This is a Really Real Mental Health Post

But also a Really Real Love Post.

Wonder Woman and I have spent the last two road trips listening to “Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout” by Laura Jane Grace. In it, Laura Jane Grace reads from her journals and talks about lots of different topics, one of which is her experiences throughout her life as a person who is trans.

Wonder Woman and I have talked about her past.  I knew some bits and pieces of her experiences from before she transitioned, but at one point while we were listening to the book I had to stop and ask her how much of that topic was true to what she experienced.

Listening to Laura Jane Grace talk about her innermost thoughts, the dysphoria, the shame, the pain and anguish, the hurt, the fighting with herself. 

Knowing that Wonder Woman went through those same things just to become the woman I know and love.

It was hard for me to listen to, while at the same time I needed to hear more. 

I want to climb inside Wonder Woman’s head and know everything that’s in there, and everything that was in there, and I can’t.  And getting this little glimpse, through someone else’s words, was like gold to me.

While also being so, fucking, painful.

And I can’t decide if it’s just because I have a big heart, or because of a lack of boundaries that I feel it so deeply.  But either way, I felt it. 

It’s painful to hear the anguish she went through to become this amazing, beautiful, woman that was sitting beside me in the car.  

On one hand, I know that we wouldn’t be together without the journey we both took to get here.

But I wish I could protect her from the pain.

I wish I could go back, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, more.  I wish I could hold her and tell her it would be okay.  I wish I could take away all those years of pain.

I wish I could protect her from it all.

And I can’t, even now.  But I can love her now.

And I plan to keep loving her.  Cause she’s my girl.

And I’m so glad I have her, and so glad we found each other.