Unfortunately, my brick wall has become smaller over the years, or less high, with bricks softer in their sable paper texture, more dissolved overall. Some bricks have hidden, tiny holes the size of my little finger on my left hand, where I let some people in. Some people who get in, without a little struggle or time, can slowly sable the brick hole enough to make a small open door to create a vulnerable home for themselves. What is more vulnerable, the walls from the home or the feelings in my bones? It takes energy from their hands, fingers, and feet not to move too much, not to walk on egg shells, just to move in slow motion. Knowing where their body begins and ends to be able not to fall out of the room. Trying to balance their shape and create a larger space in the brick itself is a fragile exercise, but with effort, flexible fingers and soft, rough skin on the hands, you can manage. You are invited to be there. To stay, for a long time, for weeks, months, or years. They are not always regulars; sometimes they go on holiday, but they always come back. They have to be invited, always. Others have a special spot pre-booked for them with their bed, close to my heart, and they can give all the feedback about my behaviour or my personality without asking permission. The feedback has different categories and people who have a bed near my heart and a gold sticker on their chest can use all the feedback cards, like in board games. The different categories are: the answers, the caring, the unwanted, the loving, the risky, the challenging, and the unnamed.
Some people who have gained trust will have more than five gold stickers and can use a special power to take a brick out, to have a look at my inner landscape. With some special people, I will take down some bricks that are stacked near the wall in case my attachment style panics and my wall needs to be rebuilt, all or parts.The panic makes my hands freeze or fly and I get everything built in a rush, badly. It will fall down later. But sometimes the bricks go into the fire to heal, from the weight and not to disappear, but to remain in ashes, as a memory of the story.
My trust comes slowly for others, especially the kind of people with whom I choose to go on a romantic and/or sexual journey. Partners, anyone or someone from near or far that I have dated or seen. People who do not even see the brick wall in my landscape. To be fair, I have not shown them the growing plants and flowers that surround and grow on the wall. In times of healing, they sometimes grow discreetly in and between the bricks. The wall protected my home and my body. It cared for the water and the soil, so that the landscape would not dry out and I could live quietly and safely. It was only a small square in the corner that was dry when my friends took over the rest of the garden with a part of me that slowly grew a collection of tiny avocado plants. The plants that will grow into trees, but will never bear fruit. They will never be the right balance of sun and rain needed for the ecosystem to be fully nurtured. I have not yet done enough therapy to have a vision for my landscape in my present time. It is still blurry.
After sobriety, with visible and invisible disabilities, the tricks and hidden parts of me were no longer in place because I had run out of energy. Dating was not possible because I no longer had spoons to offer. Three options: run away, push away, or be vulnerable. Going into my forties, avoidance strategies and pushing away sounded a bit juvenile or too expensive for all my years of speaking therapy. I definitely did not want another trauma related illness; fibromyalgia was enough. Epilepsy slept on after my last episode, a month or two after I had stopped drinking. My body and my mental health could not cope with my self-medication strategies, only chaos came with them, playing a game with no rules to follow.
All this is my context to explain where I was in my early journey of quitting drugs and alcohol. What a challenge it was to decide to make no changes. No changes in friends. No changes in partners. No changes in acquaintances. No changes in hobbies. No changes in going out. No change of scenery. No change of habits. As Boris Johnson said: “Business as usual”. I went to hell, and not to heal. I damn well wanted to heal, but with no changes. I would rather find my dom energy right now, right then! I just found the masochist energy, right now! Putting myself in situations of craving and envy of deep clean and going and manic energies. I wanted to drink in the morning. I felt feelings that I had not had very often before I stopped. I drank and took drugs in the morning, sometimes, and nobody noticed. I cried for months and months. For years, I counted how much and when I drank, my paper diaries full of crosses to keep track. I can’t count, but I like to write. I like to have a system. I like to pretend to have some kind of control over myself, even when a system is draining me.
Before I knew it, it was time for me to calm down, to become real and to go into reality. To face all my fucking feelings and emotions. Too many feelings. Too many emotions. Too much everything. I wanted to sleep and waited in the comma, in the space in between. I just wanted to go on, to be in the future, to be two years later. Right now, I’m in early recovery, in early sobriety. What kind of idea was that? Going back is not possible because I will not be able to face it again. All the pain. All the misery. All the facing of myself. All the pain from before. To see myself. Realising how much I was not present during all this time. I do not regret it, but feeling it all feels better, especially when it is hard.
In this context, I started to think about other activities I could do that would not involve drinking, drugs, partying, so I thought about activities during the day where socialising or chatting was less likely to happen. Also, an activity that will involve queer people, but not the queer people I already knew. I also didn’t want any kind of homework or pressure involved. I was never good at commitment, which was the result of a childhood with a lot of structure and not a lot of chosen fun. I came across a new queer climbing group and decided to join.
