it’s my birthday. i’m forty. before than i was thirty. before that, twenty; way before that, ten. astonishingly, before that, i was zero.
pretty much every year since october of 2004, i’ve been pretty sure i was going to die. from poverty, prejudice, or by my own hand.
i‘m not happy. but i’m here!
✖️
i feel like there’s very little to look forward to in however many years or decades i have left. i hate the country i live in — it’s trying to eradicate me. i hate the work i do, but if i stop, what’s left? i hate how little i’ve done with my time alive.
but i’m here for my people; to keep trying
✖️
and the thing is: before 2023, i wasn’t really me. i came out as trans in january, started minor hrt on 3/23/23, and finally increased my hrt doses with injections earlier this year.
through counseling and medicine i’ve found energy to do things i enjoy alone and with friends.
it’s not over!!!
✖️
so before i was forty, i turned three.
before i was zero, i didn’t exist and none of my joys or sorrows were anyone’s concern at all. at forty, that’s still mostly the case. but enough people care, so i choose to keep trucking.
might as well try to have fun!
✖️
before i was three, i was a long, perplexed series of events happening to someone who was supposed to be me, but could never really feel like it was real, that it would last, that it would matter.
my entire life was destroyed more than once through circumstance. poverty every year before 35.
🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
✖️
i exist in part because i can laugh, and because there are still people who like to laugh with me. some of them i just met this year.
i’m not any of the things i’d hoped to be. i’m not usually pleased with who i am. i may never become much more than i am.
but i’m different, and i’m choosing.
✖️
there’s no party planned. there aren’t many people i think would come if there was.
i’m just going to take a nice bath, go to rehearsal for my first play since i was eighteen, play valheim with friends i’ve played with since 2021.
i’m practically nobody, and that’s okay.
✖️
i live in hell, i’ve been cut off from most of the things i ever enjoyed about myself, but maybe i can keep finding & reconnecting. i’ve lost most of the friends i’ve ever had, because i was chaotic and occasionally and asshole when my feelings hurt too bad to contain.
i’ll keep trying to do better
✖️
it’s self-pitying. i feel my former friends and former family sneering at me for “still being like this,” when all i‘ve ever wanted to do was make people happy so i could be happy, too. i wanted to be respected, so i’d be listened to. i wanted to be an artist, to connect with others.
maybe i will!
✖️
mostly right now i want to make my living doing SOMETHING i don’t hate. something most people never find. i don’t think i deserve it any more than anyone else.
but i’d like it, nonetheless. most days i feel like i blew it, permanently. oh, well!
maybe i’ll be fifty, sixty? not better; not the same
✖️
if my thoughts and feelings disgust you or frustrate you: sorry! glad you can’t relate.
let’s all try our best to be good to each other, and lift each other up. it’s really all that matters!
✖️
My name is Nina Victoria Olivia Splendorr. I choose my name. I’m 40 leaps of faith old. I choose to leap again.