The 38-Year-Old Queer

In the past I’ve only done these posts every five years; first when I turned 30 and then again at 35. In both cases I reflected on difficult feelings about my identity and how bad my mental health always gets around my birthdays. It’s a trauma response for sure. After so many years of disappointment and being surrounded by toxic and abusive people for my special day, I now associate it with big feelings of depression and anxiety. Two years ago I even went so far as to decide that I wasn’t going to celebrate my birthday’s anymore because they just felt so bad.

I wanna challenge that though! My birthday was just this past Sunday. I turned 38 this year and I’ve been having a lot of hard feelings about aging, struggling to make the connections that I desire, queer existential dread, and my general mental health issues with anxiety, PTSD, depression, and bipolar II. That’s all there but there’s been a lot of good too! My relationships with Fenric and Verne are going strong, I’ve officially become comet partners with my longtime friend Sarah, and my first solo book, “How Do I Sexy? A Guide for Trans and Nonbinary Queers,” is releasing at the end of August. Oh, and I got another book deal! I’m literally in the middle of writing my next book right now too!

That’s a lot to celebrate! I’m in happy partnerships and I’ve made my dream come true of working as an author. Like, I’m actually writing a book a year so far. That’s fucking cool!

To break the pattern of sad, lonely birthday feels I asked Verne to help me plan something and they reserved a couple of bowling lanes for me and some friends on August 9th. It’s a couple weeks late but a better time to be doing it, and so far I’ve got eight confirmed guest among some close friends and pals. I think it’s going to be a good time.

I also have a coffee meet with a trans cutie this upcoming Saturday that I’m really excited about! I posted on Facebook asking how the hell folks go about making a friend-with-benefits and he ended up reaching out to me to express he’d low keep been looking for the same things. So, now we’re planning to meet up, chat, and see how we vibe. Trying to make sure I’m not letting my hopes get up too much but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t pumped.

Here’s to challenging negative cycles and forging positive experiences. There’s nothing wrong with me feeling sad, my mental health is what it is and I’m not broken or in need of being fixed, but I also deserve good things, good connections, and good memories. Time to start making them again. I owe it to myself!