#he's literally gay too + so supportive of my transition what if I exploded

[brother-genitivi]

omfg send help I am crushing BADLY on one of my classmates (let's call him actor boy) because I was having an overwhelmed moment and he gave me a huG AND I JUST- I need to act normal but I am fAILING BADLYJWJQIJCJQLCJAKS

[hjemne]

Thinking about my queer telenovela Trigun WIP again, and I'm still not sure about to what extent it's a good idea to write Wolfwood as recently having left the church after coming to terms with the fact he's gay, and so has little experience with the queer community. Currently in my plan, Wolfwood starts off not really knowing anything about what it means to be trans and he is still working to unpack the homophobic Christian teachings he's internalised. He ends his years-long relationship with Milly and then meets Vash & it's his confirmation that yes okay he is definitely gay. Wolfwood doesn't know Vash is trans for a while, and Meryl is stressing out during that time because she's worried about how this recently Christian man with a limited understanding of transness might react to the guy he's been crushing on not being cis (Vash, her friend, who's been through enough already and who she wants to look out for). Meryl doesn't really know Wolfwood, and the worry is partly coming out of her habit of catastrophising, and Milly knows Wolfwood very very well and has full faith that he wouldn't be a dick about Vash being trans. But idk if I should cut these scenes because they're Too Much. For plot reasons the girls can't properly communicate with either Wolfwood or vash btw. My point is to show that Meryl is also unlearning stereotypes and her immediate assumptions about people, but I'm not sure if that justifies bringing up the fear of transphobia in a fanfic

Wolfwood finds out when he and Vash are finally about to hook up, and it takes him a moment to work through the initial surprise and confusion before going 'you're literally a man and I'm so attracted to you I think my dick might explode but also I have zero concept of what a trans man is so you might have to gimme some pointers on how this all works.' So basically there's a moment where Wolfwood is processing Vash being trans, and Vash is a little wary of him & how he'll react, but that moment almost immediately passes and then it's a case of Wolfwood being uninformed but very enthusiastic to learn.

I think it's important for me to show a character deconverting and the fact that when you deconvert you have to unlearn and relearn so many different things, but also I'm not sure whether it's a good idea for a plot point to be 'is Wolfwood going to hatecrime Vash?'.

I'd love to get some more perspectives on this. The fic setting and tone is (at the moment) fairly realistic so I don't think this would be a super weird tonal shift. In the fic the world is unfair and harsh but can be beautiful when people love and care for one another. Theres big plot points about how social and economic inequalities impact people & how people react & survive when pushed to the margins of society etc.

More things I'd like to discuss under the cut <33

Id also appreciate advice on how to write about Vash & Knives' transition. In my current plan, they were adopted by Rem and were both fairly erratic as kids bc they had trauma around something relating to Tesla (can't decide what exactly without bringing the tone massively down). Rem fully backs them when they transition (although she & knives get into a fight over him giving himself knives as his legal name) and I want to emphasise how positive the process of transitioning was for them. V+K get closer through it and knives gets a supportive group of friends which is particularly important because he's the more unstable one. But then there's tension between knives and rem because rem isn't the no 1 fan of some of his new friends (legato + elendira) and knives gets increasingly volatile as he refuses to process his trauma and his worst habits are enabled.

I think I want to say that Knives then causes an accident which kills Rem and injures Vash, but idk whether he does this deliberately, fully accidentally, or because he's experiencing a mental health crisis. Any thoughts about how to handle this would be super useful 🙏 Otherwise I might say that there was a car crash / other random accident, and that this was the tipping point because Knives can't handle being the only one to walk away without a scratch. Either way, Knives then disappears and Vash is trying to track him down and help him when Vash & Wolfwood meet in the main plot timeline.

