorous, and i got a job doing software. about a year later, he expressed interest and i got him a job there.

not very long after, alex moved up in position, and a friend of a friend of his applied to replace him.

i remember seeing them on the couch in the common area as there was a bit of a dual- lunch/interview thing going, and feeling deeply suspicious. there was something about them i couldn’t pick, but i knew i didn’t like it.

they ended up getting the job, so soon enough i was seeing them every day. this was well before the days of slack or hipchat, so we all used instant messenger and used it to chat 1:1 when we weren’t getting up from our seats to interrupt them. little by little, starting with work topics, we began to chat, but eventually diverging into shared interests.

one of the things that made me feel suss about them, in retrospect, was my inability to gender them. i mean, their name gave them away, but visually i was baffled. i think years of queer-coding villains in media probably partly gave rise to that.

as we continued to chat, i started to feel we were building a kind of camaraderie. we cared about similar social justice issues. my own gender issues were coming to the fore, and while i still didn’t get theirs — at all — it became apparent they’d thought about gender a lot.

morgan and i have been close friends ever since, and ours is the longest close friendship i’ve had in all my life. (alex and i are still ‘friends’, but we might talk or see each other once or twice a year, whereas with morgan it’s once or twice a week, and we talk throughout the day, every day.) in many ways they’re the bar i rate my other friendships or relationships by; not in a mean or ranking-type way, but just, i know this is actually how good things can be. we’re similar in lots of ways and different in lots of ways, and we blend these aspects into a mutually fulfilling relationship.

using the word ‘relationship’, it’s become clear that neither of us actually knows how to characterise our relationship, whatever it is, and that we’re also both curious in talking about that. that interests me a lot. i’m fairly confident neither of us has even a little bit of romantic interest in the other — they might be more generally aromantic, even. but what we have is certainly completely different to any other “friendship” i have, and perhaps the same goes for them too. i care for them and am interested in them in a way i don’t know how to adequately describe. the term “queerplatonic relationship” often comes to mind.

even if there’s no romance, though, i’d still really like to hold their hand.

i want to try to describe how i relate to my own identity. i don’t know how other people feel about their identities. it’s not a feeling you can transmit. you can’t put your hand on someone else’s and understand how they perceive it. i have no idea if this experiment is even vaguely feasible, but i want to try.

when i turn my attention inward and look for it, there’s nothing. what i grasp for first is a label, something with a shape which it might fit into. there’s a couple of these that come to mind almost immediately: programmer, trans girl, anarchist … but well, that’s the thing. i’ve been all of these and none of these at the same time. some days i don’t “feel” a label but the criteria fit anyway, because of how labels and identity work — by social construction. you can only be a programmer in a world that knows what programming is, that distinguishes it from something else, and that distinguishing defines its criteria. other days i feel it but the criteria don’t exactly fit. being a trans girl is one of those thing. the problem with these criteria is that they are indeed socially constructed, meaning they’re malleable. and as a member of society, it’s not like the construction has nothing to do with me.

i guess the thing is that, maybe more than most, my identity is slippery. some parts remain fixed for longer periods of time than others, but as far as i can tell there’s nothing that remains indefinitely. this seems to set me apart from other people. or at least, people without bpd.

one of the worst parts of a slippery identity is that it’s also difficult for me to grasp much of the time. even i won’t know where part of me has gone, where part of me came from, when to expect that something might appear or disappear. sometimes i wake up and there’s something that was core to me that’s just … vanished. i can’t explain it any better than that. maybe it’ll be back. maybe it won’t. maybe something similar will take its place.

in times like these, consistent action arises out of consistent values. i don’t see values as a part of identity. i think people sometimes choose to make their values their identity, but i don’t believe identifying a certain way is a requirement for holding a certain value. i’ll never believe less in universal human rights, queer rights, the fundamental unjustness of capital, etc. but some days i might think the term “activist” fits more than others. indeed, some days i will highly associate with it, and others not at all.

