Reflections from the Recovery Room - Part 2: Goddess is a Female Version of a Hustler

(Link to part 1)

Diva Goddess is a Female Version of a Hustler

Immediately upon seeing his Bumble profile (PUKE), I was intrigued. For starters, his primary profile picture was a photo of him, doubled over, back to the camera, ass in the air, face between his legs. He had this goofy, wide-eyed gaze, and his mouth was fully agape, tongue stuck out at the camera. I have no idea why, but made me chuckle, and I continued perusing the profile. His bio was simple and read: Looking at plants outside, smoking plants inside. Looking for one of them best friends - > true love type beats, and he listed himself as a leftist atheist, interested in art, gardening, science, and environmentalism – working in tech. Further scrolling unveiled another photo of him, more wholesome this time. He was seated in his car, sipping an iced coffee with one hand, a pup cup prominently placed in the other –a giant smile smattered across his face. Seated next to him was his dog, clearly ready to enjoy the pup cup. The remaining contents of his profile kept in theme with the first few – a mix of silly and unserious Bumble prompt responses, coupled with details that hinted at several likely similarities between us.

“Oh, what the hell – why not?” I thought, as I swiped right.

Moments later, I had a new message. It was a reply to one of the three prompts I had on my profile, a newer feature that – if you’re not up to speed on the inner workings of Bumble – allows men to make the first move, so long as they reply to one of your pre-selected prompts. In its infancy, Bumble was designed so that women had to send the first message, before a conversation could start – an attempt to keep creeps from sending heinous messages or dick pics in unsolicited manners. This was a great idea, in theory, because it really did allow women to only engage if they felt comfortable, but in concept – I don’t think it really mattered because men are fucking relentless and if they want you to hear about, or see, their penis – you’re gonna hear about, or see it – probably both. Not to mention, the concept is incredibly heteronormative and plays into weird stereotypes about who should make the first move. But I digress; the important takeaway is that, now anyone can message first, but if you’re a man – you must respond to one of the pre-selected prompts. And that’s exactly what he did.

The prompt read: What was your dream job as a kid?

His response: “I wanted to be a paleontologist! Funny how things work out. What about you?”

I had no idea what he meant by funny how things work out but responded with, “I wanted to be an elementary school teacher by day, pop star by night (and weekend). Funny how things work out for me too!”

His reply: “Who would’ve thought a girl like you could double as a superstar?” 

Now, for my older more established readers, this was a direct reference to the Hannah Montana theme song, and all you really need to know is, it made me smile. Little Margaux, the one glued in front of that massively heavy, boxy TV in her downstairs living room– watching all the ‘girl’ shows on Disney channel – felt seen by this goofy, weird boy, within moments of chatting.

The conversation continued, and I learned more about him. We talked about where we grew up, where we went to school, and what brought us to the city. After establishing some base level info about each other, we immediately launched into a back-and-forth banter, which spanned over ten days. It was at the ten-day mark that I decided to stop waiting for him to make a real move and just gave him my number. He accepted it, and we moved the conversation to text – for another ten days. Another ten days of consistent bantering, sending music recommendations back and forth, and commiserating about the current state of the world (this was all leading up to the January 20 presidential inauguration, and we both had some intense anxiety about what was to come – for good reason).

After almost a month of getting to know each other virtually, we made plans to meet at a bar near my apartment. On the day of our first official date, he asked if we could push things back by about an hour. I was happy to oblige but somehow still showed up more than 10 minutes late – something I felt guilt about for the entirety of my first dirty, gin martini of the night, partially because of my upbringing (being raised by two incredibly punctual people and simultaneously being raised in the catholic church will do that to you!) and partially because he seemed bothered by my lateness, and possibly uninterested in me, in general.

We stumbled through the first cocktail, but by the time the second martini hit the table, I realized that he wasn’t bothered or uninterested, he was nervous. And from there, I took the reigns, in an effort to break the awkward tension – explicitly calling him out on his nerves and calling myself out on my own anxiety about being late – which lightened the mood. The rest of the date consisted of a third cocktail, something neither of us needed, and soggy, cold French fries, which became soggier and colder the longer we ignored them in favor of taking in, fully, what the other had to offer.

The rest of the evening is a blur, in part because we each had three drinks and almost no food, but also because we were clearly enamored with each other. Going against my better judgement, I invited him back to my apartment, and – also against my better judgement – we spent the next three days holed up together, only leaving to pick up food or take my dogs for walks around the neighborhood.

In those three days, I found myself fully enveloped with his kind-hearted, gentle-souled nature, fully in awe of his ability to contain a deep, endless, ever-flowing knowledge about pretty much any topic under the sun, and fully enamored by his witty, biting, and sometimes downright weird sense of humor – the latter of which tickled my brain. The more we learned about each other, the more we realized that though we came from different worlds, we were incredibly similar at our cores.

