Being non-binary is the richest and best part of me, and I won’t hide it anymore

There’s a lot going on in my mind these days.  What else is new?!

I’ve been thinking of the writer’s admonition to “write what you know” and the other popular one “find your voice”.

Well, there are two things that I know…really know.  Being non-binary.  Ta da!  Hence the title of my blog.  The other?  What it is like to be non-binary in a patriarchal world…To live these things, however, is not enough.  To wrestle with them every single day, and to strive to put words to them, is what brings the knowledge.

I make no pretensions to quality.  Feedback on my writing in the business world is very positive—but it is dry, matter-of-fact, but very useful for those who seek it out.  I can only imagine what my colleagues would think if they knew what I was wearing when I wrote all that stuff about M&A and corporate takeovers, business strategy, change management.  Amused, for sure.  I should hope for nothing less!

Indeed, this is my goal.  Levity.  And I find so many threads of my life coming together at the same time.  My new therapist, and yes, in this instance, I call her “my” [only Mistress is not mine], is already making a difference.  At the end of my first full session with her, she concluded with a goal for me, an exercise, an admonition, and it was as if she took the words out of my mouth—“fun”.  She wanted therapy to be “fun” for me.  She wanted my goal to be “fun”.  And this is exactly what my goal is and was.  My id is finding her voice.  She is filled with laughter.  She is asserting herself.  And she has tamed my ego and superego, and they are now accepting her supremacy in my psyche…and she has spoken: “you will grow, you will learn to accommodate me, you will allow me to express myself, you will not apologise.”

My id is also looking for role models.  And she has found one.  She is Mistress.  She is a teacher and a guide.  She is my wife, whose strength and laughter is contagious.  She is my mother, who despite the vicissitudes of life, remains the most elegant and iconic and beautiful woman I have ever known or laid eyes on.

And levity is a big theme.  All these issues I write about, feelings, etc, can be quite heavy.  Only they don’t feel it.  It’s like this great gust of fresh air is coursing through me.  I know that I sought out a Mistress.  I know that finding an outlet for submission has been for me like a balloon trying to find the string that tethers it to the world…my feet have never been on the ground before.  But for the first time, I feel that it might be possible.  I feel a path opening before me.

And these people who are helping.  Some of you, dear friends, some of you who reach out to me and caress me through your words and thoughts, are so appreciated because the warmth I feel.  “Home is where the heart is.”  My heart is where the warmth is.  I am drawn to people who are warm.  I surround myself with them.  Find peace with them.  And the only times I can calm down are when the warm ones are with me.  Of course my nuclear family helps because they are solid.  I also help, in that I am the doer.  Mistress helps in ways that are so complex and varied and heartfelt…and I am struck by how so many of the words that came from my new therapist’s mouth have already been spoken by Mistress.  “She sounds like a wonderful person,” said the therapist…and indeed she is.  And, my therapist also helps, already.

She sees unbridled joy in me.  I cry a lot.  That might sound counter to joy.  But it isn’t.  One of the first questions I asked Mistress was if it was okay to cry…and maybe to cry often and a lot.  Yes.  It was also the first question I asked my therapist…and wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t even finish my sentence before the waterworks came on.  I can’t remember if I posted about this, but so too at work, I cry in front of everyone when I praise someone for what a great job they did.  It sounds like I might be nuts, but it sure doesn’t feel that way…it just feels good.  Those tears?  They are tears of joy.  I don’t cry from other things—pain, life, whatever.  I cry when confronted by immense beauty, love, and joy.  And what is happening in my body, and in my mind, is that it is all bubbling to the surface, and it comes fast, and it is still new to me, and is a kind of system overload.  But it sure feels good.  A relief.  A lightness of being.

And who is crying?  It is non-binary me.  Finding a voice.  Allowing herself to feel.  Not yet quite sure what it all means.  And actually wondering if I even care to figure it out—some things shall remain mysteries forever.  In some of our first conversations and correspondence, I have said to Mistress that the most important thing of anything we do together is that we have fun—that she has fun, that I have fun, and that we not get overly worried about what we do or how we do it…to just be.  I mentioned in a recent post how she has given me her own goals for my development under her guidance.  [I referred to one of them yesterday here].  The most important to me is levity.  It comes easy when it is my own prime goal, when it is my therapist’s goal for me, and when it is Her’s too.  It is like a new version of the Holy Trinity, “the Mommy, the baby, and the Spirit Guide” only in this version, we all get to play all three characters!

In session yesterday one of the most important thoughts my therapist left me with was, “maybe this is the way your life is meant to be.”  She said that in reference to how complicated my life is right now—family spread out, life spread out, portfolio career, where I find love, how I find love, to whom I give love, the importance of service and learning how and whether I can become a slave and reconciling all of it.  And that left me a really great feeling.  Because it isn’t easy.  It is bloody complicated.  But it is also beautiful.  I am spinning plates, many, many plates.  None of them are dropping.  Sometimes it feels as if they all might come crashing down, but they are not.  And important people are helping me to make sure they don’t—even strangers.  It is amazing, but everyone is trying to help.  And that is quite beautiful.  Very freeing.

“In your tears are captured your sentiments.  Laughter, happiness, love, joy…those things are all like crystal snowflakes.”  I am humbled by the beauty of the people in my life.  My children, my wife, Mistress and so many others.  I cherish their expression and their acceptance, their laughter and their joy.  It is a blessing to have such divine people in my life and an honour to love them, to wear them in my heart—and they all belong there, deep, deep inside of me.