Anonymous

I wasn’t thankful. I was too negative. I wasn’t doing enough. When I found out my mood swings weren't my fault, that I had bipolar disorder, I cried.

Sexuality is fluid. And mine has led me from girl-on-girl action to a man inside me.

I start each day by drawing two cards for guidance, and then further consulting the deck. Last fall, tarot cards saved my life.

Our first IUI happened, and I can describe it as “OH ALL THE SWEARING THIS HURTS SO MUCH WHY IS THIS TERRIBLE THING HAPPENING.” It turns out that I have a scarred cervix, which requires that it be manually opened in order to put in the catheter.

If you go, I’ll have to pick up all the dog poop. I will have to take out the trash. I will have to sleep alone.

This support my gender-fluid child receives at school means so much to my family, but the ripple effects of what the children will learn will go far.

... the last thing I want to do is open my legs for a man to penetrate me. Or to pleasure a man with any part of my body. Even if that man is my loving fiancé, who does listen, who does understand (as best he can), who does respect me through this ongoing turmoil. It is all too symbolic of the lifetime I have already experienced of being fucked and then told to smile and politely ask for more.

That’s part of the problem, I think. I keep waiting for my sexual partners to figure out how to bring me to orgasm.

My fiancé proposed with a cubic zirconia or, as some people might say, ‘a fake diamond’. I said yes and let him slide the $500, 2.5 carat extravaganza on my hand.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.