How I can relate to HER

This is a post I started in March 2014 about the movie HER that I went to watch in the cinema in Holland, on my own, after having just.. you know what, I'll let the opening paragraph speak for itself. That's as far as I got.

 

[So somewhere between all the chaos that was my exchange semester and trying to reintegrate into my beloved home university here in Maastricht, me and the then Boyfriend managed to meet up for about 2 weeks and get engaged.]

 

I'm not entirely sure whether I was still deluding myself about not hating Maastricht with every fiber of my being, but maybe it was also densely disguised sarcasm. Who can tell. 

 

The real irony of this post that never got written is that I also would not know how to relate to her. I tried, for quite a number of years to be her. Not the AI from the creepily well done movie HER. I actually totally get why she ended up with polyamory and have ended up there myself. No, like, with the concept of being her, or she/her if you will.

My other drafts were more or less complete, but this one was as incomplete as my ultimate attempt to convince the world that I did in fact belong in the category woman.

In hindsight, it is fascinating how much of a performance I put on. Reading back on my feelings about my now soon to be ex husband I can clearly see how hard I was working on trying to do everything the right way, the way I was meant to do things. I was meant to be a smart and meek girl, with enough personality to catch a guy that I would need to marry. I never did fully hack how to girl. Not that there is a correct way, but when you're faking it, let me tell you, it sure as hell feels like there is and you're never quite measuring up. I think the fact that my fellow "girls" struggled so much under the expectations that are placed on girls and women in general meant that I didn't realise that I was performing mine entirely. Don't get me wrong, I still like lots of things that are considered girly. I enjoy certain types of reality TV and love a good obnoxiously bad romance as much as the next gal. On average. Probably. But I never really felt at home in the label girl. I also didn't feel at home in the realm of liking boys (I have recently re-read my old diaries and holy mother of God was I unenthusiastic about the concept of men, like as a whole, but particularly as a dating pool).

I'm in therapy. I've left the man I used to call Boy after getting married and spending 6 torturous and violent years with him. My faith has changed shape entirely. I have deconstructed as it is obligingly called, and what one author I'm currently reading calls "the undoing of problematic legitimizing  narratives". I am now queer and polyamorous and unemployed and clinically depressed and also chronically ill. 

I've really hit the degeneracy jack-pot. I'm not a single parent or a sex-worker yet, so I guess I still have this to go on the "leave the holy path and see what happens" finding out of the fucking around game.

But you know, I didn't fuck around. Not really. Like sure, did I do sexual stuff with the man I married while we were engaged? Yes. Did I struggle in the meek christian wife department? Also yes, Did I decide that it was probably more important to God that I love people than that I condemn queer people? Also yes. 

So I guess, by the stricter definitions of how to live a pure and holy life I was already a screw-up. But I guess the cognitive dissonance got too much at some point, and really, if a faith is so frail that those infractions cause degeneracy then I'm not sure it's worth a whole lot. If these choices have cost me heaven, then so be it. At least I have a sense of integrity back. 

 

Anyway, I married the Boy after doing all the paperwork to get him into university in Maastricht. It was a beautiful cold day in Denmark (for which I did all the paperwork as well ofc). I looked stunning. I was wearing a black dress and a beautiful leather jacket I no longer fit into. The dress I still own. I am wearing it the day my divorce goes through, which with a bit of luck, after five long years of separation and trying, will be soon. 

I tried really really hard to make the marriage work. Like comically hard. I had even dragged him to couples therapy after I finally couldn't deny to myself that despite the fact that he wasn't an alcoholic and the despite the fact that he had never (fully) hospitalised me I wasn't safe. Physically, or emotionally. 

 

After I finally left my world fell apart. 

 This was not a decision I was allowed to make if I was following the careful and precise set of rules I had gown up with. One did not leave one's (semi-)faithful husband who still professed the faith and lip service to making changes who had stuck out ones descent into chronic illness (that his abuse had helped bring on in the first place). This is not what good christian women do. Not in the world I am from. I am the first member of either side of my family (aside from a married-in aunt who divorced my good-for-nothing alcoholic uncle) to chose to leave a partner. Never mind that seeing what long term relationships looked like in my family was a significant part of the reason why I finally pulled the plug. 

 I forgot this blog existed for the last decade. I found it again today, which is a little wild, as I have spent the last few years cleaning house so to speak. When my world fell apart I had to take a good hard look at every part of the identity I had constructed to fill the role I had been told would keep me safe. Everything came into question. Every last thing. 

Thank god I was aware that folks who leave domestic violence situations frequently end up in the next one. So I went to therapy, and she asked me hard questions. The world that was already crumbling for me was further pulverised. 

Not to be too much of a cliche, but like, turns out my entire fundamentalist childhood was a little fucked. My upbringing as a kid in evangelical missionary circles left me with unspeakable religious trauma I then had to start speaking about. My parents enthusiastic participation in the James Dobson school of parenting (christian authoritarian parenting) had taught me to expect violence from those who loved me, and that performing my role competently enough would finally, finally result in a love free of violence. But I digress. 

Everything came into question, and bit by bit I had to admit that I had been faking everything. My attraction to men was just a healing fantasy, my performance of womanhood an exhausting painful farce, my deeply held religious convictions the very cudgel that had kept me trapped. 

So over the latter half of the last decade I have left much of my performance behind. I have rescued all the parts of me from the hell we had grown up in. 

It turns out the post-religious degenerate life is filled with beauty and happiness and authentic queer expansive love. 

It turns out that they lied about the pathway to happiness. The hole in my heart was not Jesus shaped. It was apparently actually shaped like a lot of adverse childhood experiences shaped, and I was failing to spiritually bypass my way into patching it up with Jesus. 

 Anyway, I've gotten back into writing recently. I remember this old blog when I started setting up my new web-page on word press. 

I think I might post a few more pieces of my journey from the last few years here, but I think I'll link my new website if you want to find out what I'm up to now. 

I'm glad I found this blog again. I'm so proud of past (not so) little me trying to put myself out there. 

 Anyway, it's Milo now, I go by they/them pronouns.