Becoming Someone I Like

[lb_lee]

Rogan: You know, it's funny. I was looking back through some of the old entries in this blog, about my ridiculous experiences at the 2019 Straight Pride protest and the 2025 Clown March, how I ended up writing my own future with Send In the Clowns. and it just dawned on me: I've become someone I really like and respect.

It's funny, because I used to haaaaaate myself. I felt like dogshit all the time, and the best I ever managed to feel was when I threw myself into something--art, work--so wholeheartedly that the loathsome entity that was "me" ceased to exist. I was absolutely the kind of person who would've joined a cult to escape the experience that was being myself. I remember once telling a friend, long ago, how all I wanted was to be a cog in a giant machine, so I wouldn't have to BE anymore.

I don't feel that way anymore. What's more, I haven't felt that way in a long time.

There was no big climactic epiphany, no grand awakening. It was just a bunch of little things, building up over the course of years. Transitioning. Getting tattooed. Getting okay with food. Getting okay with being loved. Getting okay with homelessness and disability. Getting okay with my mind and its pains and joys. Getting okay with my desires, my kinks, my body. Getting okay with my history, my lovers, my friends. Realizing what I was NOT okay with. Giving myself work I find fulfilling. Participating in public life. Fighting for what's right, wherever I am and at whatever level works for me. Teaching myself through my own example that me, my life, my worlds, are worthy of my own care and love.

(It turns out that if you want to prove you are worthy of care, you have to actually do the work of TREATING YOURSELF like you're worthy of care. It's so simple and so scary and hard.)

(What would your life be like if you treated yourself that way? If you felt like you could afford to? If you felt like you deserved it?)

(What if I told you don't actually need to feel that way, just fucking do it anyway?)

Being alive feels... good.

I feel good.

I feel rooted, to my vessel and my body, to my present and my past, to the worlds I live in and the people I love there. I feel a part of my city, my home, my people. There are terrible things occurring around me, and I am fully aware of them, yet I am not afraid. I know I've done the best I can, and whatever happens, there is no regret waiting for me.

I never thought I would ever feel this way. And now I've felt this way for... years? Has it truly been years?

It's nice. I can't imagine ever going back.

Comments

[wispfox]

So happy for you, Rogan. :)

[pantha]

<3

[witchpoetdreamer]

*Hug* I'm so happy for you and how you feel about yourself! I found that treating myself like a parent who truly loves me worked miracles. It's one thing to know that my parents failed me, it's another to stay in that mindset and not do anything about it. So, thinking about what loving parents would do, I started doing that. It doesn't always work, but it works most times, and it feels really nice!

I'm super proud of you!