Those three days not only made us quickly grow feelings for one another but also served as a distraction for us – as the country seemed to completely unravel itself, with a barrage of executive orders and sweeping statements from the newly inaugurated president of the country, and frankly, it was a distraction that both of us needed. Coming out of that long whirlwind of a weekend, I remember we felt a shared sense of whiplash – going from feeling an intense, immediate, assured spark and letting that spark ignite for three full days, before forcing ourselves back into the real world, filled with a litany of less exciting things – like how the world was seemingly ending, and how my marriage was actually ending.

Despite these hurdles (or logistics, as I more lovingly called them), We spent the next few weeks falling into a pattern. We’d exist in the real world for only as long as we had to, to work and keep up with as much news as we could take, and then when the weekend rolled around – we’d spend the entirety of it together. That quickly spilled into weekday dates, cooking dinner together, having recurring show-and-tell sessions – a concept that he came up with – where we’d take turns sharing an artifact, collectable, or object that felt important to us. At the start, we’d show each other surface level things, like my record collection or the several bikes he’d built – all of which were stored in his one-bedroom apartment. Very quickly though, this became more intimate. In fact, it became so intimate that I’d begun sharing things like – pictures of my former life as Sean, or bits of writing I’d otherwise kept to myself. These show and tell sessions soon rippled into more annoyingly cutesy routines: cooking dinner for each other, cuddling while reading our favorite books to each other, slow dancing in my living room, and exploring our little northside corner of the city together. And as these routines progressed, I fell head-over-Louboutin heels, in love.

It was only six weeks in, when I had a designated space in his medicine cabinet. By nine weeks in, we made plans to meet each other’s friends and families. We began getting used to having each other around, and things felt great. The drawer in my nightstand had filled with cute notes, trinkets, and gifts from him, and we quickly graduated from just shared medicine cabinet spaces to designated small sections of closet space, to limit the need for constantly bringing duffle bags of clothes back and forth to each other’s places. We spent almost every day together.

The next couple months were filled with more cutesy, coupley things: he built me a bike – which he let me design myself – and we spent several weekend days riding around the city, sharing joints, picnicking along the water, and ringing our bells at strangers as we gleefully passed them on the busy, Chicago streets. We attended concerts together. We met each other’s friends and families. We made plans to take a trip out east, and we began to map out what the summer, fall, and winter would look like – as I was undergoing all my gender-affirming related surgeries.

During this time, I started to see how much he genuinely loved the woman (or Goddess, as he semi-jokingly referred to me) I was turning out to be. Bearing witness to that allowed me to let my walls down a bit more. And the more I let my walls down, the more I felt myself stop overthinking things. I let myself just exist. Again, as I referenced in part one of this essay, the physical growth of Margaux had been happening for over a year and a half, but in some ways, I had stopped myself from fully going there emotionally. In letting myself settle into this new relationship, I felt my emotional-self catch up with my physical one, and I found myself in a totally new headspace: comfier, cozier, happier than I’d ever been before.

My friends took note of these new developments, too. One of my best friends – Riley, who always seems to have a pulse on where my head’s at with life, put it succinctly over cocktails, one Sunday afternoon.

“You’ve got this new relaxed feeling about you, and I really love seeing it. You’re the same person, but more grown up, more assured of yourself.” She started.

I couldn’t help but indulge both of us, in what I knew would be a meaningful reflection, girlfriend to girlfriend.

“Go on…” I dared her, with just the slightest smirk forming.

“Well, you’re clearly the same woman, but you’ve got this new perspective. You were always confident, but you have this newfound confidence. You seem to care less about what the outside world thinks, and I admire this new pursuit of doing whatever makes Margaux the happiest. It’s refreshing.”

She went on to share how she’s seen me change over the past few months, and as expected, she was spot on. Between the clarity I’d found in distancing myself from my former marriage (and the associated lessons I’d learned about self-preservation and walking away from something, even though you love it immensely, in favor of keeping yourself intact), and stumbling upon this new budding romance, all while the world around me felt like it was burning to the ground – I felt changed. Something about the combination of it all taught me to stop holding the reigns so tightly – and just live.

And I had my new boyfriend to thank, for helping me realize a lot of it, too. Even outside of him looking at me, and referring to me, as a Goddess, he found ways to gently and lovingly help me lighten up on some of my rigid rules. It was a method that he called, putting pills in peanut butter. Spoken like a true dog dad.

My favorite example of this came in the context of my not-so-healthy eating habits. Prior to my transition, I became hyper reliant on restricting my body of food, and I developed an eating disorder. It started off innocently enough – just skipping breakfast, but over the course of a couple years, it became much more serious. I’d allow myself two meals a day, if, and only if, I ran at least three miles (we’d shoot for closer to five-seven miles, if at all possible, but three was the absolute minimum). If I’d miss a run, well too bad – that also meant I must miss a meal, meaning I was only allowed one meal for that day.

