“That’s the Big Question, Right?”

I stand before you today to discuss the strongest relationship I’ve had in my life, and in order to do that, I would like to tell you the story of one of the weakest.

When I was 15, I started to develop romantic feelings for someone I knew, and I took those feelings with me when I dove head first off the deep end.
I texted her constantly,
Asked her personal questions too soon,
Dragged her into every little problem in my life.
And I interpreted every time she responded as consent to continue to text her constantly,
Ask her personal questions too soon
And drag her into every one of my problems.

I eventually told her that I, quote, “love her,” which in hindsight, was probably me quite literally romanticizing the crush I had on her. Regardless, she told me that she did not reciprocate those feelings, and that she wanted space from me.
Checks out. That was that, then.
Well, it should have checked out.
That should have been that.

I had spent almost a year of my life laser-focused onto this one person only to learn that she had not done the same with me, did not want to, and did not have to,
And I could not for the life of me accept that as fact.
The lengths that I went to convince myself, and her, that she was lying, or mistaken about her own feelings, or for whatever reason was secretly in love with me, were downright obsessive.
Every time I reached out, she politely reiterated that she wanted space.
In hindsight, the amount of patience she had for my creepy-ass pretty-much-stalking was incredibly impressive, and if I had been anyone else, I probably would have received the message.
Unfortunately, I was 15-year old me, and we both had to deal with that. In a way, we still do.

I kept texting her constantly,
Asking personal questions,
And dragging her into my problems,
And the context was now different.
I was desperate to have returns on my year-long emotional investment.
The personal questions were no longer about her life, they were about what she thought of mine,
And the “problem” that I was dragging her into over and over again was her lack of feelings towards me.

She was eventually forced to block me online, completely.
I haven’t spoken with her in almost three years.
During those three years, I began on my journey of self-discovery, an expedition into the recesses of my soul that involved depression, self-doubt, Autism, anxiety, public high school, a hell of a lot of not doing homework, coming out, shitloads of therapy, self-harm, being a trans girl for a bit, more self-harm, realizing that I wasn’t a boy or a girl, another shitload of therapy, a second failed attempt at romance, crapheaps of therapy, and probably a bunch of other shit that I forgot about while writing this.
As I started on this journey, one of the first bits of information that I realized was that other humans are autonomous, have their own independent feelings, and are entitled to those feelings.

I joke, and this was also a very difficult reality for me to acknowledge, partly because acknowledging it meant owning up to how much I had fucked with this girl’s life.
And acknowledging that caused me to look back on those two years that I had spent harassing her with disdain.
Why did I do what I did? What caused me to react in the way that I reacted? Why didn’t I just give her the space that she asked for? Why wasn’t I less obsessive in the first place? Time is a finite resource. Why didn’t I spend the time that I spent harassing her on almost anything else?
And as I contemplated those questions, I began to think about even bigger, more existential questions.

You will probably forget most, if not all, of what I just told you, which is fine, because none of it was the point. I just spent approximately four minutes giving y’all unnecessary exposition.
I am actually standing here today to ask and, to the best of my ability, answer the following questions:
Why do we do anything? What’s the point of everything?
There are over seven and a half billion lives on this planet.
Seven and a half billion,
On one planet, in a galaxy of around 100 thousand million stars in a universe of millions upon millions of galaxies.
Words alone cannot convey the true vastness of that reality, our reality.
So what are we doing?
Why are we here?

This is why. This is it. This is the point.
The Point, the big capital-p Point, whatever it may be, isn’t important. Asking ourselves why we exist won’t change the fact that we do.

I have been in a relationship with an enby named Grayson for a year and two months. My relationship with them has been the most fulfilling and successful relationship I have ever had with another person,
And I would not be in this relationship if I had not fucked up so spectacularly four years ago.
Gray and I text each other constantly,
Ask each other personal questions,
And talk about our problems with each other.
And the context is different.

What’s the point?
The point is to grow and to change;
To meet the person we were meant to be, and then be that person, or be someone different, or just be;
To question what is and push for what could be;
To pray, and to learn, and to wonder and create;
To rage, fear, cry, lose and grieve;
To survive however we can, whether we love it or hate it, because doing so matters to someone.
The point is to laugh and hurt and love and feel and die and above all else, to live.
The point is to live,
And that’s enough.
That will always be enough.