When Tomorrow is All We Have
By: Riley Black
Tags: Self Care, Queer, LGBTQ, Transitions, Covid 19

Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash

Pride month has come and gone, replaced by the oppressive heat of July. In the Utah city I call home, the grass has turned to brown straw. Smoke plumes from human-caused wildfires are visible down the valley, as if they’re clouds that can’t quite achieve liftoff. My partner and I continually try combinations of fans, open windows, closed drapes, and the shuddering conniption of the window AC unit to find a temperature where we’re not dripping sweat just staying still.

The heat mocks us. Temperatures above 90 degrees dare us to go to the movies, to the lake, to the shaded bar. We stay in and sigh at another day in isolation, growling at gaggles of maskless people when we venture out for a walk and play Frogger to keep a minimum distance. (I still wish I had shouted at the maskless jogger who gasped and spat as he weaved his way along the sidewalk nearby.) The days become so similar that time itself seems to stand still, each day a repeat of the one before but just a little dimmer, with a little more worry.

Instead of Pride parades, we got a parade of transphobic comments from JK Rowling. In place of zooming over to a friend’s house, we Zoom incessantly and feel utterly drained for it. And that’s the least of it as we try to avoid getting sick, file for unemployment, struggle to make rent, mourn everything we looked forward to this summer, and scrabble for scraps of something good to make tomorrow seem worthwhile.

Everything feels slower in the relentless heat. Perhaps the lizards I remember from field excursions know why, though I didn’t ask them when I could have. For a time, during the fall and winter, I delighted in each and every change to my shifting body. To see my lengthening hair fall in front of my glasses, to feel the hips and thighs of my jeans snug a little tighter, to recognize the new smoothness of my skin, to register the first jiggles of my freshly-grown breasts. I delighted in all of it, wondering “What’s next?”

But now I’m on the plateau. I’m still changing, but it feels slower now. I haven’t had an “Aha!” moment in some time. A friend suggested that I take a tape measure and keep tabs on the inches as I change. But that just feels like when I’d step on the scale every day, logging the numbers but feeling no different. My bra size is the same. My hormone dosage is the same. I feel the same. After being so enamored with change, it’s hard to pick out whether anything is still changing at all.

Perhaps this is the self-directed version of the “new relationship energy” that polyamorous people by turns love and loathe. As hormone replacement therapy altered my form, each perceptible change seemed to open new possibilities. What will I look like tomorrow? What will I look like next year? It was enthusiasm fed by novelty, when possibility and the unknown add a little pleasant static shock to each moment.

And now I sit here, my hair feeling slightly crunchy with dried sweat, a humid microclimate situated beneath my breasts, my entire personality taking the form of a heavy sigh. I know I’m fortunate. I started HRT in March of last year. I had time for changes to be visible before the time of virtual doctor visits. My partner moved across the country to be with me at the end of last summer. If we’d tried to make long distance work for another year, we’d be more isolated than ever right now. I can’t perceive all the different paths I missed by choosing this one, but the realities where I waited to start transitioning, where I waited to share a home with my girlfriend… I can feel the numbing chill of those alternatives, and I’m glad I don’t know them.

But knowing the fates I avoided doesn’t necessarily make today feel any brighter. In 2019, I began to reshape my life into what I always hoped it might be. I acted quickly, but with care, telling myself that all the work, the effort, the recovery was weeding the garden of my identity and planting the crop I felt would nourish me. Now, in 2020, a few green shoots poke out from a wrinkled pile of withered stems. I am grateful for each lively thread, but I still remained shocked by how many failed to make it. I wanted growth. I am still managing decay.

Most of us are. No one asks “Any fun plans coming up?” in the sure faith that there are, and I don’t ask anyone else. When my friends ask “How are you?”, often I reply “I can’t really think beyond the next 24 hours.” They nod and agree. That’s all we can do. Time doesn’t feel like it used to. Each scorching day feels like June 1st and September 1st all at once, a time far distant from when we were assured all would be well within two weeks. That was only four months ago.

Perhaps my cats have it right. They sleep. They eat. They find a cool spot on the floor, laying out with their tails up to radiate off as much extra heat as they possibly can. They don’t think much beyond their next meal or our nightly family time on the couch. (I swear, they yell at me if my butt isn’t in its usual spot by 9PM.) They don’t obsess over what could have been and is not, or what was becoming but stalled. They don’t have to. They’re cats, and, after all, I am the supplier of kibble. I still envy them.

I read the articles reminding us all that we are trying to cope in an extraordinary time. We’re not working from home, as it goes, but trying to scrape by during a major crisis. Each of us requires self-care. But what does self-care look like when taking a day off now might mean that rent doesn’t get paid tomorrow? Or that indulging in what used to be surefire pick-me-ups makes us feel greedy or gluttonous? Yes, this is survival mode, but it’s not survival in the sense of digging into the shade of a cottonwood to look for water or munching insects to fill up on something. It’s survival that’s largely dictated by forces, egos, and structures that take no notice of us at all. That built themselves on the idea that sharing equates to possessing less, and less possession is a sin. This isn’t every day survival. It’s an extinction event, when luck makes more difference than we’d like to think about.

I still take my HRT pills in the morning, at midday, and at night. I still smile when I get my eyeliner right on the first try. I still squeeze close to press my boobs against my girlfriend’s back. I still try to get out on the sidewalk by 8AM every day to take my dog for a walk. I read, I nap, I play guitar, I sketch, and I cook. I remind myself that I’m still luckier than many. I remember the places I’ve been, hoping that someday I’ll see them again.

There is change — motion — even when I don’t perceive it. The days are slowly getting shorter. The monsoons will arrive soon. Perhaps summer was never my season, anyway.