The rules are not real.

I can understand, on some level, this global resistance to the way our perception of gender is headed. That is non-binary, fluid, beautiful, exceptional. I can understand because in some ways it is scary. It is a rejection of our carefully cultivated norm. It is a destruction of binaries drilled into us, which we were forced to confine ourselves to, and now as we leave them behind perhaps we leave some people behind too.

Identity will change when gender crosses enforced boundaries. It is already changing. If my identity constructs itself around femininity does that femininity become obsolete? No. But the lines between the feminine and the masculine will no longer be so rigid, so entrapping as if sex has anything to do with the way we feel.

Trans people have died and still die because cis people are so scared of gender. Imagine being so scared as to create that much violence, as to deny another human's existence.

I have no authority on this topic. I have never had to question my gender and as we watch lines blur I feel comfortable enough in my own identity to let it all happen. I am privileged enough to feel excited about it. I still think of it as a revolution brewing.

Does this rejection of such constraining binaries not lead to a deeper human experience? Will we not be more free in our own minds, in our own existence?

The denial of a person's existence does not actually destroy their existence. You cannot go backwards once rules are broken, because the rules will forever be undermined. The rules are not real. You can keep trying to enforce the rules, but they lose their power once someone points out that they are just rules. You can follow the rules, if you want, it it helps, but not everyone wants to. The rules are not real. And doesn't it feel so much better once you realise this? Don't you feel more relaxed? More full of love? More human?

Possessing the cool thing.

I have this funny habit of wanting to own things. Not material things, I don't feel especially strongly about objects. I enjoy having objects, I enjoy materialistic pleasure but I don't feel it so urgently as this other type of possession.

Mostly it is in moments of insecurity that I get this sensation, as if it is linked to proving myself, to marking myself out as worthy. It will happen in conversation or imagined conversation or even conversations I am not a part of and it will rush up inside of me hot and aggressive. The need to possess a concept, or an abstract thing, something which is not tangible but something I want to be inarguably connected to.

How do I explain this?

Say, for example, my dad had invented something really cool (he hasn't, sorry) and everyone knew about the cool thing but they didn't necessarily know that my dad had invented it. And it came up in conversation, without anyone else knowing how intrinsically linked I was to this cool thing, well, that is when the sensation comes along. I would feel an overwhelming desire to own that thing. To make it known that somehow, in some tenuous connection, I was a part of the thing.

I suppose it is linked to uniqueness. The desire to stand out from the pack, in the impossible task of becoming more immortal than everyone else. If they remember you for something, if they can see how different you are, that you possess this cool thing, you won't become ordinary and therefore invisible. I dread invisibility, especially when a moment of insecurity can convince me that I might be.

It is a way of being heard and noticed, to own something. Maybe that is how people feel about material things, and I feel it about tenuous links to concepts or events or facts that might make me seem cooler. Might give me more value.

Weird, isn't it.

Moments with my sister.

I want to write down every silly, funny moment between us because they are so beautiful and I feel so happy when they happen. I want to remember each moment you said or did something so obscure, so ridiculous that only we could laugh and our laughter created a separate universe where only we existed together, for as long as the moment lasted. I want to catch all these moments and keep them in jars to go back to, but they are so fleeting and I must watch them dissolve, clinging on to the feeling they created.

I want to keep having these moments, these private bursts of laughter in a language only we can understand, forever. I want these episodes of unadulterated joy to keep coming back to me. I want to preserve you, in each of these moments, I want you to last forever, for me, in our world. Is that so much to ask?

I've grown up.

It is so strange to notice yourself change. It is subtle, and can only be seen once it has happened, but it is odd when you suddenly realise. I have changed recently, or maybe I changed before and I didn't know. The change has been growing up. I have grown up, a bit, over the last few years.

I have noticed because I have come back for my last year of university and something feels different. I feel calm, and ready, and the pangs of missing home are not so great anymore. For the first time I didn't cry when my parents left. Which perhaps they will be sad to know, but also happy that they finally produced a functioning adult. Almost.

It feels funny because I am watching the first years wander around in that very lost, very frightened way with brave faces and I don't feel like that anymore. I feel different, in a good way. I don't need to put on a brave face because I feel brave, I have done brave things and given myself the reassurance that I can do almost anything I put my mind to. That's a fantastic change. It doesn't mean no more fear, but it does mean the fear is always conquerable.

Perhaps I am lucky because I have always been ready to move on at the exact right moment. Ready to move schools, ready to leave school, ready to finish university. Ready for the next bit, whatever that may be.

So I have changed, and grown up a bit. And it is such a lovely, reassuring feeling that I almost can't wait for it to happen again. And again. And again.