Thankful for You, Love

I've always convinced myself that there is a fundamental part of my being that is too broken beyond repair to ever allow anyone to actually "love" me. Sure, my loved ones would love me, but only bits and pieces, only the parts that I've spent countless years tailoring to be "lovable." Because, sure, I'm lovable, but for the majority of my life I believed being lovable was only possible under strict Terms and Conditions.

I grew up in Catholic school. For a very long time, I fully believed in the enlightened-ness of my priests and pastors. I went to them with every question I ever had, even those pertaining to gender and sexuality, and it was them who informed me that my soul had been cursed before I was born, hand-selected by the devil to be one of his children. Thus, I was condemned to Hell, no matter how holy I tried to be, no matter how much I dedicated my life to learning and living out the sacraments and teachings of the Lord. Hell, they even told me that it was my gayness that had killed my best friend, at the ripe old age of 8, because we had gotten married in my room under the watchful eyes of my teddy bear and my Crucifix. The Lord had seen this, you see, and had taken her soul back up to Heaven before I could further pervert her.

As you can probably guess, hearing something like that sets you up for a pretty perverted view of life and love. For years, I wouldn't let myself love anything at all, lest it be ruined by my touch. I was even afraid to love my brothers, though I knew the difference between familial love and my "perverted" way of loving. I cut myself off from passion entirely, embracing the depression that had already begun to build its home in my brain and giving it full reign over my life.

It wasn't until I left my hometown for high school (also Catholic) that I decided I would make myself lovable by being loving. This was a pretty easy endeavor, as I seem to be a naturally positive and caring person despite the years of numb indifference. All I had to do was capitalize off of that. I was going to put so much love out into the world that the world wouldn't have any other option but to love me back. I started pouring my love onto everything, everyone. I wanted everyone to feel good about themselves, and to maybe even be inspired enough by my love and passion for the world that they might look out at a slightly brighter day. That is who I wanted to be for people, their ray of sunshine on dark days, and that is still an aspect of who I am. But it is only one of the many, many facets of who I am as a human being.

And who doesn't do this, I always thought to myself. Isn't everyone just constantly rewriting and editing themselves to be the perfectly lovable person they want to be? Sure, there were times when I would wish I could just be loved as my raw, natural self, but I never realized there was ever any other option. Secrets and hidden parts of the self were just what I accepted as reality.

Until I met my love on my first day of college, the first school I went to that wasn't focused on religion. Right from the start, he had me questioning the way I allowed myself to be loved. At the time I was dating a boy from my high school. Looking back, it really wasn't fair to him. I had realized I was transgender well before we had started dating, but I was absolutely determined to continue living as the person I was born as. He didn't love me for me, partially because he couldn't; I hadn't even admitted my own secrets to myself, let alone started to love them. It makes me laugh, sometimes, how strongly I believed that I would never be able to be loved as the person I am today. That any love I could hope to receive as a flamboyantly queer, nonbinary transgender man would never be real love. But the boy who would grow to be my love challenged that mentality.

He was my best friend for five years before we finally confessed our feelings for each other. During that time, he watched as I struggled to grow. Never once did he have a negative comment. He was my first line of defense, never allowing others to get away with saying things that might hurt me or turn my progress around. He created my first real safe space to explore who I am, without expecting a single thing in return. It was such a mind-blowing experience, to tell you the truth. I found aspects of myself that I never would have if I had never allowed myself to love Oliver. That I never would have found if he didn't so relentlessly encourage me to be myself.

We've now been dating for a year. Even when we first started, there were pieces of myself that I tried to squash down, afraid that the messiness inside my head would scare him away. Instead, it's almost as though the broken bits inside me make him love me even more fiercely.

Things have been rough lately, to put it lightly. Between working a job that isn't great to struggling financially, I've found myself crashing a lot and constantly being consumed by panic attacks and depression. This has led me to be furious with myself, because in my head, how dare I put Oliver through all this negativity when I'm supposed to be the best thing in his life, the one who makes his life better. I keep having these great bursts of grief, where I feel the need to just apologize to him over and over, telling him how sorry I am that I'm, well, me.

I know this man. I know him better than I've ever known any other person. We have spent countless hours talking about anything and everything, and in college we greeted the sun many a morning when the night had been forgotten under our conversation. I like to think I know him better than anyone. And yet, I was still caught by surprise by his response to my apology.

He said: "I don't want you to be the best for me, I want you to be the best for you. I don't love your mental illnesses, but I will only meet them with love and gentle kindness. I don't love the sadness and fear that makes you cry, but I love each tear that falls down your cheek and I love that you can cry so easily and let yourself feel through it while I sit with you. I don't love what angers you, but I love the fire it ignites inside you. I don't love that you crash, but I love that you are resting. All I have for you is love, Max."

I have been loved as a daughter, a friend, a best friend, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, and many other things. I have even been loved as a soulmate by another. But I have never felt so incredibly, fully, completely loved as I do by this man. He is my soulmate. Through and through. So this year, despite all the hardship we've had to go through, both personal and due to worldly affairs, I am so incredibly grateful. Thank you, Oliver. For loving me as myself. You've shown me why I could never find God during those countless hours I spent praying in a pew. God is not a person or a place, but rather the way that you love me.