The main plot is around Wolfwood trying to find Livio despite him having been declared dead after he ran away from their orphanage a few days after Wolfwood was kicked out and was never seen again (&so WW blames himself for Livios disappearance). WW eventually finds LR, who has been living under the name Razlo and avoided being found BC they actually ran away because their birth parent was released from prison and they FREAKED at being forced to go live with them again. LR has been forced into incredibly shit and precarious work because they have no legal identity or protection which is being taken advantage of by chapel. WW and LR bond and WW convinces and helps them to get away from chapel & get themselves un-declared dead. LR has met both Vash and Knives at various points (helped Vash w his t shot in a diner bathroom. this is also how he and Meryl met) and eventually Vash bumps back into WW, and they find Knives with LR's help, and everyone's happy. Milly and Meryl have gotten together during all this, and all 6/7(?) of them move in together because I make the rules and want them to be happy. Knives (& razlo tbh) gets the support and stability he's needed and is doing much better. Wolfwood gets to live with his bff Milly but can be out and proud. He probably proposes to Vash within the year. Vash & Wolfwood both have their brothers back and a family again. LR get official legal status again and change their last name to Razlo to separate them fully from their birth family. Milly and Meryl are the sweetest couple known to mankind and Meryl is welcomed into Milly's big Christian family. Will knives and LR get together? Haven't decided. But I think they would get on super well. And probably hook up. Also it's very important that you know that Wolfwood used to be a youth pastor in a church while with miss Melanie (who raised him in a Christian orphanage). Melanie cries when she sees LR again, and gives Wolfwood away when he and Vash get married.

[rahullkohli]

okay, so, for the headcanon thing and because i'm too lazy to write this myself, BUT, consider: they get dave to the modern timeline through Plot Convenience, and he and Klaus attend pride, which is simply Mindblowing to Dave, this sweet guy coming from such a place of social prejudice and homophobia, who's seeing all this overwhelming positivity and support and love out there in public in all its colours, and is just... shocked. essentially, dave crying from joy & holding klaus' hands a lot

i am so sorry this took me a while to get to, but i think about this scenario a lot, and i have to put this under a cut because it turned into 1.3k words of dave experiencing a whole new world.

okay i know that i am completelyminority here, but i don't feel like klaus is the kind of guy whoneeds to flaunt his sexuality. tbh i don't even think he even thinksabout it. i think he mostly just gets with whoever he is attracted to(or can offer him a warm bed or a couch for some time) regardless ofgender. so to me klaus doesn't go to pride for the community, or forthe social aspect. whenever klaus has gone to pride it has been tofill his needs for alcohol, drugs, sex and because pride is fuckingloud.

but then dave is there in the moderntimeline with him, and even though klaus is like ”this is dave,he's my guy, we're a thing, you shut up” to his siblings, dave isstill closeted. dave has been closeted his whole life because heliterally didn't have a choice. and the changes from his timeline toklaus' are an extreme culture shock. klaus' wardrobe alone is enoughto make him need a stiff drink and a moment to clear his head. davewasn't exactly a hippie back in the sixties, and he never really hadmuch to do with them back then. and it's confusing, and he is havinga really hard time. and klaus isn't the most evolved when it comes totalking about feelings, because who the hell would have taught himthat? old reggie? i think not! he's done it in rehab, and grouptherapy in prison, but he always followed up with sarcastic remarks,and he is not about to do that to dave. so instead klaus sits withhim, tells him he doesn't have to be out until he feels like it'sright, and that it all comes down what dave needs. but he also tellsdave about all the good progress the lgbt community has seen sincethe 60s. and then he tells dave about pride – how we have an entiremonth to raise awareness and remember our history. he tells daveabout how pride is a place where nobody cares, where everyone ishappy, and even closeted people get to be themselves for at least acouple of hours because at pride eveeryone is themselves. and klausshows dave pictures and videos from pride, videos of drag queensperforming, and boys kissing boys, and girls kissing girls. picturesof colorful floats and huge, hairy guys in thongs and colorful boasaround their necks.

so they decide to go. dave hesitant,and klaus promises that they don't have to do anything, they can justwatch from the sidelines. klaus even wears pants and a full lengtht-shirt with sleeves and everything to make dave feel as neutral aspossible as they're on the bus to the nearest big city where thefestivities are going down.

and when they arrive it's big, andpompous, and it's colorful. and it's so happy! the energy is booming,and there are so many smiles. big men are making out, unashamed, inthe middle of the city square. women with buzzcuts are holding handsand looking each other in the eyes like they're seeing the sun forthe first time. drag queens taller than dave are dancing in thehighest heels he has ever seen, and teenagers whose genders davecan't even figure out are laughing so hard they can barely stand.there are so many people, and literally every one of them is lookinghappy, and content, and excited.

the air is exploding with love, and forthe first time in the entire time they have known each other, klausfeels dave carefully lace their fingers together in front of otherpeople. and he can't stop grinning, and he so want a drink right now,but he also wants to keep his head clear in case dave getsoverwhelmed. but as a float marked gay soldiers do it better filledwith ripped guys in army pants passed them, dave inches closer tohim, and when klaus looks at him he sees tears in his boyfriend'seyes. so klaus squeezes his hand and dares to move closer.

