Liam

The weight of everything is too much. This year brought many challenges, but I did my best to solve them with a hopeful spirit. Winter was hard. Work didn’t come in nearly enough to make my bills, so I used credit cards where I had to and the bank where I was able to. By the end, I maxed out my credit cards. Wasn’t able to pay taxes so I filed for an extension for the first time. I thought my hardest years would be left behind in NY. But there’s always something new to show me I won’t feel the sense of security I used to have before Covid. I can’t help but feel that there’s an invisible force working against me. Before winter ended, I was scammed over the phone and my personal information was leaked on the internet. I spent a couple of months doing the run around with debit and credit cards that had fraudulent charges on them. My banks reimbursed me, but it was never immediate and it really caused a struggle. It quieted down for a couple of months, and then I was scammed again by someo...

I saw her today. I was walking from my parked van to the bar where I was painting. She was across the street and I almost didn’t recognize her. I knew she didn’t see me, so I looked a little longer to be sure. It was her.  When she crosses my mind or appears in my dreams, I am angry. When I see her, I hurt. It feels like it felt every time she came back after disappearing for days without telling me where she was because she wanted to avoid a hard conversation. It feels like my heart wants to jump out of my chest and be beside her like it’s only been weeks, not years since we’ve been apart. And it reminds me why I left this place. How easily I dissolved at her feet. Not anymore. I have to remember my anger. It serves something important. I remember everything and I have to be present. In another world, I saw her just the same today, did a double-take, then I called her name and crossed the street. I asked her how she has been. We can be friendly without tension, without my head rat...

One big challenge of running a trade business is finding a balance between not absorbing other people’s sense of urgency and being accessible enough to maintain good faith and trust. In the last few years, I’ve had first-time experiences of being disrespected. Some experiences opened my eyes to how I’d been disrespected in the past but I was too young to realize it. For example, people paying me a year late for a job I did with no down payment. That’s something that happened a lot, but was easy to accept while I had a reliable income working on campus as a student, or at the coffee shop, or for a painting company. I made exceptions for friends here and there, but that became harder to do when money wasn’t coming in as frequently anymore post lock-down. I asked for advice from business owners along the way and stopped listing my materials to the penny on invoices by advice of a bank manager in Beverly. I raised my rates every couple of years by advice from my own clients. I’ve learned a...

Two years ago today, my sisters cornered me after going some time without seeing much of them to make sure I knew I have become selfish and listed off traumatic life events that happened to me while I stayed silent and they discussed together which event they think it was that changed me and said “this isn’t because you’re trans” before kicking me out of my twin’s house for not showing emotion. I saved my emotions for when they weren’t around to see because I’m not safe showing myself to them and I know that now. The deadnaming while that all happened was the match that burned the bridge.

I woke from a dream this morning about my childhood church and my family, recurring themes which I’m realizing are becoming less frequent in my dream world. In this dream, I was tasked with making a banner with lettering and imagery of people of different ethnicities for Vacation Bible School. This is a callback to many, many summers where I was pulled into painting large backdrops for VBS in the summers, often taking charge with my sister and guiding peers (kids our age and younger) who volunteered to help. This was always free labor, never having a clue that it could be a way to make a living until I left the cult. We were always just following orders from the adults in leadership, called to do tasks based on our individual “spiritual gifts.” We were “God’s servants” and we were genuinely happy to be of service. In my dream, I am my current age and taking orders from the same adults I used to look up to back then. The concept of the banner was given to me in advance and I created a s...

Pacing my room. It’s Thursday. The sun fills my room, enhanced by the yellow below the chair rail. A prism sticker casts rainbows that so so slowly sweep the room as the sun moves across the window. Pacing my room. An unfinished project in the basement directly under my feet. I wonder what it sounds like to be in the basement while I’m pacing above. “You should get to work.” “This is how working from home goes, you have to have better boundaries about productivity.” “Finish the thing, you got this!” Yeah, but, we all saw Alex Pretti get shot to death. I went to work this week already. I left my home to go to work. I’m tired. I know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. “Don’t become the people who hurt you.” Yes, well, they had fewer people who would ever question them, and I’m tired. I know I will never treat another person the way they treated me. Taking my time, that should be a thing I allow myself, and that just so happens to resemble the people who hurt me.  I want to ...

Before our timelines split, before my mind cracked open and my heart fell to pieces for my younger self who leaned in a natural direction but was turned away, I might have stood at the wall of doors and let the world around me pick for me which door to walk through, once again. I might have stayed with her. I might still be a three hour drive from my niblings and I might have seen them more frequently than I do now, living only 20 minutes away. I might not have stood up to him for spending fundraiser money meant for queer kids on his personal bills. I might have waited another 4 months to see him put the money where it was meant to go, never complaining so I would not disturb the peace, same as when I was young and they hit me and put me in isolation over and over again so I would stop saying “I am a boy.” How many more years before that pain resides? I might have never had top surgery. I might still be called by an old name. Maybe I wouldn’t have ever kissed or slept with anyone but m...