Personal

Beginnings

/ Elizabeth / 1 Comment

How can even 200 words slip through my fingers like slithy toves?

These past few months, I’ve wanted to return to writing about asexuality—had many thoughts, but struggled to disentangle them, make them digestible enough for this format. 

In truth, I’m bored of blogging. Genre feels like a cage. 

I’m pacing, alive with ambitious ideas, alone and undistracted by the constraints of cohabitation for the first time in a decade. Last summer, I broke up with my queerplatonic partner. If you’re about to take that as distressing news, don’t. It was for the best for both of us; we remain friends. All things come to an end eventually, and I am more concerned with beginnings now.

Once more, I am forging my path without a map, on unfamiliar ground. I have no idea where it will lead, but I create it as I go—one step at a time, listening for a guiding inner voice.

Words are hard, but I’m writing them. One day, I hope to collect them and present them to you.

In the meantime, you may not see me around much. But please rest assured that I am still here underground, digging out a new foundation.

Home is Not a Place

/ Elizabeth / 5 Comments

This post is for the July 2019 Carnival of Aces, on the topic of “Home.”

CW: contains references to domestic abuse, alcoholism, and sexual assault.

I have never lived in a place where I felt truly safe, comfortable, welcome, and like I really belong, all at the same time.

Layers upon layers of casual tragedy weigh down the air in the house I live in now, the legacy of traumas not my own lingering, and the floorboards creak as I step delicately through them. Cracked and patched again countless times, the walls of this house still stand, sinking slowly into the ground, shielding me from the worst of the sun’s rage.

I’ve always understood this as a temporary arrangement, a less-than-ideal choice among several other unhappy options. Something is always broken, and usually several somethings, but even so, I’m lucky to have this. Continue reading →

The Ace Flag Colors Are the Same as My High School’s Colors

/ Elizabeth / 11 Comments

This post is for the March 2019 Carnival of Aces on the topic of Symbols of Identity.

I wasn’t planning on participating in the carnival this month, to be honest, because I don’t feel like I have a lot to say on the topic that I haven’t already said before. But then I realized that I don’t think I’ve actually ever dedicated a post on my own blog to this topic, just comments here and there in various places. So why not? Continue reading →

Aro-ish: Permanent Questioning & the Aromantic Community

/ Elizabeth / 14 Comments

This post was written for the Carnival of Aces & Aros. The Carnival of Aros is a new sister project that will be separate from the long-running Carnival of Aces, but just to kick off its first round, The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project and The Asexual Agenda are hosting it jointly on the topic of “The Relationship Between the Aro and Ace Communities.” For further details, check out this introductory post. This post is cross-posted to The Asexual Agenda.

Content note: This post has some discussion of trauma in relation to romantic orientation. Continue reading →

Ten Year Blogging Anniversary

/ Elizabeth / 5 Comments

This blog is now ten years old!

When I originally started this blog as Shades of Gray in 2008, I really didn’t think it’d go anywhere. Asexuality was such a niche topic and people had been telling me, over and over again, that they didn’t care. I didn’t have anyone around me who was interested in listening. So I decided to just make a new space where I could write down my thoughts about it, anonymously. I started this at a time when I was going through a lot of processing, and I would have normally written all this stuff out in a private journal, but I decided to make it public instead, so that maybe one day my words would reach people.

I was surprised to see a handful of people engage with me from the very beginning. A bunch of other ace blogs started up around the same time, and then there was a second wave of new blogs, and then a third, and now there are so many I have no idea how you’d even figure out what constitutes a wave anymore.

This is what we’ve built together.

And we’ll keep building. Continue reading →

Being Bi/Ace, Part Two: Aesthetic Attraction and the Visual-Aural Gender Split

/ Elizabeth / 6 Comments

This post is for the May 2018 Carnival of Aces on “Nuance & Complexity,” which I am hosting. Please check it out and consider submitting! Cross-posted to The Asexual Agenda.

Last time I talked about how there’s a lot of extra scrutiny about attraction for both bi and ace people, which makes inhabiting that intersection difficult, and the misconceptions that become barriers to talking about it. Now I’m going to talk about some specific aspects of my own attraction and how it’s different enough from the norm that it usually goes unrecognized. Continue reading →

Being Bi/Ace, Part One: Scrutiny About Attraction and the Kinsey Scale

/ Elizabeth / 5 Comments

This post is for the May 2018 Carnival of Aces on “Nuance & Complexity,” which I am hosting. Please check it out and consider submitting! Cross-posted to The Asexual Agenda.

I have some frustrations with the way that attraction is discussed in the ace community, which are related to and further amplified by biphobia/bi erasure. This will be part one of at least two parts, because this is something that’s really complicated for me, and so difficult to talk about that it’s been sitting in my drafts folder for more than two years! So strap in, because it’s finally time to do this. Continue reading →

2017: Reflecting, Revising, Restructuring, Recovering (Part 1)

/ Elizabeth / 3 Comments

Let’s be real: 2017 was a bullet-hellscape full of dumpster fires orchestrated by a cartoonishly evil rich white predator, surrounded by a bunch of rampaging swamp monsters spewing corrosive acid at the foundations of democracy and decency. This state of affairs is not normal.

We all know this. But this post is not about politics. I’m not going to let the bitter, caustic acid of hatred and bigotry we’ve had to endure all year be the focus of this post.

Instead, as the year draws to a close, I’m looking back on it intentionally with an eye towards what progress I’ve made, in my own personal life, so that I can take from it what lessons I’ve learned and apply those toward the future. Because I’m definitely going to need them. There’s a long, hard road ahead and many more battles to fight.

[Content note: So this is a pretty personal post and usually, I would put some content warnings right here, but honestly, I’m not really sure what to warn for in this one. It’s mostly a very general discussion of PTSD/trauma symptoms, with mentions of abuse, and some discussion of lack of access to medical treatments and med-shaming. But I’m actively avoiding getting specific. If you see something else I should warn for, please let me know.]

Continue reading →