Desire

I’ve thought a lot about my desire and the nature of it – how it manifests itself, what it means to me, how I claim it and thus satisfy it. It is in some ways more mysterious now than before, which is odd given my new found proclivity to self-expression, outing, and the like. But here is what I think I really know.

I’m pretty well settled on the idea of “being both genders”. That is new to me, but I feel it deeply. At times, I feel a strong male force, at other times a strong female force. These manifest differently, and the nexus of my desire is surely mediated by how that force feels within me at a given moment. There was a time when being bisexual seemed to be “it”, and all that flowed from that felt like it was the real me. But of late, that sometimes seems more an ideology than a claimed, real identity, so I’ve let a lot of that go. I just don’t have a lot of interest in subscribing to ideologies. Being both is nice. I simply feel what I feel internally and enjoy the variety of expressions that can emerge. It only becomes a bit of a problem when I feel constraints: social, political, etc. There really are times when that expression must take a back seat to other concerns. But this too has not been a bother. I am secure in self-knowledge, at least along gender identity lines..

Things get decidedly more muddied once I step into the realm of my actual physical desires. On the one hand, I can easily apply the feeling of who I am at the moment to a thought process that lets me exercise those desires in my head. At the same time, it is not at all clear to me that I know what I want, or what is most deeply satisfying to me. That word – satisfy – is a problem. It is not simply “getting off”. I can do that alone and at times it is what I need. “Satisfy” often feels like a two-way street, something that depends on the ability to connect with a partner, deeply, and to have a chance to really let my duality out of the box, so to speak.
I think I have recognized that, to date, there has never been a physical experience that has really touched me inside in a way that speaks to the idea of “satisfy”. It’s not that those encounters I have had have somehow been deficient or wrong, or that the partners I’ve been with have been insufficient. It is more like there is a gap between what I am actually able to manifest as the whole me at that moment and the physical experience itself that I am having. As I think back on the many experiences I have had, I realize that many of them have been very strong and deep, but that no single experience comes close to reaching inside the whole me. The problem is I have no clear sense of what such an experience might even look like (or even if such experiences can exist at all). And, to further complicate things, I think it is possible that each encounter is, in part by it’s very nature (that of two or more together trying to encounter themselves through others), inherently self-limiting, that it will never be “complete” in the sense of meeting my (or others in that particular encounter) deeper desires. I’m not positive about this, of course, but it seems like this is a strong possibility. What, if anything, can be done?

One aspect of my desire in the context of it being a shared experience is that it seems inherently a matter of compromise. Unless we can truly claim to know ourselves in a way that facilitates that true deep connection (and if we cannot really know it alone, by ourselves, can we hope to know it in a shared context, in others?) then the process must somehow involve, even demand, give and take. To a certain extent, this seems likely to mean that one or more of the involved parties will be doing something that they don’t necessarily want to do. This is a decidedly gray line, broad and fizzy, because doing something one might not want to do is not always a matter of against one’s will entirely. And besides, the whole point of top/bottom, dominant/submissive is that same against the will thing. I’m not at all sure where any of this might lead, and it surely problematizes the matter. The best one can say, I guess, is that “against the will” is both a matter and willingness of clear communications and of negotiation.

Reflections

It's been a really bumpy month. Following a really nice visit with my sister right after Christmas, I returned and got hammered by a flu. In very short order thereafter, I then wound up getting results from a doctor visit that were not so fun: I have bladder cancer. He insisted on doing the surgical stuff right away - which wound up being immediately prior to an already planned and paid for visit to my brother.

But in I went. And it was not fun. I was in the hospital for 5 days. They removed a largish tumor from the bladder, put me on a drip, added a catheter. I began a recovery process that was, to say the least, memorable. I wound up with something called 'ilius', a condition fairly common in patients who get full anesthesia, whereby your entire intestinal and digestive system simply go to sleep. This is a miserable fucking experience. You blow up like a balloon. You have to walk to "wake it up". You stop eating real food. When things do start happening, which for me was SLOW, the results are not fun either. Let's just say that I was thinking that all that methane? Mighta helped alleviate the energy crisis. I did begin to pull out of this, but that was after a serious nose dive into a black hole - I was really wanting a DNR, and they finally sent in an advocate who talked me off the ledge. Over the 5 days, I did recover, but it was hard. I would up also with a really painful area in my left groin, sort of like having a knife shoved in there. IT's now numb, and feels like a cut, but isn't. It's very disconcerting, to say the least.

And I did, obviously, survive that hospital stay.

I now have 6 chemo treatments coming up. Then I have a recheck (they drive yet ANOTHER school bus up my peepee and look around!) in June or July. The prognosis seems to be good now, but this will be a lifelong thing for me. I've also realized that, among the options for more serious cases in which, well, it gets nasty, I have decided I will not go to that extreme. When the body is that far gone - it's time. I'm not there now, and may never be, but this experience does cause some deep reflection.

The emotional fallout is really hard too. I was really taken aback when X was the person who figured out I needed serious help and called in the advocate. She was impressive and sat with me the whole next day. I also got wonderful support from others- CPG, BTB, Bro, Sis, -and all of that is deeply felt. The odd part about the emotional stuff, though, started after it was over.

It's not uncommon either. I feel defective. Damaged. Broken. There is no scar, but my head is not clear on this at all. I'm only missing "sick" parts of me, but I feel like I lost something larger. I was really scared about sex, and that whole part of my self-identification fell apart. It's only now beginning to recover.

I've since had conversations with sis (breast cancer survivor), a dear friend (wife survived Hodgkins AND breast cancer) and found that this post operative emotional scarring is common. It was really powerful to get to know my sister on that level - I'd know about her cancer, of course, but not about the post stuff, the numbness, the feeling of being broken. It's really odd and at times I feel I am coming apart, that life is over, why bother.

Then I have some good conversation, or a hug or a kiss and feel a little more whole again. It's hard all around. I don't want to be a burden to others. And I sure don't want pity per se. But I also know I need emotional support, and getting it is maybe more important than anything. It helps me normalize my life again, it is an outlet for odd, new feelings.

To the many in my life who have touched me: thank you. It's been a powerful healing process.

I'm not done with this. But at least for now, I seem to be ahead of it.

And one thing I did really get from the hospital stay.... There's a lot of stuff in life that's important. But, most of it is UNimportant. You learn, deeply, what matters. You learn to reach out for that and hold on to it. That matters. All that other crap? Doesn't matter.