so when i cast my vision inward.. i see no identity at all, until i pause and let my eyes adjust, and then i see a million. i don’t know how to convey this. how much it feels like i’m at odds with a world that expects me to remain static, to possess a single identity and not a dynamic process of identity. how much that can make me feel bad for not conforming with their expectations; how that can manifest as disappointment and disgust and self-hate, none of which helps, but instead pushes me toward repression.

i find it hard to say i’m one person. it’s hard to say i possess “an identity”, to relate to “my identity” when the singular is utterly dissonant here.

it’s hard to say i relate to identity.

there’s a little gnawing, biting feeling in the pit of my stomach. like there’s a glowing hot stone, but just a small one. it’s already moved up a bit now, around where you’d expect the diaphragm to be when you’re fully exhaled. it’s not “real”. it’s not like it’s a sickness. it’s entirely in my head. but it manifests right here in my chest, and i feel nauseous and sick of breath. i’m dizzy, too, and if my mind wanders, if i don’t keep it on a tight leash, a skill i’ve had to practice ever since this damn disorder graced my life with its presence, then it really will spiral, fast, and even just thinking about that idea is enough to make the white hot burning in my chest grow, its tendrils reaching out.

i shoulda taken diazepam earlier when i felt this coming on but it receded a little and i thought i’d be okay. but whatever. i’ve dealt with this literally hundreds of times before. i’ll deal with it again. i know the lies my limbic system tells my brain, and though i’m not able to stop those signals streaming in, to convince my brain not to deliver the panic to my consciousness, so it’s up to pure discipline to hold it at bay and not fall into the path of least resistance.

on the second carriage from the front. the sky is overcast with some unevenness as the light filters through it.

i love the sounds of public transit but i love applying my own music to the journey even more, recasting the experience to suit my mood.

this dusk light is something else. i wish there was a carriage with the interior lights off or dimmed. i can’t imagine how amazing it would feel; dream-like and otherworldly, transformative. it’s simple stuff like that which really makes life feel exciting. expanding experience.

one thing i love about taking public transport in melbourne is getting a look at the sea of faces that make up our city. at this time there’s roughly 50:50 caucasian and not. and y’know, for a colonially settled city, that’s pretty great. maybe that’s one of the reasons i like box hill so much. i wonder if that’s just me trying to assuage my own white guilt tho.

we pass over auburn rd and there’s a glimpse of a mass of red and white lights from the cars below, gone as quickly as it appeared. lately multiple people have described the world as noir, and i’m feeling that now. there’s definitely a vague sense of unease that permeates the scene, hinting at dystopia, even though i can’t help but find beauty in everything i see. i see beauty but it doesn’t mean i don’t see what’s actually there too.

another train passes in the opposite direction just as the bass drops in the music i’m listening to. little drops of serendipity.

tryna think about what to write about all day, and finally it’s hit me.

i’m tired.

i am physically worn-out. i am in need of sleep. i feel like my heart has gotten more good exercise in the last few weeks than it’s had in the last year and expanded several sizes, and it’s great but it’s work too.

for once: what i’m not is tired of life.

i am joyful. i am experimenting with joy, and the results are more wonderful than i had imagined they could be.

my legs are cramping if i so much as pull on my calves even a little bit. my arms feel weak. my hands feel strained from carrying grocery bags. there’s a part of my body which is just the slightest bit ache-y which hasn’t been like that in a long time. these aches are good. they’re satisfying; like they attend a feeling of accomplishment.

my head has that heaviness that suggests lying down will result in sleep seconds later — a really delightful heaviness, to be sure, for someone who barely managed catnaps.

with coming down from hypomania i feel like my emotional range has actually expanded. euphoria at the world and existing is wonderful and enjoyable. it feels great. but having those feelings — and even stronger! — without an altered mood state? just because the events that are happening are really that intense? that they resonate with who i am and what i want that deeply, and aren’t simply riffing off of an episode?

