Marie, I'm sorry.

I know you've been scared. You're probably right to. I hope this letter serves as an explanation? Fuck, I wish I could just say this out loud to you. I'm too afraid of what you might say back to me. I still love you, I'm just a coward.

When I was Richard, I learned about the Eye of the Forgotten when I was just 19. I immediately thought that it would solve all my problems. I was on a yoga retreat in Mexico. Out of my mind on the free mushrooms provided, I pined desperately for an enlightenment that wouldn't seem to come, like an asshole.

The woman who mentioned that thing to me had the face of a coyote. At the time, I thought her unusual anatomy was just a psychoactive hallucination. Now? I'm not so sure. She told me just enough to get me hooked- An elder spirit tied to a Buddhist monastery. It freely communing with those who come seeking enlightenment. A being with the power to force open your chackras. Literally everything I wanted.

She tempted me further with the old "they don't want you to know shpeal" She went on and on about how most governments suppressed knowledge of it because they were afraid. How if everyone used it the matrix would be broken and humanity could ascend into "5D reality" (I don't think I ever understood what that actually means). It could find what I was seeking for me. Fool that I was, I believed her.

The next day I hopped on a plane to Ladakh, India. The rush flight was expensive and complex- 4 transfers and 27 hours of flight time, and all of the money available to me in my trust fund. By the time I had arrived in Leh, my mind was too mushy to focus on anything but it. I didn't care about sleep, or money, or even the people and sights of Ladakh. All I could do was chug Chai at the stand outside the airport and obsess.

I was a fit 19 year old dude seeking truth, and damn it, I was going to find it one way or another. Taking the bus to the monastery that hosted the thing was satisfyingly easy. No, I'm not going to tell you which, we aren't going back there. Rest assured though, it exists. I just read the Wikipedia entry this morning. I swear I'm not having an episode of something.

I shouldered my backpack that contained all my worldly possessions (at the time I refused to count my stuff before I had dropped out of Brown, boxed up in a storage container somewhere paid for by my parents). The bus stop was in the town below, so I began the trek to the top of the mountain immediately.

The locals seemed to know a seeker when they saw one. I'll admit that having all sorts of new age tourist stuff shoved in my face was never all that annoying to me. At the time I had just come to terms with a childhood spent in a carefully designed house, sparsely populated by the cold and emotionless. The locals attention was enough to make me smile. Now I get that these people were just trying to survive in a terrible system. In retrospect I regret not buying something just to support them in their desperate attempt to not be sucked fully into the industrial economy.

By the time I got to the well worn stairs carved at least 1000 years ago, my sense of destiny was intoxicating. As I climbed I thought about the history of this place. How many others had come here to commune with the spirit? I would just be adding his name to the long list of those who this thing helped. I wondered idly if I would stand out to it, be chosen for some romantic destiny for enlightening the world, become a guru known across the globe like Helena Blavatsky or Meher Baba.

The arrogance and audacity of the colonist knows no bounds. I marched up to the monastery fully expecting the monks to tell me of their secret well of enlightenment. I wanted them to praise me for knowing of such a forbidden secret, and guide me to it immediately. Flowers would be laid at my feet, for a westerner would be pillaging their ancient knowledge.

Of course things did not go nearly that smoothly. The monks understand that thing better then I will for the rest of my life. I don't blame them for wanting to keep it's scope limited. I'm certain they feel as strong as I that no amount of scientific study would be worth it.

I arrived at the monastery. Without even catching my breath, I began boldfacedly asking for a guide to the Eye of the Forgotten one. The first monk I talked to panicked a bit, telling me in a mildly accented English to wait in the public courtyard.

As I waited I marveled at the construction of the Monastery. The painted arches I still don't know the name for, the white and red Pagodas, the triangular flags sticking out of the ground, and the men in red and yellow robes going about their daily business. I was struck at the time by a feverish cultural envy. This was an entire society dedicated to the production of enlightened individuals. My culture was built on the accruing of material wealth, and in comparison the stark beauty of the monastery- it was but a void.

When the monk returned, it was with what looked like a far older man (Chodak told me later was the Abbot himself.) I greeted him warmly, but he only responded with a judge's eye. He spoke in what I assumed was Ladakhi, though now I realize it may have been Balti or even Hindi.

The nervous monk looked at his superior with wide eyes, and translated. According to him the Abbot appreciated the distance I had traveled to meet the spirit, but found me lacking in the qualities necessary to meet it.

I protested, I was strong enough to climb, and was open to the path to enlightenment. It was unthinkable that I would be barred entry. On the stair I had halfway convinced myself that I would be the redeemer of humanity. Encountering the idiocy of my own ego, I filibustered.

The Abbot met my gaze with steely eyes. He smirked in a way that I now recognize myself doing occasionally. The cruel glee of telling your operessor to fuck off. He didn't wait for the nervous monk to translate. Giving a throaty "No!" in a thickly accented English, he reveled in how my face drained of confidance.

I fell to my knees and bowed before him, pleading, asking what I could possibly do to visit such a great spirit. The Abbot laughed at my groveling. He told me through the nervous monk that while humbling oneself was one of the first steps on the path to enlightenment, taking that step alone would not bring me closer to the spirit. He left me crying as the other monk fretted about what to do with me.

