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Nadia
I was born in October of 1975, in a small town in Missouri. My mother was a housewife and my stepfather worked in a furniture factory. With four children, all my parents could afford was a simple existence for the family. However, I wouldn’t trade those days with anyone or for anything.
I am the second child of my mother's four children. There is my older sister who is three years my senior, our brother who is three years younger than me, and lastly our baby sister who is six years younger than me and three years younger than our brother.
Twenty days after my twenty-first birth on Halloween 1996 we suffered the loss of our precious mother. That day, our lives were forever changed.
I’m totally not certain on how much I should or shouldn’t say about the past four days, due to fear of it disappearing again, I will tread as lightly as I can. First, I want to say that something is different this time around, now that Nicholas and I are talking again. He has messaged me each morning, in the most loving, kind, and gentle way, and in a great mood despite his illness.
It’s a relief that I have no expectations from him whatsoever, and just enjoy the conversations that we've had over the past couple days. I will say I’m a bit giddy like a little girl, because he’s messaged me two mornings in a row bright and early. However, like I said I have no expectations and I’m just happy I’m not blocked out of his life.
Like every other time when I wake up, the first thing I do is check my phone. Going through all the notifications, missed calls from my sister, missed messages from people on Facebook, and the miscellaneous notifications from everywhere else. Then, I got to one of the last ones to open, and I instantly got light-headed as soon as I read his name.
Every time I sit down to write, the first thing that pops into my head is my last relationship, so today I’m going to write Nicholas a letter. At first, I thought no, I can’t always be writing about a relationship that I want to go away, but then again, the whole reason I’m doing this journal is to get out all of my thoughts and feelings. Who knows, maybe my journal will become “Letters to a Man I used to Love”.
As my new life started taking shape, Nicholas would enter my world. He would turn out to be my first boyfriend as my authentic self, and I would be his first trans woman ever. Being each other's firsts, I believe made the dysphoria go away, because once we saw each other face to face I was totally okay with being intimate with him
I have to get out of this apartment, because I have flashbacks all the time. Just this evening, I saw him standing at the stove cooking me breakfast. This is something he did almost every Saturday in the beginning of our relationship, but not so much in the end. To deal with these haunting memories, as soon as the visual appears, I immediately think of something else to do, and concentrate on that.
My mind is still all over the place, but I’m not as consumed with my break-up as I was then, so it might stick this time. Having a routine that I do every morning should help to focus my mind, and get things in order up there. Once I succeed at putting it together, that in itself will make me happy, and working on this routine will give me my purpose for the time being. It’s a win-win situation.
Locked out of his life, blocked for the first time since October 2015, finally I will be able to move on. There will be a day in the future however, when he reaches out to me like he did on February first, and the only difference this time will be his cries will fall on deaf ears. I’m no longer in love with him, care for him yes, but love him no. He is no longer my problem, and I wash my hands clean.
Very quickly I lost sight of the woman who was emerging, and she was hijacked willingly by a smooth talking, good-looking boy. I was forty years old at the time, and here was this young twenty-three year old strapping young man showing me interest. I was completely blinded, and swept up in the moment. I loved how he treated me, and loved the things he would say to me. It was like he knew exactly what I wanted to hear, and knew exactly how I needed to be treated.