— and this is not to discount my feelings while hypomanic. but seeing the world as it is when i’m more me and less an altered me is where i want to be. —

i’m tired, and i’m so ready for tomorrow.

today i’m listening to “prelude” by “the noisy freaks”, the first track in the album “straight life”. (ha.)

there’s a quiet piano opening, and like, that’s always going to elicit a response from me. for most of my life, piano has been a really big thing. there’s almost always been one in my house, wherever i’ve lived. there was a short time between moving out of my family’s house when i was 18, and then spending my first pay cheque on a digital piano. maybe 3 months. i’ve taken that piano with me ever since, so literally 3 months in 27 years have i been without a piano at my disposal.

it’s .. wistful music? it makes me feel reflective. there’s some synth stuff going on, the key isn’t happy or sad so much as contemplative. the energy picks up, for sure, but it mostly propels my thoughts along the same lines rather than changing tracks. again, i’m drawn to expressing how i’m neither happy nor sad nor neutral, but in a different place; maybe a different time, as my thinking reaches into the past.

even the name “prelude” evokes something. on the one hand, it’s the first track of the album. the last track is called “outro (bonne nuit)”. it’s not exactly difficult to work out what’s happening. but in terms of my relation to the music .. well, it’s talking about a beginning, right? and so while it encourages me to think into the past, the best thing you can do with that is to take what you’ve learned and apply it to the future. in this sense i feel like this kind of music is preparatory, consolidatory (is that a word? it is now.), asking you to grow up, to accept your mistakes, and to not repeat them.

it may be that these feelings the music evokes are unique to me; like the piano opening, instruments and samples used throughout bring me back to earlier times in my life, automatically drawing my thoughts across the span of time from then until now. it’s a vaguely retro/90’s-themed album, though, so maybe that’d hold for a bunch of people my age who had similar interests to me.

there’s something haunting about it. maybe reflection is always haunting, revealing the indefatigability of time itself, how we can never wind it back, how there’s no turning away from the future. damn it, i really cannot help but be morbid, even with a perfectly lovely piece of music.

but perhaps it’s not morbidity so much as radical acceptance of what life is, and with that comes the ability to hold a greater appreciation for every little moment.

i got a lotta feelings about my apartment, folx.

when i think about it, i first and foremost think of all the other people who have passed through it. as you know, i’m a people-centric kinda girl.

there was kairi, whom i moved in with first. then hazel. then imogen.

y’know, that’s not actually that many.

of course, a lot of bad shit has gone down here. more than one suicide attempt, but one in particular that will stay with me forever. the incredible tension that has existed within these walls when things weren’t working out with me and a partner. (fucking pro-tip to ashe: do not live with a partner. not for a long time. it does not work.)

but there’s been a lot of good too. excluding those already-mentioned, i’ve had five other partner(?)s stay the night, and it usually has been mostly just relaxing together, listening to music and enjoying each other’s company. it’s almost always been pleasant. i’ve worked at github since before moving here, so it’s always been my place of work, which has for the most part been a steady and stabilising part of my life. i’ve had friends over to play games and have food. friends with their animals, sometimes. i cat-sat milton here. it wasn’t that long after moving here that i started therapy with my current therapist and finally got past the worst of my panic disorder.

there’s been a lot of self-discovery. a lot of self-implosion, too, and that’s always hard to face. there’ve been sleepless nights and more restful ones. some nights where i’ve felt hollow to the core, and some days where i’ve felt like life was full of meaning and wonder.

i don’t know what’s to come. i struggled to reclaim this space as my own after everything with imogen earlier this year, but the last week has seen me go from hermitude in the study to spending time all over the apartment again, and enjoying it. i’ve let go of something. i still don’t know if i’ll want to remain here by year’s end when the lease expires. joni’s suggestion was that moving might itself be unsettling, and i can sympathise with that view point. on the other hand, a fresh start might be valuable.

we’ll see how i’m feeling then.

it’s time for some “twinings pure green tea”. i made it with 98° water.

the mug is really pleasantly warm. it’s a little cool inside and i’m wearing my fingerless gloves, so i can cup it in both hands and feel the heat radiate. steam’s rising from the cup, and that’s an impossibly relaxing thing to see and feel as it brushes your face.

as it steeps the lightly stringent aroma begins to develop. my neck or throat is a little sore so taking that first sip is a little more difficult than i’d have expected. it’s still steaming hot, maybe 90-ish degrees, and the flavour barely comes through. at times like this, all you can do is keep smelling the roses. or the camellia sinensis, as the case may be.

