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[aurora-diary]

Fury within, continued

July 25, 2020

I’ve been reflecting on a quote from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. 

“You’re worth more than what you can give to other people. You deserve love, too.” 

Where do I even begin? I should probably explain why these words resonate with me so much and why I find them so important. There are despicable people in positions of power and influence in this world. Their failure to uphold basic human decency has encouraged and empowered ignorant degenerate bigots to crawl out of their sewers. They cannot be reasoned with and they mindlessly worship the ground their false idols walk on. They threaten the lives of innocents, pretend to be victims, and refuse to acknowledge truths and reality. 

In truth, there are two pandemics going on right now - one with a deadly virus and the other with ignorance. This year has had me spiral down into a dark place. A bestial rage consumes me everyday. I feel powerless to do anything. Each second that passes in which I wasn’t actively overthrowing the evil powers of the world made me just as bad as them in my eyes. Why should I enjoy a peaceful privileged life while there so any people out there suffering? 

Any sort of self-care, I would deem selfish. I was so concerned and putting others first, I forgot to take care of myself. My physical and mental health declined. But in my dark place, Sophia descended. I deserve happiness to. The film Me, Myself & Irene put it perfectly:

“If you can’t deal with your own problems, well, it’s hard to deal with others.”

If we don’t respect the small, we don’t deserve the big.

[aurora-diary]

Fury Within

July 22, 2020

There is a fire that burns deep in the core of my being. It is fury and rage. It is a savage beast that rages like a wildfire and lacks rational thought. When those furnaces blast, I feel as though my body is consumed in flames. From my limbs spout plumes of toxic smoke and from my orifices pour and sputter molten lava. It is a feeling I don’t enjoy having. It is hard to control, but I do manage to do it better than most. I manage to avoid expressing the full extent of it on the physical plane, unlike some who might devolve into a shouting barbarian drunken with berserker rage. But the emotion still eats away at me. I’d rather not have it and trade it in for calm levelheadedness. But I must learn to understand that anger exists for a reason.

I had a dream not too long ago in which I saw a skeleton engulfed in flames. Its visage still haunts me. It said “Ixion knows me as the wheel. Sisyphus knows me as the hill and boulder. Tantalus knows me as the water and fruit. I am Hell on Earth”. It was angry that it was being denied entrance into world.

Anger, broadly put, exists as a reaction to an offense. But the anger I want to talk about is the one that debilitates me the most. The fires of my rage are stoked by injustice. I would describe this feeling as ‘weltschmerz’ – meaning the depression one feels when the world doesn’t reflect what you think it should be; a feeling of melancholy and world-weariness. The difference being that what I feel is not a sadness, but a rage. Perhaps there’s a more precise word, but that will do for now. Nothing triggers me more than injustice. It doesn’t matter if these transgressions are against me or others, whether they be near or far, past or present, real or fiction. I’m a firm believer that people shouldn’t do bad things to other people who don’t deserve it. It’s unfair and wrong.

The wonders of modern technology allow me to view the injustices of the world from the palm of my hand. Daily, I am troubled by scenes of police brutality, political corruption, bigotry, systemic oppression, corporate depravity, abuse, sexual assault, and don’t get me started on late-stage capitalism. Anti-maskers, transphobes, and Trump and his Gestapo are just a few of the atrocities currently sickening me. I feel powerless and helpless to eradicate these issues. The fire inside me leaves me a burnt-out husk.

These things aren’t right. They shouldn’t be. I’ll be so bold as to say they are evil. I can’t ignore these injustices, that wouldn’t be right either. Even though burying my head in the sand would put my mind at ease, that wouldn’t be fair. Why do I care so much? Especially injustices that have nothing to do with me. I’ll tell you why. Even though these atrocities aren’t happening me, they might as well be. I am but a jewel on Indra’s Net, as are we all. These things are happening in the world, and the last time I checked, I happened to be a part of that world.

If I could, I would punish all the evils of the world with a snap of my fingers. Torment them until they learn their lesson and usher in peace on Earth. But that’s unrealistic. I need to find healthy ways to manage my anger and realistic ways I can help make the world a better place. I need to find a way to not have my burnouts extinguish my hope and passion. A friend of mine once said that I focus too much on the big picture. While reflecting on those words, I recall a story taught to me as a child in school. Loren Eiseley’s Starfish story. I can’t fix everything, but that doesn’t invalidate what I am able to accomplish. I can make a difference to an individual at a time. Every little bit helps – and if we don’t respect the small, we don’t deserve the big.

In the television adaption of Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods, Anansi says “Angry is good. Angry gets shit done.” And honestly, I couldn’t agree more. Anger should be used as a drive towards progress. In truth, I fear anger. It likely originated when I was a child. Whenever my parents exploded in anger, I would tremble. And now I become stressed and upset whenever my friends get remotely angry about something. A part of me says that people would be better off if we didn’t have anger – but I know that’s wrong. We should work to direct our anger in productive ways and towards outcomes where peace and love prevails.

