Saturday, Jan. 06, 2024 - 12:19 pm.
This has felt like the longest month, and it's only the 6th.
Workwise, I'm swamped with lots of tasks on teaching, researching and managing. On top of it, this is shaping up to be a year in which I make media "appearances" as a "woman in science". If I decide to come out of the closet in those interviews, it's over for you hoes.
On the personal front, life is good. It's just nice to have a place of your own. Andrew and I have stopped buying things and making plans for the apartment to take some time to recover financially from the move. But the place is looking good and even the cats seem to feel more at ease now. I think they also feel finally at home.
I've realized I finished last year and started this one having gained three new friendships. I'm 38 (39!!!!!! in a couple of weeks), and I know how rare it is to have the opportunity to have new friends at this life stage. Two of them are gay men, and one's a straight gal. I underscore this characteristic because I've learned that it eventually establishes the range of topics and even the psychoogical environment that emerges when we get together. Also, it's not a deep friendship, not yet at least, but these are people I (and Andrew) can count on to get together for coffee or a meal and chat the evening away.
My straight friend was my (and Andrew's) classmate during our master's. The second semester of the program, she and her now husband took the two of us, along with their pup, to a beach (in the Pacific so we were wearing coats all the time). I have the pictures and I have the memory of it being one of my first big trips here, exploring new places with a playful dog to boot. She and I have recently reconnected.
We went for coffee yesterday. She and her husband came over for lunch during the Christmas break and we had a blast the four of us. This time it was just the two of us. She's started working on a huge project to foster visibility of women in academia and science, hence my opening comment in this entry. She's the one booking me for talks, interviews and vodcasts (fuck influencers and the stuff they brought with them). She essentially gives me more work everytime we talk haha. But we connect nicely too, and she's deep into gender causes. She's been through a lot as a woman with a PhD in the Physical Education field and who one day decided not to take shit from others, especially men.
I came out to her yesterday over coffee. I suppose I should always expect the questions about open relationships and threesomes, and she asked something along those lines too. I can forgive her, if anything because her question came from her knowing another mixed gender couple who were both bi and in an open relationship...until the guy fell in love with another guy and the wife couldn't stand that (it turns out she was bi AND homophobic).
To me these stories are unremarkable. They happen all the time regardless of the gender of the people involved, and they have nothing to do with me. But since people don't know a lot of exemplars of bi people, you meet one or two and you latch onto their experiences like a generalizable story for all bi people.
Anyway, I'm happy I came out to her, she's someone you want on your side and you know you can count on. With Andrew's blessing, I told her he was bi too. Bless him and his refusal to be confused with a heterosexual man.
The only thing that made me uncomfortable was that we were having coffee on uni grounds, and the walls have ears. You never know who's listening and what they'll take away from what you're saying. I had two episodes of such awareness yesterday, one of these episodes being the coming out in question. I'm fully mindful of every word I say, and I'm all up for owning them, but afterwards I wonder if I should have spoken at all, and if those words will ever be weaponized against me.
This is very much my concern when I think about being on interviews and stuff. Sound bites. Statements out of context. Statements I meant to say without a doubt about their meaning but that may get me in trouble with the university that employs me, among others.
What a fun year this is going to be.
Work is work, though, and I have a life outside of it. I have big plans for the weekend: sit in front of the computer.
Although the Christmas break was a welcome rest, we had social engagements everyday that week. This weekend is just for us, as individuals throughout the day, and as a couple for coffee and mealtimes. That's just delicious.
This morning I made orange juice, Andrew made coffee, and the two of us sat for breakfast on our balcony. We had a bit of sun shining on us through the clouds and the neighbor birds were singing.
Over breakfast we flipped through the photo album of our last year in Sheffield (September 2018 to September 2019), we just got those photos printed a couple of days ago. It's a 200-photo album, and it was hard to put together because we had hundreds, if not over a thousand photos from that period. It feels like a lifetime ago. Like it happened to someone else. Or like it didn't happen at all, if it wasn't for the proof of these pictures we took.That year we went to Lincoln, Brighton (ah, Brighton <3), Edinburgh, Berlin, Iceland, the US with my family, and we were particularly social, fearing that we might not see many of our friends ever again once we left the UK. We were painfully aware that the beautiful life that we'd had for four years had an expiration date that was fast approaching.
Then we closed the album and we were back in our balcony, the two of us, with a view to the city and to the hills beyond the city. Still with our two silly cats who are also in those pictures taken 12,000 km away. And I feel grateful for it all.
prev / next