“I hope she gets hit by a bus. I hope she gets hit by a bus.”
Have you ever seen Sister Act? Those words, spoken by Whoopi Goldberg’s parole officer. That was the scene that welcomed me onto the Green Line. He wasn’t actually Whoopi Goldberg’s parole officer, but he looked enough like him to remind me of that movie actor - ragged coffee with milk skin, afro, wide nose. Mean eyes.
I, still being a she, was the target of that epithet.
I staggered onto the light rail car, plugged in my headphones for the ride, and staggered off of it, like someone medicated. I paused long enough to say “Fuck You” to my assailant.
He laughed.
Later, days later, I would attempt to beat up a pole.
Then, the night before a guest came over, I’d cuss out two friends, one who was coming out to the other. All because I was triggered by the word, “Bitches.”
This dull crescendo led to me trying to dislodge a piece of plexi-glass from a bus stop shelter. I was about to start my new job at a call center. Boys were ridiculing me for the way I smelled - leaky bladders do not do well on large city transit routes. I wanted to cut my throat there and then, a testament to the whole city that hated me. I’m going now, would be my final phrase.
Fast forward eight years. I’m still haunted by those cold days, but I’m a member of my local UU congregation. I have a few friends, online and off. I have another, less public, suicide attempt under my belt. My dad is losing his spark. His heart disease hangs over my mom and me like a heavy, wet blanket. I cry frequently. I don’t think of suicide.
And yet despite the darkness, there’s warmth. Not only in the more temperate streets that I Uber - rarely bus - around in, but in my family, my church, my friend’s houses. We’re there for each other. The opposite of what I had in Portland.
Which is to say that, yes, my faith does teach us that we’re valued, but that’s not enough. We need each other to keep us from the void, from attempting to destroy ourselves. We need love from each other’s bodies and from our own soft voices.
I met Brian when he was in a somewhat dark and confused place. I was his rock the night he contacted me. But in the few months we’ve known each other, he’s become my rock, too. One of us brings up something light or heavy, then the other responds with something related and personal. Back and forth, that’s what we do. Round and round and round we go, where we stop, nobody knows.
Brian and I have a shared history. Not from each other but from nearly identical curves in each others’ paths. We’re both non-binary trans, one curve. We both get nervous around strangers’ bodies, another curve. We both want to go into the ministry, a wide-brimmed, soft-to-the-foot hiking trail leading to a golden meadow, not yet to be seen, maybe only available in our shared imagination. We both care about people. The treads on our hiking boots are cushy because of this. But sometimes we hit rocks.
I hope the rocks that Brian hits while caring, while climbing up to the meadow, are not too big for him, and that the sprains he might suffer along the way heal fully. I hope he tends to these sprains, and I hope he can count on others, me included, to offer him a cool rag when he’s hurting. I’ll want that rag too sometimes, and I can count on Brian to offer it back to me.
With luck, this camaraderie that we share will keeps us from destroying ourselves. We need each other, and we both really want to see that meadow.
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