Long, kinda rambly, really emotional...Journal...Thing. Yeah.
Last year I was driving home from a roadtrip, I think Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. I was nearly home and the song "Poison Oak" by Bright Eyes came on, and it...Broke me in a way a song never previously had. Listened to that album a hundred times across a decade, knew most of the lyrics by heart. This song was always a lower point of the album, good and emotional but not my favorite by any means. I was singing along and I just...Started crying through the second verse.
"In Polaroids, you were dressed in women's clothes.
Were you made ashamed?
Why'd you lock them in a drawer?
Well I don't think that I, could have loved you more"
I turned the corner onto my street, and didn't turn in home. I kept driving. The song wasn't over, I wasn't done making a journey, I needed to finish. I kept driving. I kept crying. I kept trying to sing along, gasping and sniffling and trying to sing and not knowing what I was feeling, why I was feeling.
"Well, let the poets cry themselves to sleep.
And all their tearful words will turn back into steam."
Kept driving, kept crying, kept trying to sing as I wound through the backroads past the orchards. The song ended, I wasn't done, I needed to try again. I was crushingly sad, stewing anger, confused confused confused and didn't know WHY or what was different.
"Poison Oak.
Some boyhood bravery."
Blubbering, shaky voice, blurry eyes.
"IN POLAROIDS YOU WERE DRESSED IN WOMEN'S CLOTHES
WERE YOU MADE ASHAMED, WHY'D YOU LOCK THEM IN A DRAWER?"
Snarling and growling the lyrics and my throat hoarse and raw.
"Well I don't think that I ever loved you more."
Raspy, almost a whine, whispering through the next verses, quieter, crying, recovering. Slow through town, back to the highway to loop around home again.
"BUT ME I'M A SINGLE CELL ON A SERPENT'S TONGUE
THERE'S A MUDDY FIELD WHERE A GARDEN WAS
AND I'M GLAD YOU GOT AWAY BUT I'M STILL STUCK OUT HERE
MY CLOTHES ARE SOAKING WET FROM YOUR BROTHER'S TEARS."
Turn off onto my street, bawling, screaming, hopefully driving fast enough still that nobody can hear me.
It finishes. I'm silent. "Road to joy" starts up, I pull in, I turn the car off. Just...sit there for a few minutes in silence. Baffled. Completely baffled, emotionally shredded, my voice shot, my brain buzzing with static. It's too hot, I gather my things and head back inside. I haven't been able to listen to that song without crying since then.
Until today. Poison Oak doesn't make me cry anymore.
I had a very emotional, powerful weekend with amazing friends. Just...Taking up space with other trans folks, sharing time and food and baring our hearts. Poison Oak doesn't make me cry anymore.
I queued that album up twice on my drive home from Vancouver. The first playthrough I kinda ignored. Bounced along with At the Bottom of Everything, but had to focus elsewhere with twisty night roads just busy enough to need to have to really pay attention to flicking my highbeams on and off. But then it came up again, and I was nearly home. Bracing myself, expecting to tear up when I got to that song, just like always. But I didnt, becuase I know who I am now. And I understand the things I couldn't last year. And something else came first and instead of swinging a bat at my stomach, it held out a hand.
"This is the first day of my life.
Swear I was born right in the doorway."
The lyrics felt different. The tone felt different. The whole fucking meaning and context of "First Day of My Life" felt DIFFERENT. That song made me feel...So very warm, hopeful, happy, and newly alive. I saw a new beginning and I heard a song very different from how I've always heard it in the past. I know it's not about trans stuff, but...I heard it as a song sung between selves. Newborn woman to the man she had to pretend to be and the old self singing back, so happy to see her.
"Yours is the first face that I saw.
Think I was blind before I met you.
I don't know where I am, don't know where I've been.
But I know where I want to go"
The new, true self singing to their old self, announcing their arrival, their birth, their beginning. Seeing him from the mirror, seeing her in the mirror.
"And so I thought I'd let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realized that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home"
It took a long time to get here. A long time to figure it out. And it'll be a long road ahead. Everything will take time. But I need you, me. I'm ready to come home.
"And I thought it was strange
You said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up"
I didn't sleep the night I found out. Everything, everything, everything changed, and there was no putting things back how they were before. I just woke up.
"But you said 'this is the first day of my life.'
I'm glad I didn't die before I met you.
But now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you
And I'll probably be happy
With these things there's no telling
We'll just have to wait and see."
The old self singing back too, wishing her well. So glad he didn't die before he met her. We made it here together somehow. And who knows where the road will wind, everything is so much, so uncertain, but there's joy there, somewhere. Probably.
"Besides maybe this time it's different.
I mean I really think you like me."
I'm going to make damn sure of it. I'm really going to like the me that I am that I'm me that I can become.
Poison Oak didn't make me cry when it came on a few songs later, as I pulled off the highway and drove home. I was too full of hope, past the valley bottom I didn't know I was lost in last year. I'm scared and new and everything is uncertain still. But I'll probably be happy.
When I'm able to start HRT, I'm going to stand in a doorway, and take my first dose while listening to "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes. Happy birthday darling, we love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.
