The Whale Before Water

I did the title for this post last.

2011-11-09T06:01:00.001Z

Ooooookay there's quite a lot to put in this post...

1. MASSIVE BLOG CHANGES!!!
Not that massive really I s'pose but... yeah. Changed the look quite a bit. The About Me section has fewer words and better description (oh and "gradual nerd" means I'm slowly becoming an actual nerd, rather than saying I'm a nerd and not having actually watched or played many nerdish things), and the display pic is actually me! I secretly put on makeup and took some pictures of myself one night. Only a few of them looked any kind of good, but it was interesting to do. I thought I'd be better at improvising with it but I didn't realise I'd be figuring out what everything was. It wasn't hard but it definitely could've gone better. This isn't the whole picture though, it's the most female-looking bit of the best one; the whole picture has a slight beard surrounding a pair of lips I'm sorta proud of. Still don't want to get rid of my beard incase it raises questions...

2. Borderline Personality Disorder
It's a self diagnosis but I'm pretty sure I have this mental condition. There's a lot of evidence for it, though I do say so myself. In the posts I did in April and May, I talked about not really being allowed an identity, about growing up being taught that I'm wrong for being who I am. This is apparently how BPD develops. As well as a lack of identity, it's characterised by a fear of abandonment, and it makes you be an awful person to your friends if they do anything that sort of excludes you (which definitely has happened). I don't know if anyone's looked into this, but if I am trans (and at the moment I'm pretty certain I am) it sort of makes sense that I didn't figure it out for a long time. Also, it might be the case that I'm not trans and this is just me trying to find myself in the fog that is BPD. Luckily it's possible to fully recover from this so I will know for sure one day.

3. Trans-stuff
I started working on my voice again a few weeks ago, after stopping for a few months. Still not ready to actually upload a recording like I said I would before, but I've got it up a few notes. I'm hoping to start properly living as a woman year after next, with the working title of Lizzy. Subject to change but I've been through pages of names and almost none of them really felt right (which could be the BPD doing its thing).

Lenses Half-Unseen As They Come To Me

2011-06-29T11:01:00.002+01:00

A little further in my self-definition, I know that I'm not a man. Not completely. I don't know if I'm completely a woman either though. I don't feel like I can be any more sure of anything right now.

I have been practicing a female voice though. So far I can't properly talk with it, but I think singing sounds alright. Thinking of uploading a recording somewhere.

Just figured I should wait until more trans related stuff happened before updating. I know writing about some project no one's gonna hear isn't really interesting.

This is my dilemma.

2011-05-07T04:49:00.003+01:00

The project is cancelled. It was basically going to be a big musical coming-out-to-my-family thing. But not quite how it sounds. I need to explain.

There are lots more things my family don't know about me, things that aren't gender, things that shouldn't even be hidden. The “some kind of identity” I found and kept secret was Helen Trevillion's music.
Ok this is a clusterfuck of things needing explanation.

I'm still not sure why, but when I was younger I was really afraid of appearing feminine. I guess it could be because of my transphobic dad, who I think was kind of obsessed with the idea of being a Man (with a capital M). I've written about his childishness before, and all I really need to say here is that I'm pretty sure he's mentally still a teenager, and has been most of his life. (I'm not on such bad grounds with him these days. I don't see him very often though. Which I'm fine with. I wonder what would happen if I came out as trans... Provided I actually am, of course.) But I'm pretty sure it was other people too. My guess is that I was made fun of every time I did anything that might be feminine, so I did my best to avoid it. For years I was afraid of talking to girls, talking about girls, and even saying female pronouns or the word “girl”. It wasn't the only thing though. My self was still crumbling on the inside, and I didn't even know it was happening.

It's in this context that I discovered Helen's music. I'd never really felt allowed to judge female artists myself before, but I was listening to this on my own so I had no other opinions to fall back on; it had to be mine. Needless to say I became a fan.

But this couldn't be let out. Me? Liking a female artist? I had to hide this. I think I knew I couldn't know how people would react, but the past indicated ridicule, and I couldn't afford that, not after I'd just spent the bulk of fifteen years falling away inside. Especially not after it'd only just stopped.

That's what the project was. I was going to “come out” about my real music tastes. And I needed to do it in this way, because I need them to know how big of a deal this is to me. The rebuilding and development of my identity started with discovering Helen Trevillion. Her music and words are central to what makes me me, in the present day (granted, there're now plenty of things that make me me in the present day).

But it doesn't feel right. Every time I think about working on it, I decide not to. The project just doesn't feel like something I want to do. I know I'll have to tell them somehow eventually, I know I can't stay this repressed, but I don't want to do it like this, for some reason. It feels like a huge undertaking, so I can't just plain tell them, and I don't want to have a long and painful conversation about my past with them, mostly because they're often antagonists in the story of my past, and I don't want to burn any bridges, especially not while I'm still living here.

Gender/Identity

2011-04-09T00:19:00.004+01:00

I don't know if I'm trans.
There. That's the current truth, as I understand it.

For most of 2009, I lived believing (more or less) that I was female. For most of 2010, I lived believing that I was male. Neither felt completely right or wrong.
I think, somewhere around the start of 2010, I decided I didn't think I was trans anymore, but that I shouldn't jump to conclusions. For the whole rest of that year, gender wasn't really on my mind, and I didn't really feel like a woman. But most of the time, when I did think about gender, I didn't really feel like a man either. I don't know what I am.