I went to the first meeting. It was the first time I saw you. Hard not to. We didn’t get into chit chat, but we did have conversations about person-centred therapy, care, and tattoos. I found you weird, in a good way, and charming. I found you interesting. I wanted to see you again. I went climbing many times, but I never saw you. You were still in my mind. I met you at a dance festival near the theatre, months later. I found you shining and shy, waiting alone outside. I wanted to go up to you and say hello. I was shy, too. I was with a group of friends who were supposed to stop on their way out, so I thought I would be able to maybe say hello to you, a stranger who may not even remember me. The situation will be awkward.
I went home. I thought about you. I remembered all the similar situations in my life when I liked someone and did nothing. Worst of all, I watched myself do nothing, over and over again. There was this girl with middle brown hair in length and green eyes, in her twenties with a Swiss-German accent, whom I walked home, thinking I was not smart or interesting enough because she studied politics and I did not. Or a few years later, Noemie with blonde hair, who worked in care, and I thought not having enough experience with girls was a good enough reason not to ask her out. I often regretted not giving a try.
So this time, no regrets. I found you on Instagram and I look at all your stories and pictures to understand you and your life. If your social media was actually your life and not a superficial one … But I had no other way to know you. I couldn’t talk to you in person but in this way, I could flirt with you in a gentle way. I complimented you on your nice shirt, on this picture, where your brown hair blew in the wind. Later, we texted each other. I flirted with you more. Once you flirted back. I told you: I find you charming. We texted for about two months before our first date.
I made assumptions and I projected a lot of things onto you because I didn’t know you. I thought you were a masculine, sporty, hyper-energetic person, and reserved. All those images of you melted away quite quickly. I remember your first green flag. I thought about green flags for a long time after that. I never realised that it could be a thing, a green flag. I was the red flag specialist. The red flags of challenges. The red flags to see if there really is a danger. A red flag to see if we can paint it in other colours. A red flag because at least you know what you are getting. A red flag because why should it be different this time. A red flag because this is the habit. A red flag because my pattern knows the game. Red flags because I don’t think I deserve the other colours. A red flag because I don’t even really believe I can be in a romantic, committed relationship. A red flag because all my friends are greens. A red flag because how do you deal with a green?
Your first green flag for me was that you mentioned that you were polyamorous and married and that you did not want to waste my time in case what we were going to do was to go on a date. I was really happy when I got your text. I felt like an adult in front of another adult: the green flag. I am also polyamorous, not married but with a partner. I thought it was a really good start, all the cards on the table.
Our first date, we went to eat Thai food. We meet at the door, like a beginning. You were wearing yellow, my favourite colour. I almost chose yellow. The color has a name, but I do not like the sound of it. You are shiny, all yellow like a sunflower, your favourite flower. Sunflowers are also my favourite flowers, but I do not want to sound cheesy so I say nothing. Later, you explained the concept of your chosen clothes, including a long skirt that dances around you as your body spins like a top. I wanted to be your top. You had a big smile on your face and when you said hello, your cheeks got a little red and my heart started to melt. Your eyes watched the floor. I saw your shyness and the way your body shifted. I knew something special was happening. At this point, I did not know what, but I knew I did not want to miss it. I did not want to regret it. I wanted to take the risk of maybe getting my heart broken again, again, again. The possibility of falling in love again lingered in the back of my mind, waiting in the corner of my brain. The feeling that will grow until it is ready to shout out loud from the silence.
You talked about your relationship with your husband and how you are in love and in a partnership. Green flag. You told me about yourself, your body, where you grew up. I wondered if I could do this; it is not easy for me to talk about myself so early on. I felt how present you are. I have noticed the different colours in your eyes, but I am too shy to look into your eyes for long. My body is in pain and I hope we talk more than we walk. I want to know you. I want to know more about you. I always wanted to know you more, always and even now.
In my life, I have never dated people who were present like you are. Been in their bodies as you are. Connected to their feelings as you do. So, logically, it is not surprising that you have seen me, that you have seen me as no one else has seen me before. We are not talking about the honeymoon period, which in my case is not exciting, or I have simply never experienced it. We are not talking about love blindness. I am talking about a connection between people. You are a person who is interested in people – in their behaviour, in their souls. It is the core of who you are. You watched me closely and the first time I saw you watching me, I stopped. For the first time in my adult life, someone, you, was looking at me while I was fidgeting with a stimtoy. I asked you if you did this a lot, just watching me. You replied so honestly: “All the time. You are so cute”. I did not know what to say.
I knew that the combination of my being surrounded by love, by my friends, who give me dinosaur gifts because it is one of my special interests, and I congratulate them on their daily achievements in life with shiny stickers, was one of my experiences of being seen. My sobriety made a path through the grey clouds to you. You were on my path, encouraging me to embrace my autistic self, to share my growing gender euphoria with, through, our bodies and minds. Many green flags, but still work to do for us together and for each other, early on T, side by side, to start a new adventure.
A few years later, many stories told. Many fidget toys in many textures, with different
sounds and a variation of actions, some lost and some on adventures, receiving them as presents, from you, from my friends and from myself.
