I’m Un-partnered, not Single, and Not Alone.
Pride Month and the idea of being un-partnered.
It’s pride month. Happy pride month to the Unpartnered and partnered.
Happy pride month to those out and living freely and those who can’t be out because religion, culture, jobs, family, and traditions necessitate survival and living privately.
The gentle saline-scented breeze moves across the beach. It’s interesting how sometimes the sound of the ocean can be so soothing and yet that soothing can evoke a release. My pride month began with feeling not so pretty and feminine and thinking maybe love might not happen for a girl like me.
In my mind, a tiny voice trickles in “You are not alone.”
“Then what am I” I respond.
Immediately my throat constricts, my heart does a small dip and the hollowness behind my chest pulsates through my body. The very real reality is that for trans, even those who have the privilege of passing, meeting love that truly desires our heart, seems to be an uphill battle. Yes, cis-gendered women face the same battle, but those men don’t have to do the work of understanding their attraction and what it could mean for their sexuality and the labels the world likes to attach.
I close my eyes in an attempt to stop the sea of tears from rushing forth. As my lips tremble I am careful not to make noise. I dip my head down to try and hide my tears. I’ve been here before. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss touch. I crave a kiss. I crave the softness of another body wrapped around mine.
I cradle myself and rock side to side ever so gently.
“It’s okay, Kanoa, cry. Feel it, release it.”
The tears come down and this time I’m less ashamed to be sitting on a beach alone crying. The soft sand feels comforting beneath me. The hard lump in my throat comes like a train coming to a stop in the station but I mute the sound and put my head between my knees. Like a baby wrapped in their mother’s arms, I rock gently a little bit more. It feels good.
So often in the past, I’ve been afraid to allow myself to feel loneliness and the need for connection not just romantically but also platonically.
It’s been nearly six years since I met anyone romantically. Six years ago, in 2015, I was deep in the trenches of an accelerated nursing degree and a tumultuous relationship. I inflicted wounds in him and myself and after everything came to an explosive end, I decided it was time to do inner work. I made the commitment that my next partner, the next person I met, our relationship would be one of deep connection. Not some fanciful fairytale kind of love. Not some “welp, we fell into to this”, a relationship where both of us were conscious and connected.
My next relationship we will speak of growing and rising in love. Not falling.
After that relationship, I dated here and there, but always remaining firm to my vow that my next partnership would be intentional and conscious on both sides.
While living in DC I met two wonderful guys who were likely everything I could have wanted in a partner at the time but yet still something about the connection was off. Both times they last a few months and we parted ways amicably.
That was 2017, and soon after I began travel nursing and working in different cities around the country. With nursing taking its toll on me year after year, something inside me began to question my gender. I realized I was transgender.
With that realization and its own weight, I’ve begun to find myself in periods of celibacy. Sex and dating, and usage of dating sites have dwindled.
Last year I quit nursing and ran off to Mexico ( that an entire saga I will share as time continues).
As pride months began I found myself crying and self-loathing. I found myself feeling lonely on a beach in the middle of paradise, eating a fish taco I bought from a man who misgendered me despite my makeup and earrings and the dress I put on.
The beginning of my Pride month is the weight of not feeling attractive. Of not feeling woman enough. Of being too tall and too bulky and feeling like some half-man, half-woman freak that crawled out of a Stranger Things Netflix series ( I love the series by the way.).
Pride Month begins with the acceptance I don’t have the courage to go on any dating site at this time in my life, despite wanting to meet partnership. Despite living in a beautiful tropical paradise at this time.
My Instagram feed is full of pride celebration and quotes like “ Love Wins”… and on the beach, through my tears, I retorted “ for who does it win?”.
Most straight men haven’t done enough work within themselves to admit they are attracted to me even when they are interested based on their actions (flirting, closeness, hugging), and when I express interest, well — #friendzone or #heysister. Gay men are cute, but most of them don’t exactly want a woman or femininity, which is another topic of discussion.
As my body trembled and the tear washed over my knees, I began to feel better. If I haven’t learned anything over the last 30 plus years of my life, it has been to feel it, sit with it, and release it.
Pride month leaves me thinking about how in reality I’m just merely frustrated and sad at times that meeting a partner hasn’t happened. I desire to not only know and give love but to also receive the same care and nourishment.
My pride month begins with the understanding that so much of womanhood and femininity are overly invested in the pleasure of men, that I refuse to fold into that matrix. Are men invested as heavily in the pleasure of women and the feminine?
But my Pride Month also begins as a celebration that, I am not alone, and I’m not exactly lonely.
I have wonderful friends and a wonderful mother. I have friends across the globe who reach out and check in on me. In my life now I am doing my best to really nurture those relationships because those have been the relationships that have really nurtured and carried me throughout the years.
The beauty of being Un-partnered
My Pride months begins with the statement of “ I am Un-partnered, not single, not alone, and not lonely.” Too much weight and social capital have been given to who has a partner and who doesn’t. How often have we heard women berate each other “ but you don’t have a man” as if partnership proves intrinsic value… And yet I’ve seen through friends and my community the difficulties of relationships, the facades that can exist. Not all is paradise when that partnership isn’t striving towards what serves both on the deepest level.
My pride month begins with holding two seemingly contradictory things at the same time. That fact that I struggle with being un-partnered but also that I find solace in the wait. I find peace with being un-partnered. Being un-partnered these last few years have been moments of longing for a kiss, affection, to give and know love, to be wrapped in the warm embrace of a human, and yet it has been a time to really work through my wounds.
Choosing to wait for love has created the confidence that when I meet love, I will engage in it with truth, honesty, compassion, care, all things that I offer myself every day.
My Pride month begins with the appreciation of being unpartnered. These years have allowed me time alone to recollect the pieces of myself I gave away in the love chasing of my 20s.
After the tears of longing had subsided I took time as I often do to appreciate the moment. The tears drying on my dampened cheek. The sound of ocean waves against the beach. The sound of the birds overhead. The golden sun-kissed arm hairs against my tanned skin. The way the purple and pink flowers gently pop dancing with the green leaves of the bushes that surround the beach. Being un-partnered these last few years is slowly becoming solitude.
There is something very beautiful about learning to live life un-partnered.
Being un-partnered has allowed me to love myself in ways I could not have imagined. Just when I think I cannot love myself any deeper, it yet again deepens. I get to wake up each morning and choose myself. It allows me no longer chase love.
I get to fold and mix and into the sacred of life and my spiritual journey. As a rise higher and higher within myself and move deeper and deeper into intimate connection with myself and life and my community, I have greater solace with waiting for the meeting of a very conscious romantic intimate partnership.
My pride month begins with wishing love to those who have met partnership and to those still awaiting the opportunity.