I think it was my way of controlling my body, pre-transition, when it was starting to become increasingly less controllable. While I couldn’t help that some of my thoughts about possibly being trans were bubbling to the surface, I could employ a tactic I’d become accustomed to over the course of my life: build rules for myself, to help control what I can (something that likely ties back to the rules placed on me as a little girl, in an effort to dictate when and when, how, and where I presented femme – see my Don We Now, Our Trans Apparel essay for more on that).

Even after I began my transition, the disordered eating continued, especially as estrogen brought forth an unavoidable gaining of weight. I found myself constantly struggling to toe the line between letting myself gain a few pounds, often in places that inherently made me look womanlier (face, hips, boobs, and butt) – and keeping with my restrictive rules for myself.

One morning, while co-working with my new boyfriend, he asked if I wanted any food before my next meeting. Because it was before noon, I responded without even thinking about it.

“No – I’m not hungry. Thanks, though.”

This was something that, over the course of the few months we’d gotten to know each other, he’d come to know about me, and despite his efforts to get me to nourish my body and despite all the other ways he’d helped me let myself relax, he knew I was stubborn about this.

He left it at that, didn’t push any further – just made himself a snack and moved on with the workday.

But as I was in my next meeting, I noticed a small bowl of trail mix, placed next to my workspace. Without even thinking about it, I began to eat. And within just a few minutes, I consumed the entire bowl of nuts, raisins, and chocolate chunks – all before noon. He never addressed it, never pushed, but he took note. Every workday from that day forward, I got my little snack, and eventually that little snack turned into actual breakfast. Before I knew it, I was eating three meals a day, and a little something extra if I felt like it.

It was this gentle, meticulously calculated kind of love and care that made me fall even deeper in love with him, and deeper in love with myself. I saw myself, and for the first time ever – treated myself – like the Goddess I was, and am.

It wasn’t all pills in peanut butter, though. As time progressed, our collective, general anxiety increased – first about the state of the world and what might happen if we actually saw the toppling of the country. I was terrified for my own safety, and as his love grew for me, he became more and more terrified, too. We discussed escape routes – where we might go and how we might get there. We talked about how long we thought Chicago would remain a safe haven for me. And we started talking about how we’d go about sourcing my hormones if I lost access to them.

With this increasing anxiety, other things started to feel more anxious for him: namely, my marital state. No matter how hard we tried to run from it, and how hard I tried to convince him otherwise, there was this shadow of my previous life, looming over us. This led to me trying to assure and reassure him that things were good with Kullen, that we’d both moved on (we had), and that – even though I didn’t expect to stumble into this new romantic relationship so soon – I was ready for it. Despite my best attempts though, tensions started to rise, and we found ourselves enveloped in a yet another new routine – one that was far less exciting or fulfilling than the aforementioned ones: late night arguments. We’d love big, argue big, stay up all night and argue big some more, and then make up – before doing it again the next week. This continued, until finally, on the evening of my twenty-ninth birthday, we argued so badly, there was no real coming back.

As we woke up the next morning, after getting just a couple hours of sleep, things felt noticeably different. That inherent lightness we’d felt for the entire four months spent together, from the very first bumble message – had somehow dissipated in the early hours of the morning. We spent the next two weeks trying to rekindle what was lost that night, but it was too late. We had one, final argument, and on the tail of it – through tears and dry heaves – we agreed that it was over.

I packed up a couple of boxes, filled with my things that had made a home for themselves in his apartment, the apartment that was a safe-haven for me during one of the toughest times of my life – and I loaded them into my car. We hugged, kissed, and thanked each other – before saying goodbye. I sobbed the entire way home, but I felt resolved in the decision. It was for the best.

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And while this would have been a poetic start to a beautiful love story, about how I found that second true love – technically Margaux’s first – when I least expected it, a love that lasts forever (or whatever other hallmark-ass phrase you want to inject here) – it wasn’t that.

That, however, doesn’t take away from what it was for me: a sort of first, true love for Margaux, which came when I unknowingly needed it most. A love that carried me into the next phase of my life. It was a rite of passage love – something so many women before me have experienced. A love that changes you, that sets you on a path to recognizing your feminine power, that teaches you all the ups and downs of loving someone else and learning to fully love yourself. The kind of love that stings when it ends (and after it ends) but feels like a necessary pain because it reminds you that, at the end of the day, boys will come and go – but you’ve got yourself for life. You need to take care of yourself: nourish your body, love every inch of you, treat yourself like the goddess you are.

And so, with June right around the corner and just days leading up to my first gender affirming surgery – I left this short but intense fling with some resolve. I decided, right then and there, to dedicate, not only my summer, but the rest of my life – to self-love, self-discovery, and self-improvement.

This is the dawning of the age of Goddess Margaux. Hope you’re ready for me. 😊