The Sea of Self - Personal Writing

When my mother was pregnant with me, my parents picked out a name for if I was a boy and if I was a girl.

The girl's name was Brielle, a name taken from a town on the New Jersey coast they would pass driving down the shore; down to the towns on the ocean where they first met.

The boy’s name was Ryan.

My parents thought they’d have a girl. The way I see it, they were so convinced that they barely even thought through the boy’s name. If I were them, I’d come up with one name for a boy on the spot and just repeat it to any relatives who asked the age old question, tossing it in as an afterthought after that wistful “Brielle”.

My aunts tell me it was so set in stone that they began buying ‘Ryan’ baby clothes when they heard the news. I’m still convinced it was just a placeholder, never meant to be used but treated as such to brush aside the odd “we don’t know”.

My name isn’t Ryan, but it’s also not Brielle. Not their boys name, not their girls name.

I’m under no illusion that my name exists in an androgynous neutrality, even as I’ve tried my best to sculpt it between my fingers to fit that coveted gender neutral status (while avoiding any differential that would involve explaining it to my family). It’s a boys name, plain and simple.

I’ve spent a lifetime inventing other nicknames, names, or variations of the above to go by. A name that felt like it was intended for me. I’ve introduced myself as Daniel, Riley, Orion, Rion, Marethyu, Riptide, Chrysaor, Lyre, anything thrown at the wall.

But as I’ve reflected on my own gender, and especially its expression, I’ve come to wonder what it means that neither choice was really correct.

I’m the enigma of my family before gender even comes into play. I’m the introverted writer in a family where bonding means sports. Every other year I try to show my parents a piece of my writing, knowing that however they say otherwise it will never be read.

For years, that desire to be seen and heard manifested as the equivalent of a child holding up a drawing they made at school to their parents; only it was finding any excuse to share a piece of writing with my friends. Google docs link after google docs link, fiending for mild interest like the hit from a drug.

I want to mean something, be seen as something. Have something identifying of me, definitive and proud and out there, that strikes a chord in others. Make a name for myself, if I'm not going to be given one.

As a person I so badly want to avoid labels because they define; set boundaries. To me, everything about queer identities is grounded on a rejection of limits, a desire to not fit the mold. That's how this whole community got started, and our founders deserve too much for it to be reduced to a checkbox form at best and a burden at worst.

If I'm nothing, have no identity, then maybe I'm someone. I haven't met them yet, haven't crossed paths, I have no idea who they are, and maybe I don't want to know like I used to. If the self is nothing, then the self is free.

There isn't a name that I've held consistent throughout the years, but there is a symbol. The one I'll doodle in notebooks, or use as a background photo, or even wear as stickers on my laptop. That symbol has always been the trident. A spear given three prongs, three branches connected into one.

Chaos is what you make of it. An enigma by design, refusing to fit in neat little patterns. Free on its surface, only to spin and reveal what you knew all along. The whole is always better than the sum of the parts, and like a snowflake with its iridescent patterns we can stare and never see the same picture twice. It will always be melted away.

Maybe one day, when I've left enough ripples in the waters of time to create the path to home, someone will read the words I couldn't speak and finally feel the sound of them, finally hear the whisper of a distant name between the crashing of seafoam. Until then, I ride the waves with a borrowed name, never to come ashore.