I had entered adulthood knowing that I was queer and also knowing that I wanted a child. I understood that getting pregnant would require some money, and some sourcing of anonymous sperm. This struck me as a small obstacle, a hurdle I might easily clear. But I hadn’t anticipated the months I would spend in weekly debates with my partner trying to convince her to have kids.
Names have a lot of magic in them. In folklore, the idea of knowing someone or something’s true name is a powerful one, and someone sharing it with you is them at their most vulnerable. Many Catholic parents, mine included, name their children after saints of people from the Bible. Our obsession with names doesn’t end there: next, a Catholic will go through the sacrament of Confirmation, becoming a full member of the church, at which point we chose another saint we want to emulate and we take their name. Names are bigger than the letters that make them up. They fit an entire personality inside them, an entire history, they fit an entire soul.
The journey to finding and deciding on my real name, Melinda Valdivia Rude, took about four years.
Dad recounted how my wedding had gradually brought my mom and my cousin’s mom closer, who now could chat freely about their daughter’s alternative sexuality, and strategies to deal with hostile family members. I hadn’t expected this to happen. My dad is the only one among his siblings that vocally supported the LGBT cause. My cousin wasn’t so lucky with her paternal support, and received much less understanding from her mother. So it seemed like my marriage dragged the cat out of the bag; everyone was compelled to talk about queer issues and take a position. The lessons from my undergraduate course in feminism began to ring in my ears: ‘the personal is political.’ I smiled to myself, ‘Oh yes, it is!’
These clothes were made with our bodies in mind. To see that reflected on a runway — models of all sizes and ages and races and styles, outfits for occasions ranging from going to the gym to a black-tie formal event, all with a queer point of view — and to be a part of such a vibrant reaction to that made my robot heart grow three times. Queer Fashion Week wasn’t just about an aesthetic. It was about our community beyond just our sexualities, about body positivity, about representation, about celebrating and supporting each other in all things queer.
Why do we only collect coming out stories, it-gets-better stories, these stories that are set in the past, that tell of a particular set of experiences that not everyone can relate to? Stories that treat the future as if it doesn’t come with a problems of its own.
Because what are stories if not for finding ourselves in the narratives of others? They’re reminders that we’re not alone, that there are lives available to us outside what we’re constantly being told are the only ways to live. Where can we find inspiration and ideas for expanding our imaginations about the radical future except from each other?
Some people argue that wanting to have a genetic child is a narcissistic desire, and I will admit that I felt that, so strongly, whatever the partner-focused version of that is. I wanted to make a mini-Simone. How could I not, when she is the most incredible person I have ever known? Doesn’t our world deserve a little more of that special Simone-ness floating around?
The thing is, I DO care about the environment but I cannot stand it when white people pretend they are all connected to the earth and refuse to understand that many of us — Migrant Brown People — come from backgrounds where ‘environmentalism’ is not talked about because we grow up doing unintentional 'green’ things.
In the last half of 2011, I lived inside my depression. I alternated between sadness and numbness, between hyper-productivity and three-day crying jags where all I did was eat buttered toast and listen to Elliott Smith. In 2012, poetry taught me to feel other things again. I fed off Sylvia Plath’s tragedy, took whimsical journeys with e.e. cummings, grounded myself in stories with W.S. Merwin, got high on Anis Mojgani’s hope, riled myself up with Audre Lorde. I related deeply to Eileen Myles and Adrienne Rich and wasn’t quite prepared to process why.
Poetry didn’t convince me everything was going to be ok — too many great poets died by suicide or died alone and angry for me to believe poetry could be a cure-all — but they showed me that I was not alone in my not-okayness. They showed me there was more to life than being fucked up, and they reminded me I deserved better.
I fully believed I’d die before the age of 35. I was gonna live fast, get a lot accomplished in an abbreviated amount of time, and die young. When questioned about various reckless life decisions, I thought to myself, ‘Oh these silly people who think they’re going to live forever! So worried about long-term repercussions! Who wants to go tanning with me and do six drugs at once?’
Sometimes when people talk about the universe and its interaction in their life, it sounds too similar to the way people speak about being blessed or right with God, as if hardship comes from not honoring the galaxy every night or lighting enough Virgen de Guadalupe candles. No really and truly sometimes life fucks with you. Sometimes that grant that funded most of your department falls through, sometimes the white guy you work for just doesn’t think you’re good enough to continue, sometimes the universe makes you fall.
So you fall. I fell. I am falling.
And here’s where I have to take a pause.
I am pretty mad I don’t have my first novel published yet but I’ve been doing real good work on making the memories and material to go in it so I just gotta sit down and open a vein. I hope you’re ready. I’m not sure I am…
I just let go a lot in my thirties, personally. I couldn’t wait to be 30 because I felt like people would finally start taking me seriously. I think that did happen, a little, but surprisingly, passing the 30 mark let me take myself less seriously. I no longer feel like I’m sitting on a ticking bomb. I have patience now. I just have less fucks to give, too. I care less what people think and I demand to be respected instead of worrying about whether or not I am (and believe it or not, that actually works). I still have idealist radical politics, but I have more focus and pragmatism. I am slowly changing out my heels for sensible flats. I’m more forgiving and less quick to judge. I have less tolerance for straight-up BS. Time is racing by and I can finally imagine a future beyond the next five years.
Since I turned 30, I have felt an urgent, unyielding, existential tug on my mind asking and asking and asking if I’m using the quick breath of life I have on this earth to do something that counts. Every day — sometimes multiple times a day — I ask myself, ‘If I get smashed by a car today, will I have given all the goodness I had to give?’ I want to die broke from spending goodness. I don’t want any goodness left in the bank. I want to have splurged on the world. On cats and dogs and panda bears and the people I love and the people I barely know and the planet itself.
I didn’t want to go to brunch with my friends. I didn’t want to go to the grocery store to get milk. I didn’t want to Skype with my grandmother. I didn’t want to have sex with the woman who looks at me like she’s the east and I’m the sun.
It wasn’t just what the messages said that chipped away at me; it was the fact that they existed at all. My entire professional writing career has been about making the world better and brighter and warmer for queer women. Queer women don’t call each other fugly dykes! Or maybe they do.
I’m also only wearing the things I want to wear. Fuck a bunch of fucking jeans and fucking v-necks. I’d rather just not leave that house than wear that shit again.