For the past three years, I've been trying to break down barriers in my head and trying to figure myself out. My current project is, basically, the summation of that (but actually, this is the first time I've really thought of it like that).
I never really thought about gender to begin with, but when I did it seemed like I might not be cisgendered. I still don't know for sure either way.

Most of the project is about not being able to express myself, and not really being allowed an identity, not just at school but also at home. It's mostly all about my need for identity, and being rejected on all fronts. But it's also about eventually finding some kind of identity, and keeping it secret so that I won't be rejected again.
So what I'm currently writing and recording is basically my life story so far, wherein I get consistently rejected by most people, and hide my identity in order to avoid a worse life.

It's definitely possible that I just relate to transpeople in that way (even though there's not nearly as much of a risk if I "come out", about what I'm sure of, in my case). It's definitely possible that I'm a cisgendered man who has just experienced the need to hide his identity. But that still doesn't feel completely true.

So I don't know. Maybe I'm a man, maybe I'm a woman, maybe I'm neither, or somewhere inbetween.
Maybe I'll find out one day.

Wow, March really is when it all happens!

2011-03-28T15:31:00.005+01:00

And again, I'm (roughly) a week late for new Faefly-Records stuff.

Also, I'm approaching a quarter of the way through my current project. It's a heap of songs and other stuff.
I don't know when I'll be posting links here; maybe for each quarter, maybe when it's all done, maybe when it's halfway. I won't know until the moment. I can't tell when the best time would be. At the moment I'm thinking every quarter, but I might change my mind later.

Things are looking up! Or maybe reverse-gravity down.
Good either way.

This Time of Year is When Something New Starts Apparently

2011-03-08T05:33:00.002Z

I'm still alive. A lot has happened. Mostly thinking.

I don't really want to explain anything in this entry. It just seemed appropriate that I say something now.

The first whale, Winged, was started on March 9th 2009.
The second whale, Before Water, was last updated on March 8th 2010.
Now is the right time.

I feel like it's important to say that I did keep a journal of some sort throughout 2010. Full of thoughts I didn't (and still don't yet) want to share with anyone at all. Full of truths, as I was figuring out what they were.

Everything will be explained. Hopefully this year. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
This is something I need to get past.

I Forget for a Week and Look What Happens

2010-03-08T01:26:00.003Z

Wow. I forgot how much of a fan I was of Helen Trevillion. Ever since my old mp3 player broke I've been largely without her music. Holy crap that's half a year!

I just checked to see if the Faefly Records website is up yet, which is something I often forget to do, and it actually was up! There's not much there yet, but what there is is a music player with two pieces I'd never heard before. Magic!

Being Trans is Like Being a Vampire. No Really, Hear Me Out

2010-01-19T00:01:00.004Z

There's a show I watch that's about undead and related... things, called 'Being Human'. For the unlearned, it's about a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost living together in Bristol (I know, only one of them's technically undead. A werewolf is still alive and a ghost isn't undead). The show's all about dealing with being a vampire/werewolf/ghost, and trying to hide it in order to still be accepted in society. I was thinking about it last night... and then it hit me.

It's all about being in the closet. I can't tell if it was intentional, but it seems likely; the most recent episode had a gay vampire in it and the character was written to be felt sorry for, and then there's this series's villain who's Christian, quotes the bible, and thinks "beasts should be kept in cages".
All the main characters are cis and straight, but would it be less popular if they weren't? Yes. Yeah, that wasn't a rhetorical question. But the important thing is that it is popular, because despite there being no LGBT main characters, the writer has still found a way for it to be about being in the closet, and that's massively good. Now all we need are some more shows that express LGBT-related experiences without them being instantly noticeably LGBT-related.

My Goodness, a Second Post!

2010-01-04T00:51:00.003Z

I started this blog before I had anything at all to say.
I pretty much still don't have anything at all to say.

I'm going to grow a beard.
My reason: I can't be bothered to keep shaving!
Since I'm not out to anyone I ever see yet, there's no social-type reason why I shouldn't, and I just can't be bothered. Does anyone else find it even a little weird that hair grows out of your face?

Whale Genesis

2009-12-16T02:52:00.003Z

In the beginning of this fictional universe, there was nothing. The deity noticed this, and she created a whale. This whale didn't have a name, and probably never really had a meaning either. It was just "The Whale".
There was often speculation that the deity's physical form rode it around, but no one could ever back this theory up. Some people also held firm the belief that The Whale was the deity, but they were often shunned by everyone else, probably because the idea of a whale creating the universe is just kind of weird (but feel free to try it!). A few people even went so far as to say that The Whale was going to be the deity's dinner one night, but it escaped. These people were generally ignored, and with good reason.
None of these theories were correct, though. The truth is; The Whale was just supposed to be a pretty strange and funny thing, then someone noticed it and I guess it just sort of caught on... now it's a large part of some religions!
Despite all this wonder, despite all the confusion and despite the presumed awesomeness of the deity (...right?), The Whale is simply just a whale. A whale that doesn't need to eat or drink. A whale that can survive in space. A whale that's only barely affected by gravity. A whale that just hovers around the universe the whole time, seeing lots of things and usually making people happy. A whale. The Whale. The Whale before water.