Random Chaos

I almost died on the first, just the other day.

We were eating a breakfast cheese and cracker plate, leftovers from the Samhain feast. I was chowing down on fancy cheeses, crackers,, and fruit. We were discussing the bad luck of our delicious bacon-bourbon-brown sugar tenderloin containing juniper, and the sheer luck we had stopping that reaction.

As he leaves the room for a minute I decide to have the Gardettos with a bit of brie. Delicious, violently crunchy.

My swallow gets stuck. Not in the usual way it does occasionally.

Air is not happening.

Oh fuck.

I pull myself off the couch and try to get to my backpack.

"Babe?" The word comes out with effort.

"What?" He sounded a bit annoyed but I had to go on.

All I managed was "It's...Gardettos." Then I get my first breath in in the last 45 seconds.

That noise apparently explained everything. When he comes out of the bathroom I'm suffocating and can barely breathe.

My last clear memory was walking toward my fiance, holding an EpiPen, not breathing.

I could not tell you how I got to the couch. I just remember collapsing on it. Then there was a light, and the faint sound of a choir. Y'all, I am not making this up.

I don't remember much after that. I couldn't get air anywhere. An EpiPen was administered. The PUNCH from it barely registers because it came with my breathing coming back.

But I couldn't move. Couldn't see. Breathing was on manual mode.

Boy was it dark.

And I was tired.

Too tired to breathe.

I do not remember getting hauled outside.

I'm not positive I remembered getting in.

The light. I'm moving. Up.

I attempted to yell at the light. All I got was a hideous inhale, but it vanished.

But came back. For longer this time. And this time it came with...music?

I could feel it: this body was trying to die.

I tried to thrash my body around, getting little better than squirming around. I had to fucking move, or I knew that was it—

A flash. This one brighter.

I can't go yet!

This time it felt different. I could feel that my body was spent, but that wasn't where I was. I was standing over my body, and through a midnight-and-stars rift, I saw him. My guide. His hand was out, golden hair cascading down, and what was that scent...then I recognized it.

"You're not just a Salvia trip."

"Of course not."

You know, basso voices' rumbles hit different when they don't have to be filtered by your body.

"You have to come with me."

"It's too early!"

When I tell you the look he gave ripped me apart...but he didn't look sad or upset with me...

"You know what could happen."

I did know what could happen. If you "get a tour and come back," the trip alters you in subtle ways. Many shamans and other spiritual leaders say that a near-death experience is the purest, most raw form of initiation there is. IF you come out of it right, things will be different for you. If you come back WRONG, it breaks something in your brain to the point that all you can do is pine for what you saw until you either Leave naturally, or forcibly Exit (that'd be literally sui), unable to properly integrate what you have seen into a unified existence.

"I know what could happen, but I'm asking to go anyway."

Then I jumped, hand raised upwards. I could feel the vibration around me fall away. I felt my spirit body reforming itself, shaping into something larger, more powerful. A name flashed in my head, and it caused this little 'jingling' noise in my head. It was one of mine, one that I knew only we knew. I saw my body forming into what matched my feelings—a perfect tribute in form to the integrated, idealized form I'd always felt to be the real one.

As it turns out, flying is like riding a bike after years of no practice: you wobble a bit at first but once you get going.

When our hands connected we rocketed upwards, until we were up so high we could see the edge of the earth, that line you see looking at the planet from low earth orbit.

I probably should have been watching him because soon there was a...THING, in the atmosphere. Everything went purple and black. I started feeling queasy. Note to self, eyes on the road.

"You'll recognize this," he said, as I looked around, and suddenly saw the buildings, the landmarks. Architecture that looked like it was a marriage of Greco-Roman and classical Japanese. Streets full—and skies full—of us. Lighting from powered crystal. The skies were unsullied by light pollution, and I could see the knife of stars in the sky forming part of the visible galaxy

This was not how I pictured it and it was delightful.

"Not much time. Eyes forward!"

I didn't just put my eyes forward, I closed them—that first jump tried to take me out.

As I was coming out of there, I swallowed hard to reset my head before I looked around.

And the sanctuary and temple are as I had seen them before: edge of dawn, violent red-to-black-blue sky. Quiet rippling lake. The columnhenges formed by the outside ritual setups. The obsidian pyramid.

"It's just like I thought," I say, aware that things are getting hazy somehow.

"One more stop."

"Forward?"

"Yes."

FSHWAM. Another flash of light, another burst of sound. By this point the chorus is constant.

We—no, I alone—come out in space. There is a rich, indescribable color to the darkness. I remember the Terry Pratchett gag about the color of magick before jolting to the realization that that's exactly what I'm looking at. I figure "neat color!" and I reach out to see it against me—

I'm either colored by a different form of space, or made of it. In the back of my hand—larger and more elegant than I'm used to—I can see stars, suns, entire galaxies. Around me, an unfamiliar solar system that I very gently, carefully touch and prod at.

