autostraddle.com tumblr presence

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

I’ll see strangers staring with disgust when I kiss my girlfriend’s cheek in our favorite cafe. I hear guys yelling from their car windows. I notice when all of a sudden my mom needs to get off the phone because I am talking about my relationship. I pause and listen when people ask to touch my leg or to comment on the way I am walking. They want to know how I shower. They want to know how I have sex. They want to know why I like butch girls instead of femme or if I’ve slept with enough men (one) to really know I’m a lesbian. They want to know what I eat. They want to know what dying is like. I used to be offended. I used to go on the defense. I used to think fighting made us strong.

Now, I know: true strength comes from compassion and vulnerability. Now, I can stop, take a breath, and drop completely into the moment. I think: you may not be looking at me like a fellow human being but I see you and I know you are human – a person struggling and fractured in ways I may not be able to recognize right away. Then, with practice, I do the bravest thing of all. I tell my truth. And I prepare myself to receive yours.

Danielle via Autostraddle — Autostraddle Calendar Girls 2014: Danielle is Miss June
Source: autostraddle.com
trashydyke

// the camp post \

life has been a power bottom lately and giving me absolutely everything i want and need without actually making me feel like a total weird fuck about it, knowing my boundaries without having to secondguess them, leading me in the right direction while making me feel like i’m in control

i have been unhappy for so, so long. i don’t think it’s easy to translate that to the internet or this page where i feel obligated to fake some sense of normalcy and happiness because melancholy doesn’t have to exist here, maybe i can fake it until i make it sort of stuff, but fuck it. i’m done being unhappy. i’m done feeling like a hopeless failure who has wasted their life. i’m done pretending it’s something i can live with and hide and deserve. i’m done with it, i don’t deserve it, i can do better

first, i am so proud of what i’ve done this month. i wanted to improve myself, and i did:

  • i made decisions about where i want to be at this time next year and i WILL be there
  • i removed myself from situations that weren’t healthy for me
  • i tried new things even when those new things scared me shitless
  • i let myself FEEL, i did not hold back or run away from those emotions
  • i knew my boundaries and i made them known and i didn’t let people cross them
  • i learned to say no with a sense of confidence and finality
  • i stopped idealizing and started focusing only on the present and reality
  • i went to california (california!) and i saw destiny in the eyes of hundreds of queers who reminded me why i do what i do, even when it is extremely hard on me
  • i met a femme who changed my life in 24 hours and i have never looked back

camp was hard. it was. sometimes it was super triggering and hard and people came and told me their hard stories in person and i loved them for that, i wanted to wrap them up in my arms and make them feel my love for them, but it was still hard. and people didn’t really talk to me very often. sometimes it kind of felt like people were avoiding me, to be honest. i don’t know if i come across as weird or an asshole or intimidating or what, but sometimes that was the hardest part. i felt very lonely at camp, maybe because i had entered the space as someone who didn’t really know everyone else when everyone kind of already knew everyone else, maybe because i often feel alone, maybe because sometimes these things happen. but it was hard. and i don’t always do well when things are hard at the same time as they are triggering, so camp…camp was many different things

at the same time, the people i did meet and did talk to were amazing. they were inspiring and beautiful, and i was endlessly in awe of them. i saw friendships forming that i knew would change each person for the better. i saw community forming. i saw confidence building and smiles building and people reaching for one another in tough moments. i saw, more than felt, because i am often an observer rather than a participant in new social situations, and since camp is so short, i didn’t get enough time to have camp feel natural or familiar or entirely safe. which is sad, because my personality is very strong and happy and extroverted and outgoing in scenarios where i know my way around, but i was about one day short of that at camp. next time, i suppose?

i had lots of revelations on that mountain. revelations about my strengths and weaknesses, my ability to be okay, my relationships and choices and who i wanted in my life. and guys. GUYS. i met this girl, okay? i met this femme who totally blew me out of the water and taught me that partnership is fucking powerful and i’m the most smitten kitten in the world. guys, the way she dresses. and applies lipstick. and the way she innately understood what being a butch means to me, and my dysphoria, and every single aspect of myself. and we have the same trashy kitsch aesthetic and we are both mentors to our respective baby butches and femmelettes and i can’t, guys. i can’t

trashydyke is doing better. kade is doing better. life is doing so much better, and i had to share that with you, because this tumblr is mostly selfies and ridiculous neon colored things and sometimes i just want to shout into the ether that i am okay, i am doing great, and if you’re not doing great, you will be soon! life works that way. i don’t know why, babes, but it does