...

And I have no idea where the hell I am.

I do not subscribe to the term "journey." I might even say that I resent it. A journey implies a destination, a point where everything in between finally comes to an end. I may have once seen my transition this way, but that notion quickly vanished once I looked at it close enough.

I say this because in the 9 years I've been out as trans, my understanding of gender and how it applies to me has only gotten blurrier. I've distanced myself so far from cisnormative ideas of gender that re-encountering them on occasion is bewildering at worst, nonsensical at best. I understand how I was ushered into our society's gender rituals, but I can't remember how it felt.

I still don't have a word for what my gender "is." Nonbinary is the most serviceable. The problem with gender is that it means too much, and also doesn't mean anything. I can't explain what "gender" feels like to me because I can't rely on the few cisnormative words we have to talk about it. I can't even explain it to myself.

I don't say this in despair. This is comforting. I've embraced just how much nothing it means. When I'm asked to explain it, all I can do is shrug.

So I have no journey. I know now that I never did. It never started, it just is. And it won't end because there is no goal post.