blow a bit on the tea and the steam rushes to fog up your glasses.

i’m still struggling to taste it, and i don’t think it’s because it’s too hot. my taste buds might be a little out of it today. but one thing never fails: you let the tea flow into the back of your mouth — not yet swallowing, but letting it sit there and stimulate the taste buds at the back of your tongue. the bitter notes come out. works every time. the more bitter the tea, the more i love to do this — it’s like finally getting the full experience. (in reality, what’s probably happening is that it’s just stimulating more of your taste buds. the taste bud “map” suggests the bitter ones are at the back of your tongue, but that’s been thoroughly debunked.)

my throat is really getting quite sore by this point, and the tea isn’t something i’m very much able to focus on, or be mindful of. but it’s worth trying; when the going gets tough, etc. etc. it’s cool enough now (probably 70°) that i can take a relatively big sip and just hold it, swish it around my mouth. the temperature difference is really wonderful. it reminds me of a hot shower.

the blanket on top is red, soft, velvety. i don’t know what it’s made of. it’s the kind of material that isn’t especially thick, but feels warm. too warm under it and you sweat easily for some reason.

i think it came from kairi, it rather, that she brought it with her with belfast and then didn’t want to take it with her when she moved out. almost everything like that i’ve gotten rid of, donated, given to a friend. but not this. not because it reminds me of her. it’s just a really nice blanket.

there’s a purple blanket underneath it. same size, purple not red, and just a slightly different material. i’ve been snuggled up in it in many different places; couches, chairs, beds. it doesn’t mean anything specific. it’s just a nice blanket.

under that, a sheet. i had no idea you were “supposed” to sleep under a sheet for most of my life. i didn’t understand the concept of flat sheets whatsoever; fitted ones worked better, so why did they exist? it’s microfibre or some fancy word like that, which is another way of saying $20 at woolworths.

this place feels like something i’ve slowly reclaimed.

hypomania: “a mood state characterized by persistent disinhibition and elevation (euphoria). […] According to DSM-5 criteria, hypomania is distinct from mania in that there is no significant functional impairment; mania, by DSM-5 definition, does include significant functional impairment and may have psychotic features.”

this is kinda a thing that keeps occurring to me on and off, as you’re aware. i wanted to try to describe the subjective experience. because it’s a mood state defined by a set of symptoms, i’ll do so according to the list of criteria.

pressured speech: i’m fucking talkative lately. i can’t stop expressing myself. i tweet a lot and i talk a lot, but inside my head when i’m alone it’s like a freight train. the thing is, it feels good. it feels like i’m putting together some unified theory of the world and psyche and essentially every damn thing i’m talking about, like it All Makes Sense™. the desire to keep talking and theorising is fuelled by this sense that i’m making sense of things, and that if i keep doing so, i’ll have made sense of everything.

inflated self-esteem or grandiosity: my self-image is really good lately. this isn’t a bad thing in itself, but it contrasts to my baseline of “this is fine”. i feel much more associated with my body, much more accepting of it, and i’m much more willing to express the idea that i’m good or even excellent at certain tasks. similarly, i have less qualms with putting myself out there.

decreased need for sleep: this is pretty simple. lately i’ve not been tired, have had trouble falling asleep if i’ve gone to bed early (e.g. with you), and still not been tired in the morning when i wake up.

flight of ideas or the subjective experience that thoughts are racing: see ‘pressured speech’. it feels like everything is related.

easily distracted and attention-deficit: this one hasn’t hit me as much, subjectively, though i have struggled to accomplish much work-wise lately.

increase in psychomotor agitation, or occasionally in some, increased irritability: maybe.

hypersexuality: from ace to 8 hours of fucking in 48 hours. yeah.

involvement in pleasurable activities that may have a high potential for negative psycho-social or physical consequences: yes. there’s the whole 8 hours of sex with someone you just met thing, but i’m willing to excuse that as simply queer life sometimes. but we didn’t use any protection! hello disinhibition. :/

i need “elevated mood” plus three of those for the DSM-IV-TR definition. i have elevated mood plus six, so …