End. Seen.

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SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hey everyone, and welcome back to my curiously queer life. So uh this is going to be the final episode of season two. I am uh I don't know. The last couple weeks have been a great reminder that life is not perfect and it can be uh thrown off track very quickly. And uh, but I I am still grateful. All that aside, this podcast has blown up slightly, and I am uh super grateful for that. So yay to that. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

So that being said, final episode. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I was watching Peach Dragon the other day, the one from 1977. Don't judge me. Weed and old movies go hand in hand. If you know, you know. And there's this song, There's Room for Everyone, and I'm sitting there thinking it's about belonging, about making space for the ones in the world who are pushed to the edges. And then I remembered something. Elliot wasn't trying to belong. Elliot was trying to save Pete. He showed up when that little boy had nothing, no family, no home, no one. And he loved him through all of it, fiercely, invisible, completely. And then when Pete's life got good, when it got better, when the love had done its job, Elliot left. No drama, no negotiation, no, but what about me? Just gone. And I had to put my phone down and sit with that for a minute. Because that kind of love, love that gives everything and needs nothing and knows exactly when to go, I don't know if I've ever let anyone love me like that. Loving other people, that part has never been hard for me. When someone I care about needs something, I move. I don't have to think about it. It's just how I'm wired. Show up, protect quietly, don't keep score. Whether I do it well, that's a whole nother conversation. I'm still learning how to be this new version of me. Still finding the edges of what real love actually requires versus what I have told myself for the last many decades. But the direction outward always felt easier than inward. That's Doc. He'll tell you. Actually, you won't, because he's a husky and he's currently acting like the squirrel across the street is a personal attack on his character. But trust me, he knows. What I'm not good at, what I'm only just starting to look at honestly, is being on the receiving end of love. Someone tries to take care of me and something in me gets uncomfortable, wants to redirect, deflect it, make a joke, say, I'm fine, I'm good, don't worry about me. And I've been calling that independence. Sometimes independence is just fear wearing a very convincing costume. And I've been sitting with that, asking myself, where did that start? Where did I learn that love was something to be cautious of, something to manage from a distance?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

And the honest answer is my family.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Not because my family didn't love me, they did, they do. But my family has always been very queer. Me, my mom, aunts, uncles, cousins, and I'm sure the rest have dabbled at some point. So right from the start, we were seen as broken, gross, not normal. And instead of turning to each other and saying, Okay, so let's just be us. We tried to perform a version of family that was never written for the people like us. The picture book version, the television version, a type of family that was never a reflection of who we actually were. Square pegs, round holes every single time. And we never stopped to reintroduce ourselves. We based everything we were on old ideas of who we were. We just kept showing up to the performance nobody was enjoying and pretending it was enough. And somewhere in that, a young Thomas learned that love comes with conditions, that belonging requires performance, that who you actually are may not be welcome at the table, even your own table.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

So the walls go up. Not out of coldness, out of something much older than coldness.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Out of the very reasonable conclusion that access is dangerous, that letting people in, really in, costs something you might not be able to afford to lose.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Pete wasn't broken. He was just alone.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

There's a difference that took me a long time to understand. Broken means something is wrong with you. Alone means the right present hasn't found you yet. Elliot found Pete in the wilderness. Literally. And he didn't try to fix him, didn't hand him a pamphlet, didn't tell him what he was doing was wrong, he just stayed. I think about all the people in my life who tried to just stay, who showed up with their version of Invisible Wings and said, I see you, Thomas. I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Let me help you. It's funny. As I sit here, even talking about this, there's a bit of panic at the thought. And I made it so hard for them. Not out of cruelty, but out of the quiet belief that I didn't deserve an Elliot. Someone like me.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Someone who has seen enough, done enough, survived enough, should probably just handle it alone. The thing nobody tells you about receiving love, it requires vulnerability. And vulnerability requires trust. And trust requires you to believe. Really believe in your bones that the person standing in front of you is not going to use your softness against you. And if your history has taught you otherwise, that's not a personality flaw. That's just scar tissue doing its job. But scar tissue that was meant to protect you can also keep the good stuff away. Am I keeping people at the exact distance that feels safe and calling it boundaries? Am I so busy being everyone else's Elliot that I never let anyone be mine?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Am I even ready to receive love? I don't have an honest answer for any of that.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

But I think the fact that I'm asking the question, you mean something. Yeah. I have to tell you about Duck. Duck doesn't have this problem. Duck receives love like it's his absolute birthright. You scratch behind his ears and he leans in full body weight, like yes, more. This is correct. Do not stop. No apology, no deflection, no oh, you don't have to do that. Just full, unguarded, shameless receiving. And I watch him sometimes and think, what if that's actually more evolved position? What if the ability to receive love, to let it land, to let it matter, to let someone care about you?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

It's not weakness. What if it's the bravest thing a person can do?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Elliot left Pete because the love had done its job. Pete was ready. He had a home, he had people, he didn't need an invisible dragon anymore. But I wonder sometimes, what if Pete never had Elliot at all? What if he had been too proud, too hurt, too armored?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

He would have survived, probably. But he wouldn't have been saved. There's a difference. And I'm still learning to tell the two apart.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

But, and this morning happened. Duck and I are on our walk. He pulls me into the weed shop, and I mean that literally. He has friends there, employees who know his name. And he will absolutely hold a grudge if I walk past without going in. I'm a man being managed by his huskies. This is my life. I have accepted it, so we go in. And the person behind the counter looks at me and asks, Oh, are you going for a run? I say, No. I was up all night, and a customer, a stranger, just says, without hesitation, without a beat, night shift.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

And I stood there because my own life would have heard that same thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

And the person would have looked at me and been up all night and said, uh, were you drinking? Did you party too hard? Again. The assumption of damage, the default setting of doubt, the quiet tax you pay when the world has decided who you are before you even open your mouth. She didn't do any of that. She just saw a tired man on a Sunday morning walking his dog and assume the most dignified version of this story.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Night shift. Two words. And I felt some move in me that I don't have clean words for yet, but something between relief and arrival. Like a door that I'd been pushing against for years had finally just uh swung open on its own. People are starting to see me as I choose to be seen. And that is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me so far. I'm sorry. Sorry. Not the podcast. Not the downloads. Not any milestone I could put a number on. This stranger's assumption.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Adult social calendar. A Sunday morning. That asks nothing from me except to show up and receive it. Maybe that's what being ready looks like. Not a a grand declaration. Not a healed wound. Just a moment where love in its smallest, most ordinary form lands.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

And you let it in. We never reintroduced ourselves. And some introductions are simply overdue. So allow me. Hello, world. My name is Thomas St. James. And I am so ready.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

So that is it for this week. As always, fill your tanks with joy, love, and kindness. And when you feel it spilling over the edges, you share with everyone around you. My name is Thomas St. James, and this is my Curiously Queer Life.