”everyone is just so happy. andopen,” dave says, but he can't pull his eyes away, and klaus isn'tabout to be the one to break the spell for him. so instead he juststands there, letting dave digest it all, take it all in as much ashe can handle. klaus never considered himself closeted, and he neverfelt like he had to come out to anyone either. it wasn't like hisfamily even cared whether he was alive or dead, so why should hebother to feel like he owed them that part of himself? but it was abig deal to dave, and klaus was not about to take that away from him.

so they spend the whole day in the citysquare. klaus meets former drinking buddies and people he used to domolly with. he meets at least eight different people he has sleptwith, and dave is overwhelmed by how klaus isn't gay or straight butsomething entirely different. but dave is polite and greets everyone,even if he doesn't like the idea of anyone else having ever touchedklaus the way he gets to. he watches klaus dance with other people,and listens to him have conversations that he knows are in englishbut doesn't make the tiniest bit of sense to him. but he doesn'tmind; dave enjoys seeing klaus having a good time, and he likes to beon the sideline to observe without having to put himself in themiddle of it, and he tries not to blush whenever klaus proudlyintroduces him to whoever comes their way, or whenever other mencalls him cute in front of other men. so he holds klaus' hand, andevery time klaus has been wandering off and comes back, he pullsklaus just a little bit closer than he previously has allowed himselfin public.

and they stay the whole day, over theevening, and even though dave's head is pounding from all the loudmusic and the sun baking down on them for hours, he wouldn't want itany other way. his heart has been feeling like it was going to poundright out of his chest the entire day, and he has been scared todeath since before they even left the house, but now that it's darkand the music is transitioning to slower beats, there's no place davewould rather be.

slowly he gathers up his courage to lethis arms wrap around klaus, even though they are surrounded bystrangers. but everyone seems focused on their own moment, and withcouples dancing around them dave tells himself that this is as good amoment as any, and with klaus' arms softly around him he starts tosway, letting them blend in with the other couples moving to the softtunes. and when klaus rest his cheek on his shoulder, dave's stomachdoes a small jump, but he doesn't fight it, and allows his own torest against klaus' messy curls as they are swaying in place.

it's terrifying, and dave is constantlyexpecting someone to come attack them, but then he watches the othercouples around them, and reminds himself to breathe. so he squeezesklaus tighter and takes his hand, dancing like the slow dances he didwith girls in high school, where he used to close his eyes andimagine it was a cute boy, but he never would have imagined that hewould actually get to have a dance like that with someone thatactually made his heart flutter like klaus does. but here he is;fireworks popping over their heads, and a sweet pop song playing overthe biggest speakers he has seen in his life. and he's with klaus. sonothing else matters.

[shadovvlink]

angsty trans/gay rant

like a lot of people are saying they wouldnt be cis assigned gender and/or het if they could choose and. i super admire that and im happy that they can be in a place where theyre happy with who they are and not ashamed of themselves but. i would. i really fucking would. like i will stand up for ppls rights to be able to come out in a safe & supportive environment where they dont have to be shamed for being themselves til my dying breath because they deserve those good things.

but that doesnt mean i will do those things for myself. i would still rather be a cishet girl whos uncomfortable with her body rolls and a bit too depressed to do anything about it than. idk a gay trans guy whos so ashamed and disgusted with himself that it took him years to come out. to a family that claims theyre supportive but are now trying to convince him hes either spending too much time online, letting his hyperempathy get the better of him for people who actually live through that, (implying) hes just faking it to make it seem more real to him or just psychotic to the point that he lost his grip on the difference between delusion and reality. just basically trying to tell him hes not clear in the head, and telling him that if there is literally absolutely no other way out, they will let him transition. and having most of his depression stem from his body dysphoria. even though there are clear underlying issues.

ofc i know lgbt is an ok thing to be. i get so happy when ppl refer to me as male even tho i feel so much shame and self hate for making people cater to my needs at the same time. but i would rather be a cishet girl who just used to have a problem with bullying and a few abusive friends than have yet 15 more added on layers that make it so bad that i literally cant think of any other way out than to slowly kill myself either by drinking, cutting, or just end it outright and never let my issues be known to anybody. going back to therapy can only help for so long and i already bring enough shame to them by that as is.

