SelfPartnered by Lori Peace
It’s a meme started by Emma Watson of Hermione fame. She said that as she approaches her 30th birthday, she decided to trade in the moniker “single” and exchange it with a new title: “selfpartnered.” Check it out on Twitter #selfpartnered.
She mentions that she is incredibly happy even though she is without a romantic partner at this time and does not feel incomplete or lacking. She doesn’t want the stigma of “single” following her around like a curse. She feels that she is marvelous company for herself.
I like this attitude, though it’s a shame we can’t just change the stigma of the word single so that it is free of negative connotations. I’ve been single for all but 5 years of my life, and I frequently find myself “between relationships.” See? Even using that term elevates the concept of partnered relationships to the inevitable goal, lol.
That being said, the term selfpartnered might take on a different connotation for myself as a person on the transgender spectrum, and perhaps many of you. At the age of 60 I began my exploration and Questioning (one of the “Q’s” in LGBTQIA) of my gender identity. I’ve experienced the feminine little girl only fleetingly on a nearly daily basis for the past few decades without embracing or exploring it fully.
I’m getting much more comfortable with expressing my feminine to the point that it is beginning to feel natural and normal. I enjoy looking in the mirror at the girl that I am, while acknowledging the boy that got me here. I look around me at CDH and other sources to see mentors for completely owning my natural gender, whatever it might be at a particular moment; masculine, feminine, androgynous. There is a giddy feeling that comes from this expression that fills me with a sense of wholeness that I hadn’t known.
I feel like this transformation (though I don’t have an intention to transition at this time) is preparing me even more to find a harmonious and supportive relationship. I am affirming my genders and realizing that they will be embraced by my future partner in all its glory.
In the meantime, I am experiencing selfpartnering. I am accepting all aspects of my gender and embracing them as fully as I expect a relationship partner to embrace them. I have the ring to prove it.
When I divorced from my last (and first) wife (not because of CD), I took off my wedding ring on the way out the front door and slipped it unceremoniously on the hook on the wall where I hang my keys. It’s remained there since. For 16 years.
This ring was a very special ring that I had designed myself and commissioned a sculptor acquaintance to execute it, and a jeweler to cast it in solid gold. It was not a simple men’s wedding band. It was thinner at the base and fuller at the top where there were ivy vines swirling and curling up the side and top. Two larger ivy leaves were at the end of the vines in the middle of the signet to symbolize my wife and I, and two smaller leaves on the sides to symbolize her two sons, 4 and 6 years of age.
Last year I was on the way out the door en femme, and I had an urge for some bling. This was early in my dressing days, learning to go out in public with my support group for dinner. My eyes fell on the ring as I grabbed my keys, and I decided it was time. It was time to reclaim my heart. It was time to reclaim my power from the ashes of victimhood. As soon as I slipped the gold ring on my right ring finger (not my left) I recognized that I was claiming my wholeness with the multi-genders that I contain. I was finally accepting and embracing BOTH/ALL of them so that they can integrate and transmute into whatever is my joyful expression of the divine. I became selfpartnered.
Since then, I’ve worn this ring constantly, and have gotten lots of compliments on it. I wonder if there is more than the beauty of gold and light that catches their eye. Maybe it’s the joy that I feel that draws their attention. Maybe they are dazzled by my selfpartnered radiance.
It could happen.
Do you feel like there are parts of you that don’t mesh yet?
What kept/keeps you from integrating all parts of you?
If you feel that you’ve brought all parts together into one glorious expression, how does that feel?
Is there a point in your life when you became whole?
Do you have any advice to someone who is feeling fractured in their person or intention?
Thank you so much for reading my article and I look so forward to hearing your replies and/or responses to the article of my questions posed to you at the end of this article!
Sincerely, Lorie Peace
