I’ve never been the most emotional individual. Sure, I’ll tear up at the occasional piece of media, but in general, the term most people would probably use for me is “stoic”, or, if I’m unlucky, “an asshole”. I’ve had rage issues! And the more I think back on it, pretty much any emotions I can recall or associate with myself are just self-loathing and a lot of frustration or yelling.
At no point did I really work on self-reflection. Not until the lockdown hit, and, one infection and three quarantines in a box later, I had a lot of time to think about… well, me. Because after a certain point, you run out of books and you’re sick of the same songs and what else is there to do between all the walls? You’re the only thing moving to catch your own attention unless you want to go full opiate-of-the-masses and just fill yourself with any endless font of garbage. I know I have a reputation as “the guy who likes all the terrible things”, but even I’ve got limits.
And also I did that. I literally spent one of those quarantines just hurting myself over and over with a 95% complete1 binge through Tokyo Xanadu ex+. It was not worth it, and I knew I didn’t enjoy the game pretty early on, but it was installed, it was incredibly casual, and I didn’t need to think about it or really engage with anything save “walk to point, hit X a bunch, oops I’m in a shadow cathedral now, okay now we all get coffee”.
Anyways, the majority of 2020 and onwards, I just kept getting locked up for a while and I had to consider who I was, and what was happening. I’ve been trying to balance all of my side-projects with being in a relationship in a way that I don’t just go full-workaholic and the scale flips end over end. (It’s not entirely successful.) There’s been a goal of getting myself back into shape after spending three years at a desk job without a lot of excuses to exercise. I went vegetarian, started balancing my budget, designed little goals to work up to and complete regularly…
And I’m transgender.
Lemme back up a sec. For ~20 years now this was a thing that kept coming up, over and over, and 2+2+2+2+2+2+2 just never added up to the requisite amount for me in all this time. You’d better believe that after admitting it to myself I have a literal list of “how the fuck did I miss this” spanning that whole period.2 A lot of very specific conversations and incredibly stupid deflections from ever-more-blunt “Okay so you’re sure that…” friends, cis, trans, and otherwise.
But yeah. Months later after a lot of planning, and preparation, and paperwork, and voice practice which is still fucking with me… I feel good. I feel happy in a way I haven’t before. I knew I had some form of depression from my 20s, when I spent a lot of time unemployed or worse, and there were days I just slept away and didn’t care. But in hindsight, there’s a definite feeling I might have just been dissociating a lot of the time, and it’s why I never felt anything but numb. I haven’t had that lately. It’s new! It’s fresh and it feels GOOD and a lot of things click now.
Hi there. My name is Sibyl, and I feel more alive than I have in decades. Now I’m gonna do something with that life.
Also since I never mentioned it on this site: I am doing so many new podcasts. Please do check out the other media page and look into any that intrigue you!
- I didn’t do all of the NG+ content. I did every single after-story and bonus chapter, but I was in no way replaying the entire game for a few more dungeons when we live in a world where Kingdom Hearts is a better action-RPG that I have access to on 4 systems.
- At some point I will probably post the list because it’s a real knee-slapper.