I realize that I, as I stand (float?) here, am as incomprehensible to these people on these planets as the divine would have been. Too much to take in all at once, but if I can understand just a bit of it...maybe I can commune with it—

I suddenly realize: that's the difference.

It was never about control or subjugation. Ultimately, these are distinctions that mankind places over things it doesn't understand.

What if we offered not a fight, pushing things away, but rather an embrace? Find the worth, the beauty, in things without trying to place ourselves superior? I feel my universe-self expanding even as my solid boundaries stay the same. I have to hold it all, see it all.

I hover a starry hand over first one planet, then the next, wondering if they could see the vault of stars in my palms. I notice that there is a Saturn-like planet in my pinky finger.

As I bring my hand upwards to see it better two things happen:

First, the flash of light and chorus strike again, both lasting longer than last time. Suddenly I'm aware of my body on the stretcher again. The flash had come with convulsions, some of them sending VERY mixed messages to my body below.

Then I hear him in my head: "You have to go now."

"I haven't seen it all!"

"You will, but not if you don't go back soon!"

The flash fades and I can see (?) The inside of my ambulance. I'm sinking back down into my body, feet first. I'm too tired to fight him from letting me go, as much as I want to stay.

...I mean, it's been a few thousand years since we Traveled together like that.

The flash is a beam this time. The choir, a cymbal crash stretched out long.

Then, I see something unexpected in the light: my mom's face, looking more badass warrior than chic suburbanite.

Two words from her: "Not yet."

Darkness swallows me. I'm falling.

Falling.

Such a long way down.

Then nothing. What felt like ten seconds of nothing.

I realize just in time what I have to do. I'm so damned tired, but if I don't pull this off I'm not getting this second chance.

Every ounce of energy I have left goes to screaming "NOT YET" as loud as I can manage.

What actually happens, at my body level, is this (I'm told) disturbing sort of strangled "NYAAGH" rips out of me and I take an entire breath that I immediately choked on. I can't see, I can't open my eyes, and I feel like something is trying to wring me out.

Then I hear the paramedic: "You're okay, it only lasted about a minute. Had to get 3 Benadryl shots through you AND a load of prednisone. Just breathe."

Not gonna lie, the first thing my body actually let me do was just break down for most of the rest of the ride to the hospital. I was exhausted, I was in pain. I didn't have the energy to move, or talk, or cover my face. I was still breathing on manual, but now air was getting where it needed to be.

Then I made this pathetic noise as I realized that at some point while I was out, I'd had an accident on the stretcher and there was nothing I could do about it. The paramedic totally misinterpreted the noise, just reminding me to keep breathing.

Then my body really was done with me, and I basically was a zombie until the end of the exam they gave me at the ER.

It was my fiance and cousin who met me at the end. "Are you alright? Did they help?"

All I could say was: "I saw it. I know where I go" in this exhausted tone.

A ride was called. I am loaded into the car with the hospital blanket and a plushie.

I don't think I did anything after that. I frankly can only tell you that the things I remember clearly are the rye chip that put me critical on the couch and the trip afterwards.

I'm told I was GONE gone at least twice, with the first instance being on the couch.

I don't know what's next. I'm honestly a bit out of sorts.

At this point, all I can do is leave my offerings and rest.

Initiation is tiring after all.

(That title slug is supposed to look like the title of a specific Deftones track. I don’t think I pulled it off.)

So, confession:

I have not seen a lot of the newer Disney animated films.

(Yes, yes, I know)

This is enough of an affront to my partner that almost every day now, we watch something that I missed back when it came out.

Reader, I do believe I’m gonna marry this man.

There are so many things that I’ve missed. So far, no recommendation has been a dud.

Tonight it was Ratatouille, and…

When I tell you I was CRAVING EVERYTHING THAT I SAW IN THAT MOVIE

Just…such foodporn and to top it off a wonderful ship in the mix? Where WAS I when this came out?

That was such a bright experience that I honestly forgot about my burnout for a while.

Actually, more accurately, it was a followup of a job interview. There was a lot of paperwork and a surprisingly easy-flow conversation with the man who might be/is/IDK, it's highly likely that this man is my new boss.

It looks like I'm gonna be flipping burgers for more than minimum wage now.

Well technically, that'd be FLAME-GRILLING burgers for more than minimum wage. But the place has an anti-harrassment policy, and it has a policy that protects trans people in the workplace.

And me being a trans people, that means a lot in considering a job in a place.

Thanks to that lucky interview, I don't have eighteen thousand applications to fill out in the morning. I can just chill the hell out until I find out when I start.

That's right. I said "my."

Yesterday was my moving day. I landed in this wonderful little place with my wonderful partner, and now I am finally out.

I have to wait for my other stuff to get a pickup day--the truck that we got to get my stuff out of there wasn't quite big enough. We have like...half of my stuff. Very few of the clothes that I have to pick up are guaranteed to fit me. After all, it's been like three years, thirty pounds, and AN ENTIRE THREE NEW CUP SIZES UP FROM WHERE I WAS.

