A List of Dreams
BY MICHAELA
I wrote a lot last time about this “awakening” I had. Now I guess I should talk about what I plan to do with it!
Some of this is spurred on by my current read, The Gilda Stories, by Jewelle Gomez.
If you don’t know it, because I sure didn’t know there were fiction books like this, it's about a young Black vampire setting out in the world. She finds a mentor and a safe space in a brothel where she begins to learn all of the things she otherwise wouldn’t know.
About the world, about herself, about love and yes, sex, but also the freedom in queerness.
I am not all the way done with it, but one thing that resonates with me is: the life after transformation.
Sure, while Gilda transformed into something new, I transformed into myself.
Still, after transformation I think people are left searching.
Searching for the life they should have been living.
Or maybe, the life they now get to live.
Either way, I am trying to remember to be brave, to be like Leslie.
To be like Gilda. Searching. In the book Gilda is searching.
She is searching for family, a place to belong, love, all of it. A life.
Embarrassing but I’m going to be vulnerable because words have power.
I would guess someone will need me to go on this journey as much as I need me to.
Below is my list of dreams, things that I will need a little help achieving, a little strength and trust from me.
All other things I know I can do. I can graduate from this school, I can learn to make something of myself.
But I will need some foundation along the way, and that feels sometimes out of reach.
List of dreams:
Find my family: I realize I never had friends, I never felt like I fit in with anyone.
I wanted to hang with girls but they never saw me as one of them, and I found the boys I knew to be okay until they weren’t.
I have already begun making some friends, which has been so exciting.
A common theme I am finding in reading is the idea that you can find and make your own family.
It is the only way people like us survive.
Have a crush: This one may sound cliche or silly but I never allowed myself to have a real crush.
I thought my femininity made me gay, and when I didn’t understand who I was, I thought that meant to answer that femininity I needed to find masculinity.
I needed to find a man. Looking back now I realize it's because I was a young girl suppressing my interest in other girls. But there was always this strange envy that came with my crushes, and I didn’t understand it.
It didn’t make sense to me then that I could both want a woman and be the woman inside me.
For the first time, I’d like to explore both.
Go on a real date: I want to experience romance! I want to cuddle with someone I like. I want to know what it means to swoon. To look at someone and wonder if we are walking toward the same thing.
Discover how I like to be touched: This is a big one.
Romance is full of touch. Whether holding hands, a caressed cheek, a kiss, sex…
I don’t know the first thing about how I like to be touched, to be honest. This is embarrassing, but I want to put this here in case someone else also doesn’t know.
We can not know together. My body is complicated for me, because I am still reconfiguring myself.
But I feel attraction and I think whenever I get a crush I am going to want to touch them and have them touch me.
The big one…Fall in love, and have someone love me back: I am a romantic girl at heart, and just want to know what it is like to experience being in love and experiencing someone else’s love.
So that’s it - should be easy right? Wrong. I know there is weight to this list. I will be sharing updates to this list as I go. I know it might take me all four years here, or more. But I have to try.
A girl can dream right? And as one of Gilda’s girls put it: Dreaming is not something to be ignored.