i fucking hate causing my parents and brother this much trouble and forcing them to go through yet more things because of me. i shoud never have come out and instead just stayed in the closet and waited for this to pass. i should never have bought a binder in the first place and instead just quietly waited for this to end. but i literally just couldnt wait anymore when i was pretty much forced to come out bcus i was so upset at this point that i felt i was going to either explode or die if i kept this to myself and my circle of friends. even if i had a panic attack before telling them. and everyone around focuses specifically on the ppl regretting transitioning and are trying to tell me that basically nothing will change. my brother knows someone who went through this first hand and tells me its ok to be a masculine girl even when i told him that it just isnt enough anymore. thats great. its also the last thing i need to hear.

im really happy that i have lgbt friends that can be themselves comfortably and not hate themselves for being lgbt constantly. its so good to see them walk forwards in life with pride even when im right here wishing i wasnt myself and wishing i was literally anything else because its so much easier and i feel so weak because of it i feel like a quitter

on my period and thats probably whats making me so upset abt this but im so angry and tired of constantly being shoved back in the closet under the guise of focusing on my happiness first and people telling me how long it will take to transition and do everything and constantly repeating “but what if halfway through you realize its not The Thing™?” and how much transitioning costs the state. and just constantly trying to make me doubt myself again and again when i just keep realizing after a while that it hurt me more than it did good. and each time it just gets worse. i dont want this either, you know!!!!! id rather not have these issues more than anyone!!!!! id rather fucking die than be like this!!!!!!!! theres nowhere to vent this but here i dont know if i can trust anyone irl anymore because its just false hope on top of false hope getting crushed time and time again but i know i just cant keep clinging to things with online friends. idk i guess im just. so used to keeping things to myself i guess.

idk im just nauseous becuase of my body but i cant drink or cut because i will just get in trouble again and i cant go to any websites because nothing helps.

thinking about my body makes me crazy. trying not to think about my body makes me crazy. trying to keep myself from thinking abt having sex with men (because lets be real thats never going to happen irl) is making me crazy. trying to think about transitioning makes me crazy. talking to my parents about me getting help for this in some kind of way is making me feel like im literally 5 minutes away from being completely delirious because they make me feel like im just hallucinating this entire ordeal and deluding myself into thinking that i must be trans being the solution. i know theyre trying to focus on my happiness. i know theyre trying to make me more levelheaded about this and think rationally about what transitioning will really do to me. idfk im just a textbook crazy at this point. i dont even know anymore.

dont even make me start with being gay haha thats just a whole nother layer of bullshit and shame i dont want my parents to go through because of me.

idk i m nto meant to be crying but ut hurt sso much

[raitchparker]

February 12, 2017

Normalizing Illness in the Age of Not-Normalizing T****

During these early days of President 45 (I won’t write his  name), it’s very hard to remember that there is anything else do to, to write, to discuss. It’s only been three weeks. It’s been my privilege as a white person to live most of my life in relative comfort. I’ve known, of course, that people of color, especially queer people (I’m from the 90s and I still like that word) and women, live in a different universe and always have. 

We are all now, as a country, the patient who wakes up in the burn unit, scarred, in unthinkable pain, wondering where her beauty went. We are all huddled together, listening to the doctors who are telling us that the beauty, the very skin-deep kind we knew was relative anyway, may never come back the way it was before. We know we are going to be scarred. We just don’t know where or how badly. We don’t know which scars are bound for permanence. 

Yet, we are disfigured. We are all on the same foot now. The words of James Baldwin, James Brown, and Angela Davis have come flooding back into the now, slamming into the faces of white people everywhere, reminding us all that they’ve been telling us who we are for years. The most accepting of us, those of us who have been living even the most open of lives for years, who have held the hands of people of color as lovers and friends, supported our gay, lesbian, and transgender brothers and sisters step into the light into safe spaces, we are left feeling like nothing we’ve done ever amounted to enough.

So, I stopped writing creatively mostly during this time. A rhino horn pierced what was left of my broken heart. I’ve probably written somewhere on this very site about the dangers of being frozen with grief. It is no way to live. Since Herbert became ill and since our money troubles started in L.A., I’ve been alternately frozen or thawing myself out. This, I realize, is what it means to normalize illness. 

There is a huge, empty, dismembered cardboard carton sitting in our entry hallway, engulfing it, really, that held within it a treadmill that Herbert now uses every day in lieu of onsite therapy at the hospital. Were we in a different phase of our lives, Herbert would have already broken it down and taken it to the trash. We would have already carefully separated recyclable from trash. It would be gone.

