New Me. Who am I?
I got divorced and lost myself. Help?
¡Hola Papi! is the preeminent deranged advice column from writer and author John Paul Brammer, now living on Substack! If you’ve ever wanted advice from a Twitter-addled gay Mexican with anxiety, here is your chance. Support this column by sharing it and subscribing below. Send Papi a letter at holapapiletters@gmail.com
¡Hola Papi!
A few months ago, my husband of six years and I divorced. I’ve known him forever. I ran to him right out of high school and never looked back.
Just before we got married, I realized I wasn't cisgender. I took the label of nonbinary, but was hesitant to experiment with my gender presentation in any way that might put off my (very straight) husband, who I loved very much. After a small trial period of presenting somewhat masculinely and realizing it was a turn off for him, I convinced myself that I was happy to present mostly femininely while still identifying as nonbinary.
The pandemic proved to us both that that was not sustainable.
I was stifling myself on purpose, and despite every attempt to hide it, my now ex could see that I was unhappy. He brought up the topic of divorce at the start of 2021 and, after many tearful discussions, we both agreed it was for the best that we part. We're still good friends, and he encourages me in every facet of my new life.
The problem I'm facing, I think, is that... I don't know who this "New Me" is. This “me” who isn't married, whose identity isn't so tied up in another person that I can't tell where he ends and I begin… Who are they? I guess I don't know how to be me without someone else to ground me.
I thought it would come to me over time. But it's been almost half a year since I left and I still feel adrift. What's worse, I feel like I'm at risk to throw myself into a rebound with a long time friend, and I don't want to hurt him. He accepts me for who I am and is encouraging me to find myself. But I don't even know where to begin looking.
I feel like I’m at sea with no port to be found, no North Star to guide me to wherever home might be. I'm hoping you can be my lighthouse. Or at least sound the foghorn for me.
Sincerely,
Lost and Listless
Hey there, LL!
Oh good, I get to sound off a foghorn. That’s exciting for me as a person who has been marinating in an awful lot of silence lately. Turns out, you don’t have to go through a breakup to undergo an identity crisis.
Yes, it seems like we’re in the same boat, to extend our nautical theme. Only, you’re navigating post-divorce life, and I’m navigating the question as to why all I can seem to do anymore is pour hours and hours into Super Smash Bros on my Nintendo Switch.
Close enough!
In any case, I’m glad this question came to me when it did. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on this subject. Who, exactly, are we? How is such a thing determined? Is it a linguistic dilemma—is there a word or label that can supply us with a sturdy enough raft to navigate these choppy waters—or is it entirely behavioral? As in, is it a kind of peace, an ease of movement, that sets into our daily activities once we have arrived at the perfect (or at least suitable) conclusion?
Let’s dive in.
I think your request for a lighthouse is incredibly apt. Indeed, the “state of being” is comparable to the sea—its unpredictable fits, its rogue, mapless expanse, its occasional islands. All very maritime. All very salty. All very shark-infested. The task at hand is an impossible one. The fact is, you will never be able to explore your entire self, to know it well enough to confidently categorize it. There will always be some other dimension, some cave, some isle, left entirely uncharted. There’s just not enough time, and too much depth.
So, if you are looking for an absolute identity, one that can provide you with the stability you need before moving forward, well, I don’t think such a thing exists. But that doesn’t mean you can’t figure anything out, or that you’ll never find your stretches of peace. It doesn’t mean you have to think about this confusing time as completely dreadful. Because I think that, in the end, you’re not doing anything unique here. Most humans are on this journey. You’re just being more upfront about it.
Pure conjecture here, but for all the rhetoric around queerness being “unconventional,” I’ve always thought of it as being more fundamentally honest than the alternative of buying wholesale into the notion of fixed identity. To me, it asserts the truth: that identity is complicated, constantly shifting, and wholly impossible to completely understand, especially in the limited vocabulary that we are taught from a young age.
So perhaps you’re not as confused as you might think. Perhaps you’re engaging in something of a time-honored tradition here, one that can be as exciting as it is frightening. Perhaps we, each and every one of us, is at sea, and you are simply astute enough to have recognized this. With that realization comes the necessary process of adjusting. A lot of it isn’t fun. But some of it is!
I don’t think identifying yourself by the people around you is as bad as it sounds, necessarily. We all use reference points to orient ourselves. We are beings in constant conversation with the world around us. That will, of course, lend you a great deal of context for who you are. But I think it’s smart of you to hold off on a new relationship in the here and now, especially if you’re already calling your friend a “rebound.” Maybe wait until the basketball terminology subsides.
As for your larger quandary, though, what can I say? Welcome to the boat, seafarer! Fight me in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
Con mucho amor,
Papi