A mix of travel weariness and despair overcame me then. I shooed the nervous monk away and was left to weep ugly on the stone monastery courtyard. To be judged and found wanting on the path to wholeness is a dispiriting set back that many do not recover from.

I have no idea what the Abbot was weighing in me, nor what sort of effects that thing in the abyss would have had I been ready to meet it. I also don't care. I know enough now that he was right to bar me. Still, I don't blame Chodak for contradicting that ruling. He was just a big softie I took advantage of.

I met him as I was just about loosing steam on my wailing. He crouched next to me and began to rub my back, soothing me like a child. He even sung me what I think was a lullaby in his language. It was a balm on my soul. I have come to believe that there is nothing more powerful then the kindness of strangers. It lifted my mood to the point that I smiled at the bulky monk. He was visibly middle aged, with a gentleness to him that spoke to a lifetime of reflexive kindness.

I thanked him, though I had no idea if he spoke English, so I added a bow. He laughed amused with how deferential I was being to him. He accepted my thanks with a much more accented and choppy English then the nervous monk, but it was clear he spoke enough for mutual communication. He told me off for bowing, and introduced himself. Chodak was a lower ranking monk for his age. I guessed he just didn't have the head for monastic politics, but to this day I have no idea.

We talked about our lives for a bit. Apparently he was from a wealthy Tibetan refugee family, but was kind of the ugly duckling. One of his brothers was an official in Leh, and of his brothers in the clergy he was the least successful. I of course gave my shpeal about being the disappointing only child of an architect and a potter, living under the yoke of aesthetic perfection. A piece to be designed and molded from on high.

We connected in that moment, as the sun lowered in the sky. We realized that there was a rhyme between our very different lives. Of course pale-faced devil I am, I leveraged this- I used his pity and our solidarity as black sheep to ask again my burning question. Realizing that was why he had found me reeling on the front courtyard, he broke physical contact looking at me with horror.

Chodak hesitantly asked if I was going to try to find it without the monks help. I told him I probably would. He was silent for a while. He looked at me sadly, and said I could die climbing around the mountain at night. I used this concern to ask for guidance, to which he sighed painfully. I used all the guilting my mother had taught me, through the years of emotional abuse and neglect. He caved. I probably would've been dead if he hadn't, but I think I've never been more disgusted with myself.

The twilight climb was fun, honestly. The trail was unmarked but well worn. Still, I doubt I would have found it if not for Chodak. We spoke little as he showed me the entrance to the cave. I thanked him profusely, but he looked at me with sad eyes. He told me we almost certainly would never meet again, and that I should prepare for enlightenment with all the beauty and terror that entails.

His parting words to me were something like "I will treasure our time together for as long as it still exists." I didn't realize how quick that would be.

The cave was dark until it was violated by my headlamp. It was composed of an antechamber with a small passage into the inner sanctum where the thing lay in its crevasse. I paused in front of the large stone Buddha carved into the wall watching over the room. Its painted face sported two large tusks. Even as I defiled this place I still wanted to show respect, and so I bowed asking for a fruitful encounter. I probably should've also asked for forgiveness, but I was a fool.

After leaving what I thought was an adequate offering, I plunged deeper into the cave. Climbing delicately through the rift between the two gods, I found what I came here for. The culmination of my quest for meaning in this stale fallen world, swindled from the gentlest of men.

Unlike the Antechamber the inner room was a raw cave- The intersection of two fissures in the mountain forming a nearly perfect sideways cross. The vertical fracture formed a true abyss, while the passage put me on the long side of the cross. The approach to the Eye of the Forgotten's rift was a mild upward slope, as to obscure the thing until you peered into it.

There were few times where I could have stopped this stupidity, but all of them were long past by this point. I only had the option of putting one foot in front of the other. My fate was sealed. I reached the abyss, but the light of my headlamp would not penetrate the darkness below the cliff. At first I was confused, so I turned it off to see if resetting it would work. The moment my light went out an eye the size of that abyss grew from the darkness and looked at me.

The Eye stared into my soul. I knew for the first time what it was like to be read like a book. The abyssal thing riffled through my mind pausing every once and a while as if to make a note, or going back over something as if it were a passage it found particularity interesting, even skimming over bits if felt were boring or cliche. I knew all this instinctively even if I can't tell you how. It was a disgusting feeling, to be known so intimately by an alien intelligence.

After it was done violently ripping out the complete unabridged story of me. It boomed out I see in every language all at once. It didn't ask for consent as it started, seemingly assuming only people who want this came to it. I began to cry tears of pain as it forced its way into my mind. Being read was one thing, being edited was quite another. It was like having your Mom come over for a visit, only to find in your depressed state you had all your black out curtains closed, and so she ends up running through wrenching them open, chiding you all the way.

I felt each of my inner gates thrust open in turn, flooding out trauma and memories I hadn't made yet. Having the dams of pain battered down one by one, learning how to handle my brain problems was a soothing experience. I suddenly felt far more at home in my mind, instead of irrationally fearful of disappointing those I loved. for the first time I could remember I was open and clear, but the new memories...