Instead, it sits like an abstract effigy of both of us. It took our friend helping us get the massive thing into the house. He stayed through the afternoon and helped us unpack the treadmill and set it up. I would have been helpless to do that alone, and Herbert is at least from a physical standpoint, utterly helpless in general. That same week, my sweet Cassidy and charming baby Dot took me to IKEA where I finally invested some $200 in shelving to replace the metal shelves the movers lost. Those now sit, unassembled, in the living room because, if anyone knows IKEA furniture, it’s not something that anyone should attempt solo. There are just some things in life that, for me, are two-person jobs and putting together IKEA bookshelves is surely one of them. 

So, I’ve got all these piles around the house that are reminders of what we can and can’t do in a timely way right now. I can do the following with some regularity (thankfully thankfully thankfully):

Buy all our food

Write mind-numbingly boring content about office products in exchange for a meager amount of money

Write not-nearly as mind-numbing blogs for somewhat more money

Cook everything we eat except Herbert’s breakfast turkey patties which he makes himself

Make all the key financial decisions for our household because that’s not Herbert’s thing and, even if it was, he gets tired when he takes a shower now, so...

Go to at least one political action per week (last week: visiting Claire McCaskill’s office in the City and pleading with her staffer)

Ponder why I still haven’t taken the dog to get his nails trimmed

Read. Read more. So much reading. We have so much reading to do every day now

Keep the house clean

Do all the laundry

Listen to my husband cough, watch him struggle, and remind myself that we’ve come to the spot in the road where I can’t drop everything and cry all the time anymore.

Normalizing illness isn’t any more normal than this president is. They are both equally challenging in completely different ways. I question my ability to handle them simultaneously. Herbert’s disease and our nation’s woes are both unstoppable freight trains of shitty. Both are completely indifferent to my pain, and yet they are both destroying things that I, without hesitation, love more than anything. 

I am normalizing the illness because I have no choice. I do, of course, still have moments of terrible grief. However, because Herbert doesn’t melt into self-pity and sadness at every turn, I can’t either. It’s his body failing him, after all. If he can hold it down, the least I can do is the same. 

Here’s an example: treadmill day was busy. Our friend, Herbert’s able-bodied friend from North Carolina who happens to live in Wildwood (a blessing of a wild coincidence in a terrifying year) also helped us schlep what was left of our steel bookshelves to a scrap metal yard (so, yes, at least we disposed of them responsibly, dammit). It was the only cold day we’ve had in weeks (it snowed a bit) and we were expecting our treadmill to arrive at a FedEx center near us so we went to lunch. After we ate, Herbert’s friend single-handedly loaded the human-sized cargo into his truck, unloaded it for us, helped me take it out of the carton, and kept Herbert company while I slogged through the horribly-written instructions to get the thing ready for use. 

After he left, Herbert was exhausted. He did very little doing that flurry of coming and going, packing and unpacking, but whatever he did, it was too much. He sat at the edge of our bed using the oxygen concentrator (which provides a straight stream of air, unlike the portable tanks which spit tiny bursts of air at regular intervals), his eyes downcast, his body sagging. 

He was exhausted. In weeks past, I would have immediately excused myself to collapse in a corner somewhere. Normalizing illness asks you to do that, too, to crumple and weep, usually uncontrollably, for months until the grief becomes, as it always does, into something else. That day, though, I just sat next to him.

“You overdo it?” I asked. Because it’s always too hard for him to talk when he’s that exhausted, he nodded. 

“Should I sit here and rub your back?” I asked. He smiled a warm smile of relief. I needed that smile. Sometimes, a lot in fact, illness forms a great shadow over the sick person and you forget who they are. Herbert always finds a way to break through. His smile exploded the shadow. I’m noticing that it’s his light that’s getting us through this far more than mine. 

I sat next to him and let my hand wander softly across his still very broad shoulders. The yogi in me suddenly started driving the bus. I can’t tell you what it feels like when the yogi arrives. Maybe it’s something you already understand. Some people call that feeling God. I call it my reward for years of patience and practice of a very specific discipline. But there she was. She took over my body and reminded me to take in the moment, this perfect moment where, even though the breath was a struggle, it was still there. 

I wonder how many women there are in the world who would give everything--literally every single possession--to hear their husband’s breathe again. There I was, nestled next to mine, squeezing  him around the shoulders while his hand rested on my thigh. There have to be millions of women who would sacrifice anything namable, save their own children, for the luxury of comforting their now dead husbands. For now, the yogi reminded me, he’s here. He’s breathing. He knows you and knows your love. 

