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.

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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. —

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