what we talk about when we talk about love
Over the course of my life, there was a lot of chronic illness. As I grew up sitting in waiting rooms, I also realized that I was waiting for something in my own identity.
“what we talk about when we talk about love” is about the things that we talk about when times get tough. It’s easier to talk about hospital sippy cups and green Jell-O than to talk about the emotional content of what’s actually happening.
The same was true early in my gender identity journey. As I was navigating space away from being perceived as a woman - albeit a woman who did not wear that box well - to my more masculine and gender bending truth, it was much easier for me to talk about buying and wearing a binder, struggling to make doctors appointments 6 hours from home, and deciding to inject testosterone. It was much harder to describe how much those things changed my outlook about myself and my ability to be present in the world. This piece is a timeline, a catalog, and nod to waiting, to speaking, and to silences.