Yah you read that right.

It's ridiculous.

I'll have to see what fits and what needs to be donated directly to the needy.

The thing I'm really looking forward to when my kittens arrive. We had to wait for everything else to be situated before we bring them home with us.

Home.

With us.

Don't wake me up, please.

And for once I mean that in the good sense.

I had an amazing birthday on the 29th...I went out with the guy I've been seeing and, in the CUTEST WAY POSSIBLE, he asked me to be his official joyfriend. (That's a gender neutral alternative to boy/girlfriend. He handed me a card, written in German, and was like "You should translate this" with barely disguised glee in his voice...

AND THAT WAS HOW HE ASKED.

OF COURSE I SAID YES.

Y'all. I don't think I've had it this good before. Here is a man who sees me for me, doesn't fetishize me, doesn't make me feel weird about being nonbinary, and practically freakin worships the ground I fall face-first into.

Is...is this what a good relationship is like? A dragon's gotta ask.

I think I'm gonna go back to waiting for his video call.

• find the damn silver,
• find the damn towels, and
• get Pestilence Couch mk. 2 outta here.

The entire situation right now is fucky. It’s been hell trying to get my damn ID sorted out, I’ve got some weird health shit going on (I need scopes and there’s an ultrasound result waiting on me to get the results on right now, as in right now, right now right now), and oh yeah, my shrink backpedaled on getting me to that gender therapist. So that’s a thing. (Well, technically it’s not a thing, but you get the idea.)

My knees are getting worse, and then there’s the new variable, a back injury from a forklift accident at work that I was stupid enough not to call workman’s comp on.

Yeah, go ahead and brain me with a pow hammer for that one. I was a freakin’ idiot there.

The bright spots in my life at least are the cats, one of whom is sitting next to me being a little cuddle box and not questioning the weird glowy box on my lap that has stolen his spot and is now making weird clicky noises as his master’s paws move in weird motions.

*_*_*

I’ve resolved to get myself out of the rut that I’ve fallen into. In the year since that disaster, I’ve almost completely fallen off the wagon of writing, and have had one day where I slipped and had an actual alcohol bender--and remembered why I now hate the taste of most alcohol. So today, I actually came up with a plan:

See, I was the nerd in school who had the Palm Pilot on zer desk, ever ready to take down the test schedule, changes to the syllabus, all that crap. That thing was basically an accessibility device for me, because my short term memory? It’s not great. And while writing things down is a big help on that, it’s not so great if you turn around and forget where you put the godsdamned piece of paper that you wrote it down on *mumble mutter mumble mutter.* So in combination with my smartwatch and my phone, I’m putting myself on an update schedule and a writing schedule so that I can get back into the habit of doing both...because I tend to forget that there are people out there who want to know that I’m not dead, and I tend to forget that there are people out there who actually do want to read what I have to say, or see what pictures I’ve taken.

I guess what I’m trying to say is...

I’m back! :)

It was when Sheik turned into Zelda in Ocarina of Time and I was still attracted.

Incidentally, that was when my cousins started calling me "gay."

I didn't know what gay meant then.

I was 13.

One day in grade school I was asked what I thought of boys. I answered honestly — and after I answered all the girls avoided me. I'd said that I liked girls better, and suddenly I was shunned by all.

I was 12.

A few years earlier I'd had a good friend. We shared the same interests. We got along well. But a rumor started. I didn't know about it until I arrived for the scheduled hangout and was told that her folks didn't want "that type of girl" hanging around. Then the door was closed in my face.

I was 7.

I was 20.

I'd just successfully confessed my feelings to my crush on campus. He'd shot me down. My friends took me out for sushi to make me feel better. A few weeks passed and I saw more of the guy that made me realize that I'd actually dodged a bullet — the guy was beautiful, but BOY was he problematic. While all this was going on, one of my other friends had something awesome happen to her — and in her soaring euphoria, she kissed ME before skipping off to her destination.

"Guys," I said to my group as the realization finally dawned, chest a flutter, "I think I might be bisexual."

I was 30.

I'm freaking out because my clothes are gendered. Male is wrong. Female is wrong. But if that's the case then what am I? I panic and cancel my plans. I hit up the new LGBT sub on 4chan of all places — where I learn about nonbinary identities. The panic subsides a bit, and I research into the night. By morning I have a handle on it.

Ze/zir.

Genderqueer/Genderflux.

And a private identification tied to my blood that I reveal only to those who I trust.

For the first time in years, things are clicking.

I am 33.

Things have settled in. Some have evolved: as a nonbinary individual, I now identify more as pansexual because it's outside the binary. Some have refined: my attraction type is demi-panromantic, if we're splitting hairs.
I have accepted that I am settled firmly beneath the trans umbrella — something that I denied vehemently before. And I am growing as a person.

… well, that's my Coming Out™ story.