Birthday Meditations

*an Instagram post inspired by my Medium post, Birthday Blues

Today I went to the orphanage I come from. I sat, surrounded by babies. Surrounded by want. And memories. Wanted memories and memory mammas. I returned more prodigal son than destined daughter.
I was one of the ones who made it out. I’m trying to forgive myself for it.

I wasn’t saved so much as I was found in a destruction I didn’t ask for and given a new identity to learn.

Yesterday I floated in a pool of my own grief. I mean, I was in a pool and I made the water carry my grief. Like a babe in a womb, I was moved. This is the closest I get to being held fully. This weary, worn, body contains wounds I only let water touch. This is the closest I let myself be witnessed. This is how I remember.

I didn’t come from nowhere. M/other. It’s me, your other. Your lenten offering, still waiting for the resurrection of us. Still Motherless, even with a mom and dad.

I’m twenty-three today. I got me some birthday blues. Blues like sorrow. Blues like swimming pool. Blues like not swimming in a pool. Blues like drowning. Blues like lost at sea. Like sea. Like m/other memory don’t you know that every birthday I pass through takes me farther from you? From us?

M/other, You probably wouldn’t recognise me if we met. I don’t recognise me. I wasn’t a me when you left. I was you and everything that came after is me doing my best with the pieces of a self not fully lived. Mess and miracle. The beast’s beastling and I’m finalling coming into my holiness.

This is twenty-three. I am a fighter. I had to be. I’m not proud of all the ways I hit back in life but I’m working on holding onto the softest parts of me and learning how to receive gentleness.
I’m declaring myself joy. I’m declaring myself as trans.
I’m recalling myself as creative. I’m seeing my queerness as sacred.
I’m telling myself I’m love. I am indebted to the Black women before me.

Praise. I’m still here.
Grieve. I’m still here.
Allow both.

This is twenty-three and I’m not sure how to celebrate the most painful day of my life. But I figure if I make it to next year I can reevaluate then.

For now I am grateful to just be K. 
For this breath today-- God knows I asked them to take back enough times.