I don’t know how to have an afternoon like that during the era of T**** (I will not write his name) and then be the same person who breaks down the gigantic pile of cardboard that’s drowning her front hallway. We’re a man down in this house, and we’ve lost our more functional one. Herbert was our dish doer, our trash remover. He’s done it all so well for so long, I kind of suck at that now. Also, with the title of “I do all the things now,” I’m just tired. 

That night, I was downstairs doing some deep, pot-tinged yoga and mat work, and Herbert was playing bass in his future man cave of a bedroom. The door was open and hearing the familiar thumping of his guitar made the whole place come alive. Suddenly, I remembered in a flash that we were still very much in a place of transition. We’ve been through so much and all at once: the move, Herbert’s diagnosis, the motherfucker of all elections, selling the house, buying a new house, another move...the yogi whispered to me then.

“Everything,” she said, “is fine. Anyone would find it hard to take out a pile of trash right now. You’re normal. Please start loving yourself right now, this instant.”

I popped up and went into Herbert’s room and I said some version of that: that I knew in another life, this place would be looking much more settled. I said it like I’d just uncracked a great code. i said it like my name belonged in a published research paper for coming to this conclusion.

He laughed like he’d known this all along. Herbert, for all his shyness, is far wiser than I am. He didn’t even look up at me from his bass.

“We have a functioning kitchen. If I weren’t sick, I’d have my record player up I’d be pressing you about getting Lacey’s old T.V. Now? I could live like this for another year and I wouldn’t even give a shit.”

Of course he knew already what I’d just caught onto: we are in a good place. We are still in a better place than we were before. If nothing else, we’re settled in a way. We’ve arrived into something better than L.A. We are the lucky ones. 

So, I’ve normalized Herbert’s failing lungs, or at least I’m working to normalize my acceptance of them. I will not, however, in any way, normalize The Republican Administration. To do so is a veritable act of insanity. I will not normalize them, but I do, as do we all, have to normalize our resistance to them. We’re all accepting right now that protests are the new brunch (a friend said on his Facebook feed the other day). I’m going to a postcard writing party this afternoon, for example. 

There is an important balance to staying vigilant without losing your shit. I’m looking to the experts, like Jeremy Scahill and Shaun King, for help. I was on Glenn Greenwald’s Facebook feed the other day and even he posts videos of taking his dogs to the dog beach. If Glenn Greenwald can go to the beach, I can keep living, too. 

Regarding living:

I went to Cass’s Superbowl party last weekend and met her friends who live merely a mile from me. The husband is one of Drew’s oldest friends; he played guitar in Cass’s wedding. He is lovely and she is a firecracker. They just had a sweet baby and they seemed like died in the wool city kids like me. She had a “Galentine’s Day” party and invited me and I went on Thursday night. 

Not surprisingly, all the girls there were lovely. Creative, bright, warm, funny. It felt like the kind of scene I’d go to in L.A. only no one cared what I did for a living. I got there about a half an hour before Cass. When she came in, wearing an adorable hot pink beanie, she saw me sitting on her friend’s couch with a glass of wine.

“Is it weird to see me at your friend’s house?” I asked.

She laughed right away, her big bright-eyed laugh she’s had since she was a baby. “No,” she said. “It feels normal now and THAT feels weird.”

I some lovely women and they were all smart. I felt right at home. The house is maybe a mile away (probably a little less) and it made me feel like moving into this neighborhood is maybe the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

Cass and I walked out together, after we’d had one of those generational conversations where I told her all about the original Mad Max series which she’s never seen. My sisters and I have gradually getting better at saying goodbye. When we first got to town, I think all three of us experienced the most shock not when we showed up somewhere together, but when we parted. For 30 years, those goodbyes have been usually pretty awful. 

I could feel all of us tugging in those early days of reunion to make immediate plans. It’s taken six months for that to change for all three of us. Normalizing our togetherness is more complex than it sounds since it’s never, ever happened before. Not like this.

Cass mentioned something to that effect as we walked to our cars. Something like: “And we don’t have to say goodbye!”

“Isn’t it great?” I responded.

“It is great.” 

“You’re great,” I said plainly. 

“You’re great. I love you, Rachel.”

“I love you, too. I like your friends.”

“They’re awesome, aren’t they?”

“They are. See you later.”

Cass barked a “See ya!” over her shoulder. 

The comings and goings with my sisters is the kind of normal that is making the other not lovely but also normal things survivable. I’ve never known what it’s like to live with supportive family around me. It’s the very kind of normal that I can get used to.