“I don’t do this to change the country, I do this this so the country doesn’t change me.” -AJ Muste

[aurora-diary]

A SELF-REFLECTION OF MY GENDER IDENTITY

July 12, 2020

Sometimes I will catch myself staring at beautiful women out in public – not out of lust, but envy. I would imagine being in their bodies; having their skin, their hair, their curves, their beauty…but something inside me, some sort of shame or decency instilled in me during my childhood, kept me from lingering on it for too long. Or at least, it tried. It was a harmless idea that became the subject of many engaging fantasies in my imagination.

When I was a kid, my sister played a game where she put me and my brothers in dresses. I remember feeling strange and excited with the idea of it. I would endeavor to recreate and explore this feeling. When the house was empty or my family was fast asleep, I would stealthily try on more of my sister’s clothes. I was never caught in the act, but my mother suspected what I was doing and scolded me. This didn’t stop me, but it definitely instilled the idea that what I was doing was deviant and creepy. I even became embarrassed to be seen watching “girly” cartoons, keeping my love for shows like Sailor Moon and Kim Possible a secret from my family out of fear of being ridiculed.

In the seventh grade, I wrote a short story about a boy being transformed by a god-like entity and discovering that he liked being a girl. My teacher found the story in my desk and read it, resulting in me being sent to the principle’s office and having my mother called. This incident still bothers me to this day.

By my teenage years, I came to believe that these reoccurring fantasies were nothing more than some sort of paraphilia and linked it to my transformation fetish. During this time, I began to research into LGBTQ+ topics and by the end of high school, I started to question my gender identity and sexual orientation. After I moved out and began living on my own, I became more comfortable with exploring these areas of myself. I started to occasionally cross-dress around my residence and even came out as pansexual to my friends.

 As for my gender identity, I wasn’t exactly sure. I didn’t exactly feel like I was one-hundred percent cisgender. I felt like I was some gender-neutral spirit inhabiting a male body. I briefly considered that I was possibly genderfluid, but scrapped that in favour of agender, later preferring to identify myself with the broader umbrella terms nonbinary and genderqueer.

As of the past few months, a new consideration came to mind. Was I, perhaps, transgender? I considered the evidence. Cisgender people certainly didn’t fantasize about being the opposite sex. Most of the characters I played as in tabletop roleplaying games were female. I got some small amount of joy being called “one of the girls” by my female friends and being accidently misgendered with female pronouns by my Filipino coworkers who were still new to English. My friend Hazell once told me that I radiated “sapphic energy”, noting that she saw I had a “different sort of appreciation for the female form”.

When I look into the mirror, I don’t see myself staring back at me. I see a stranger, somebody else’s body. I see the visage of a wirry-cow or lubber fiend, with its hairy face, broad shoulders, and balding hair line. I used to think it was just vanity or self-esteem issues, but I’ve come to understand it as body dysmorphia. When I was a kid, I once thought about potentially getting a sex change one day, but quickly dismissed it in fear of what my family would think. I fear that if I transitioned, I would have regrets. What if I would just look like a gross parody of a woman? What if I wasn’t really transgender? I have a deep-seated disgust for ugliness and cringe that’s difficult for me to shake off. Perhaps I simply wanted to dissociate myself form being a straight cisgender male in fear of being demonized, so I convinced myself I was something I wasn’t?  No, that last one is definitely ridiculous. 

There is no shame in exploring who you are. I felt a little ashamed when trying on different genders and pronouns to see which ones would fit, but my friends were nothing but supportive. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

[aurora-diary]

Introduction

My name is Aurora, and I’m an artist and storyteller from Central Ontario. On my twentieth birthday, my friend Nova gifted me a brown leather-bound journal with a quote from JRR Tolkien inscribed on its front cover -

“Not all who wander are lost”

For five years it went unused. Not that I didn’t try. One can easily see all the false starts I had and torn out. This wasn’t due to a lack of things to write about, but simply an indecision on what subject was worthy enough to be held within its pages. The journal was beautiful and sentimental to me, and using it as some trifling dollar store notebook to jot grocery lists down in would feel insulting. 

Hoping to escape the sullen melancholy I found myself in, I left my job of nearly five years and got myself a new one. Then came the Pandemic. And not too long after came that crestfallen day. No job, no self-esteem, no future, nowhere to go, I plunged deeper into that dark place of mine. I count myself blessed to have such good friends. My dear friend Hazell recommended a mental health service, and from there my therapist recommended I keep a journal. And so, the journal that was gifted to me nearly half a decade ago was finally put to use.

Sometimes I forget things. This journal serves to make sure I don’t forget myself or the progress that I’ve made.