Persistence, But What For?
As of yesterday of this post, I celebrated my 40th birthday.
40 years I've been existing on this sphere of rock and water as it hurtles through space. 25 of those years I spent trying to figure out what my life is, who I am and what I'm even here for.
Early 2008 I started work at a repair shop where I started to really cut my teeth as a car repair tech. I had built up a decent toolbox for myself. The shop I was working at was actively helping me do heavier repair jobs, like suspension/chassis work, engine repairs, exhaust work and suspension alignments. I was even lined up to get my inspector's license. But then the economic crash happened, people stopped coming to our shop. We lost so many of our regular customers and people stopped doing any repairs to their cars. I was let go in spring 2009. My career as a repair tech tanked after that.
I've experienced my family ripping itself to shreds, only to find out what was holding it all together was nothing but lies and spite. Finding out the kind of people my own blood family are and how little they all view me as a person, let alone as a family member at all. Cutting all ties only to see that none of them truly cared other than manipulating me to make sure my mother got the better end of my parents' divorce. Not to mention how much my mother's gambling problems were the real culprit behind the divorce and why my family lost the first and only house we ever had together.
I've been through a relationship that felt like it could be the one. That one relationship you find and you have somebody to experience the rest of your life with. The harsh reality of it all was somebody I loved and thought I knew was never who she really said she was. How she resented me the more I discovered I was queer and less of the cishet boyfriend she first met back in the very late 2000's. Only to uproot everything we had together for a long distance partner she never met because she took me coming out as asexual as me "falling out of love". Taking advantage of me in my sleep until she left me because she felt as if she was owed sex simply because "that's how relationships work".
Despite my life being nothing but bad situations one after the other, I persisted. From all the drama of high school and college, to the drama of local car community nonsense and online shitposting, I'm still here.
After my 34th birthday, my life felt stagnant. It was just months before my ex would finally leave me for her online lover that she kept nothing but a vague image as "a friend with benefits" to me all during 2020. The beginning of 2021 was more than some bandage coming off, it was a stitched up wound I had ignored for years that opened up. But it also started a genuinely new chapter of my life. It was a fresh start that I desperately needed.
February 2021 wasn't just the start of living alone, it was the start of actually given the space to understand myself better. Far better than I had ever understood myself previously. I had the alone time I finally wanted, space to explore, question and self reflect. Where I could explore myself as a queer person without resentment and passive aggressive questioning. It's because of that first year I was able to figure out that I am non binary. December 2021 I came out as non binary. March 2024 I started on estrogen. I regret never going on it sooner.
Despite this new chapter of my life helping me feel more whole, I struggled with relationships. I had two relationships after my awful ex but I ended both of them. They both deserved better than dealing with my trauma, my indecisiveness and most of all, myself as armoantic. Both wanted strong, romantic love. They both did not deserve to be in a one sided relationship.
Neighborhoods I drive through I see houses and always struck with the thoughts of "I'm never going to have one" because of how bad things have gotten in the world now. Homes cost upwards of $600K-$700K, how am I supposed to even fathom that with just an income of $41K a year? I only have my nice Mazda since I'm good with bargain hunting.
As whole as I feel, I still feel like life absolutely gave me the short end of the stick. I struggle with wanting a partner, I come home to an empty house every day after work. Yet I still persist.
My generation has been hounded, demonized, gaslit and scapegoated for the past decade and a half. Boomers have ensured everything is fucked. Gen-X seems more interested in appearing like they care but are just as selfish as boomers. Millennials have been through so many "Historical Events" that we are just exhausted with constantly feeling like our lives will never be stable. Gen Z and Gen Alpha I feel terrible for knowing what boomers and ignorant gen-x'ers will leave behind will take decades to course correct if we ever get off this neo liberal fascist hellscape of a timeline.
And yet, again. Here I am continuing to persist out of what feels like sheer spite at this point. I genuinely just take life one day at a time these days. Because I'm still here, somehow. What are my 40's gonna be like? The fuck if I know but existing out of spite certainly feels achievable.
Please, check in on your friends. Check in on those you love and care about. We can only depend on each other.
See you next time.