birthday_special
there's a certain kind of, let's call it time blindness you can develop when you're trans, or probably just depressed enough. for me, it was the kind that i think you get when you spend years agonizing over every passing day, every passing moment, to the point where it's saturated your thoughts long enough that it all stops feeling real.
and then one day you're lying in bed and your girlfriend says something to you and you realise you're now a couple years older than you ever thought you'd manage.
people talk about how your perception of time speeds up as you age, where as you get older, the years start feeling shorter and shorter until you consume all your remaining lifespan in a blink and it's over. you've never seemed to really understand this. you feel like your past year has lasted lifetime.
still, it never feels like quite enough.
when i was still quite small, i played a video game, it's not really important which one, that was set in a colorful far future, and i immediately and deeply grew a feeling of bitter resentment towards the fact that i would not live long enough to see that future. when you were still small you made a vow to yourself, to dedicate your life to find some, any way to give yourself as much time as possible. you've never really doubted anything in this world except for time. it's the only finite resource, you think.
you used to get insomnia pretty bad as a kid. you had a digital alarm clock you kept on your bedside, and on particularly rough nights, you remember starting at the red glow, watching the minutes go by, furious that you had to spend them on this. you used to hate sleep, hated the time you had to sink into it.
i look at the clock. it's been a few hours since i officially turned 24. i think about my life, all the things happening, all the things i want to do, and i wonder if I'll have enough time. i wonder how many more minutes i've got.
happy birthday