I was back at my old Brown dorm. My roommate out for unremembered reasons. I was in panties and a bra, covered with lace and makeup. I took photos emphasizing different things: the bulge of my dick, how round my ass was, the angles where I looked fully like a girl, the ones where it was clear I wasn't. I felt insanely hot. Something about doing this made my body feel okay for the fist time. I uploaded them as "femboi photoshoot" and lick my lips waiting for the thirsty replies.

My hand shook holding the blue ovular pill. I was crying tears of fear and joy, as I slipped the pill under my tongue. I've crossed the Rubicon. No going back. I'm going to stop being him and start being her. My roommate and I danced together in the dorm, celebrating the little victory. They smelled like ethylene from the chemistry lab.

It was my first hike in a sundress. My thighs are chaffed and the grass was itchy against my bare legs. I was so uncomfortable, thinking about how my father would take me on long backpacking trips specifically to mold me into a perfect handsome Adonis. I don't want to be anything near the person he wanted me to be. Nature is beautiful, sure, who cares, I'm going home to put lotion on my chafe.

The pink white and blue stripy thigh highs slide on the polished linoleum floor. I twisted my foot into a spin. The centrifugal force billows out my lacy dress. I felt like the perfect picture of femininity. I smiled as one of my trans friends claps and shouts "dress go spiny!" Then I noted how out of breath I was and furrow my brow.

He kisses me as I stared out limply letting him in. The rough of his stubble felt disgusting. I feel like a woman in his arms, and for the first time since I started my transition I hate it. I hated how he held me, a delicate doll to be positioned and used. I hated how he treated me like porcelain comforting me over the smallest scrape. I hated how he lifted the things I used to be able to, and his looks for approval as if he had done me a favor.

I hated being weak. The surgery recovery time just made it worse. 3 months sitting on my ass has been painful. I started going to the climbing gym regularly just to feel something. I met some lesbians and we start hanging out after climbs. The beer is nice but the company is nicer. I kissed my first girl with them. Show off my new pussy, and they cheer. I've found my people.

The sweat drips from my brow. It's the first V8 problem I've attempted seriously. At 27 I am who I am. My lithe muscles flexed as I pulled myself from awkward handhold to awkward handhold. My pinkie finger slipped from the credit card hold I'm on. I pushed my thumb down on my pointer finger and used my legs to launch myself to the final hold before the goal. I'm so close now, my body screams for me to let go, but I know I can make it. Wheeling my right leg up I jamed my heel in the last hold I was on, and kicked up. Grabbing the taped square indicating my victory over a V8. The last of my strength gave out and I fell onto the mat.
I stared up at the ceiling of the gym. My girlfriend Marie ran over to give me a hand up. I wasn't... in the cave. I felt real enough. Had I just lived 8 years in a second? None of this felt real. I was a strong competent transwoman with a lovely girlfriend a long career as a cabinet maker ahead of her.... How? I knew that I had earned all this through blood, sweat, and tears, but I also knew that I had earned none of it.

Marie looked worried and asked if I was okay. I blinked trembling, and reached out for her hand. I knew nothing of her, and yet I had 2 years of memories of a beautiful loving relationship. Was any of this real? Our hands touched, and she hauled me to a standing position. I couldn't stop myself, I grabbed her into a hug and began to cry. The feeling of her warm skin was too much. I wanted her to hold me forever.

I felt realer then I ever had been before. Maybe that was just a hallucination. An acid flashback triggered by that exertion and fall. It felt like it. A Cyclopian eye guarded by a monastery, revealed to me by a coyote woman? Come on, that's gotta be a trip.

It all appeared in my head in a second, though. The memories seem as fresh as what I ate for breakfast. Plus I never dropped out of college to find myself. It's kinda stupid but sometimes I listen to that song by The Talking Heads, you know, Once In a Lifetime, and cry.

The worst bit is that I can't even tell if that version of me was even trans? Like all my memories of doing girly things as a kid and having them stamped out, come from my current set of memories? Maybe the seeker version of me just had repressed all that, but maybe the thing in the pit made me trans? I hope that its just my own self doubt psyching myself out.

I'm the fully realized version of myself, maybe. Some days I still don't feel like it. I have no idea why being able to do a V8 bouldering problem would be the point of enlightenment, but it still feels too real to ignore. An actualized life granted to me by an eldritch being. I love who I am now and hate that man. And yet... he probably made me? By accident, but still.

Last night I had a nightmare about that final fight I had with my parents- the one where they threatened to end my trust fund unless I detranstioned? I woke up and realized that I hadn't had that cushion in 5 years. It all felt more real than these new memories. I think I'm getting better. I think I just needed space? I want to see you, to feel you, to know that this is real.

I love you Marie, I'll continue loving you, I'm sorry we had a rough week, but this is why.

--Rhine <3

FriendlyPastoralist

This was incredibly fun! I should do more short form work to get the juices going... I wrote most of this during a manic episode on my birthday tho. Sooooo, maybe not the same way.

I'd love to hear y'all's feedback on this! I didn't send this to my usual beta readers, so any corrections would also be appreciated.