I couldn’t tell you what it was. I only know that it’s there.
I’ve tried to describe it. I’ve told people I thought I was mildly autistic, or depressed, or- I told everyone that I was trans, then I told everyone I was just confused, then I told everyone that I was evil. Maybe one is true. Maybe all of them. I don’t know. None of the words felt right. They all felt performative, inadequate, never really matching the thing that I felt. It’s like trying to observe a black hole. You can only see it by the way that the observable universe warps at its edges. Things start to act up in ways you couldn’t otherwise explain.
Today was part of the job hunt process. My teammates- the people I’d spent almost every waking moment of the last 13 weeks with- they started saying things, jokingly referring to themselves as black trans women, or as gay, or whatever other thing they thought would get them ahead in a recruiter’s eyes.
I tried saying things about gender and race. I told them not to do it, but they were only joking. I tried to tell someone that gender and chromosomes are more complicated than he thought, but I felt like I couldn’t press.
I felt nothing, and then I holed myself up and cried. The lights were off, and I curled inwards, clutching myself, crushing myself into a dense, dark ball, and I could feel something twisting through me, some strange distortion whose source I could not touch.
I’ve spent so long feeling this thing that I didn’t ask for. I don’t know if it’s any of the things that they named, or any of the things that I did. I just know that I’m deathly fucking ashamed of being whatever this is. I’m afraid, both of being different and of claiming that identity. I’m afraid of being exactly what those people were joking about being. The liar. The opportunist. The predator. I
can’t stand how casual it is, how easy it is for them to be like that. I
hate this. I don’t want to look at anyone or be looked at. I don’t want anyone to see me like that. I
hate being this-whatever this is. I did not choose to feel this way. I feel ashamed of it and I keep it down and that was supposed to be enough. Here, at this bootcamp, there need not be a self. There need not be this thing, this anomaly, this force that tugs at me in ways that I would rather not be tugged at. It should just be the project, just the software, just just just just
I’m pretty good at algorithms. I pick them up pretty quickly and see them with particularly clear eyes. I can debug code, pass it back and forth in my mind, flip it, watch the parts turn. I have so much clarity sometimes. I think tree traversals are aesthetically pleasing, and that fixed points are things of beauty.
We’ve worked on so many things together. I once said that knowing someone’s got my back is far more important than any sexist or racist things they could say. I thought I was committed to this bigger picture, the gestalt of personhood that goes beyond the casual jokes, the offhand comments, the things that aren’t politically correct- because I can trust them, right? We’ve got through the difficult parts together. It’s just, the edges seem to bend a little bit.
But my head hurts, and I just want someone who can listen and understand the things that I wish I could convey. If I can’t have that, I want to be buried, hugged at all sides by the warm darkness, gentle pressure of gravity settling sand atop my body until the tension inside of me collapses on itself.
