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.

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.