I don’t like my apartment. It’s in a gated complex, for one thing, which is so not my style (I was trying to be somebody classy when I moved here – THAT was my mistake, since I’ve never been a “classy” individual in my life and am certainly not about to start). And even though its “small” by apartment standards (600 square feet), its way too big for just me. I don’t have the “stuff” necessary to make a dining room, living room, and bedroom all feel “homey.” Plus, the stuff I do have is just odds and ends I managed to throw together from garage sales and thrift stores when I moved here so the place wasn’t totally empty. My apartment really doesn’t feel like my home at all, even though I’ve lived here now for eight months -it feels like a storage unit for someone else’s stuff. It’s a sad place for me. I’m constantly reminded of my own loneliness, and the disconnect between how I see myself, and how I am projected (or, rather, not represented) in this space. Of course, I’m planning to move in two months, so there is that. Though, of course, I’ll still own the same “stuff.”
My office at work is a similar story. I actually hate having my own office. It is even more lonely than my apartment, because I know there are people nearby talking and stuff (probably?), but I’m supposed to sit in there quietly working. This is hard to do as an extrovert who already lives alone. (Again, I’m also leaving my job in a few months, so there IS that – and I don’t think any of the jobs I’ve applied for involve having an office by yourself.) Everyone kept commenting on how empty it was in there when I started at this job, so again, I picked up random stuff at thrift stores and shoved it in there. But again, I don’t feel a sense of anything over much of that, except for a handful of books that have traveled across the country with me.
I’ve never been someone who puts a lot of stock in the monetary value of material possessions. As a transgender person, though, I’ve learned how material possessions (such as clothing) can and do serve another purpose, which I DO find valuable when it’s working – reflecting and affirming who we are to ourselves. That’s maybe why it’s so depressing to me that my clothes/physical appearance these days also doesn’t quite seem to match with how I see myself, either. Sure, I identify as a dude and I look like a dude, so the gender part is right. But because of my years of deep stealth, which I’m currently trying to work my way out of, everyone who meets me assumes I’m straight. People at my current workplace literally come to me to complain about gay people (this has now happened at least three times in the last seven months, different people each time) because they think I will be a sympathetic ear. Because I’m a masculine (albeit quite short), “normal looking” (to them) guy. I look conservative-ish. I look “clean”. They look at me and see themselves reflected back. They do not actually see me – poster child for the LGBT acronym – someone who has identified as every single one of those letters in the span of the last nine years. Which means I either roll with peoples’ comments about how I just need to get a girlfriend and nod and smile, or else I have to make a big production of coming out, and I’m not really crazy about either of those options. Plus, I’m out of shape and look like someone who probably likes to sit on the couch and play video games (I haven’t played a video game in at least five years), rather than, say, going kayaking or camping, which I do prefer — it’s just been awhile and so I don’t look like someone who would want to be active in that way. Just like my apartment and my office, I’m irritated with my physical body’s current inability to reflect me back to myself.
Today it was warm and sunny out. Frustrated with some BS going on at work, I left my dismal office a little early and came home to my equally dismal apartment, where I skulked for a few hours, doing mostly nothing except continue to feel frustrated and depressed (as usual). Around 6 I got the energy to go run some errands. And three minutes later, once I was in my truck and on the road, all my frustration, sadness, and depression was almost already forgotten.
I like my pickup in general. It cheers me up. I look at it and I see myself reflected back. I’m from a working class background, and when I was growing up, almost all the dads I knew had trucks to haul stuff with. Nobody wanted to be that guy who had no way to take big things to the dump for his family or no way to bring home a Christmas tree. Plus, my grandfather’s pickup was perpetually rigged up for fishing trips, with a mattress in the back and fishing poles ready to go at a moment’s notice. I like that I have a vehicle that grants me that kind of independence. It is also 15 years old. The windows are not electric. You have to open the door with an actual key. Sort of like me – the person whose cell phone’s most sophisticated ability is to send text messages, and who has no idea how a smart phone functions.
Trucks in our culture are, of course, seen as “masculine,” so my truck by default is more “masculine” than another type of vehicle, maybe (kind of like me – I generally present as masculine). But with my truck, it is a “queer” sort of masculine. It is a bright, pretty distinct color, for one thing. And with a bed less than 6′ long, it is also small (like me) — actually small enough to fit into spaces marked “Compact.” The big rainbow sticker on the back also helps in that department. Once I get in my truck, I know that people on the road will see me in ways that (for better or worse) other people don’t, in ways that are true.
But today there was this sort of special layer added on because of how beautiful it was outside. Once I drove out of my apartment complex, I rolled down the window. A light breeze zipped through the cab, and I turned on the radio and switched to a few stations until I got to the classic rock station, where “Bohemian Rhapsody” was just starting to play, and turned up the volume. Yes, a small thing, but for those two or three minutes before the library’s parking lot came into view, it was absolutely glorious. If anyone in other cars was paying any attention to me and my truck, I know what they didn’t see – somebody making a real concerted effort to try and “fit in.” And based on what they definitely heard & what they might have assumed based on what they saw — well. The man driving that pickup truck, probably queer (because of the sticker) is a terrible, horrible singer. Which is absolutely true. But I don’t care.
My truck is my “happy place” because, for better or worse, when it comes to other people, it is the one place in my life where what they see and hear is what they get. And because for me, when I’m on the road in my truck, for better or worse, there’s no coming out required.
Amorphous Amphibian 