After BUTCH Voices Portland… getting through event drop..

The reality of drop is heavy on my mind this morning.  I’ve had two big weekends in a row and now I’m back in my day-to-day reality, without nearly enough aftercare.   This happens to me after geek conferences, vacations, visits with Roxy.. any time I step outside the stream of ordinary reality.  Part of drop is grief, we grieve the loss of freedom we have when we’re away from our day-to-day responsibilities.  We grieve the loss of solidarity we feel when surrounded by people like us.

I got back home late Sunday, still glowing from Butch Voices and my time with Roxy. That glow has steadily been crowded out by all the mundane demands of life, all the promises I made coming back to collect.  We gear ourselves up for these events, promising our bodies we’ll sleep after, promising our partners and families that we’ll give them more time when we get back, promising all our nagging tasks and to-dos we’ll get back to them, just give us this weekend, we promise…

… but then we’re back and all those neglected and put off people and tasks descend on us, tugging our sleeves, holding their hands out to collect.  And that’s when we’re at our lowest, losing our event high, coming down, exhausted, spent, used up.  We need a little more transition time, a little more time to breathe, to enjoy the accomplishment,

to remember her skin on mine

to remember comraderie and connectidness

to remember waking up with her

to remember breakfast and laughter and smiles

to remember a room full of people like me

to remember chaos and craziness and pride

to remember what it feels like to be around passionate people

to remember

to feel

to revel

to enjoy

I miss my lover, I miss my friends, I miss the sense of unity and purpose.  It’s hard to come back to ordinary life after being a part of something extraordinary.  There was a feeling of infinite possibility during Butch Voices and I don’t want to lose it. I want to hang on to that passion, that purpose, that feeling of making a difference.  I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, there’s been a wild flurry of friending on Facebook, and elsewhere, between participants.

I need to get past the exhaustion, need to take care of my family and the responsibilities of ordinary life.  Dropping the ball on those things is not an option.  Also not an option:  letting all the passion I felt during BUTCH Voices dissipate.  I can’t let that happen.  I need to find a few moments to sit quietly with myself, sort through the impressions and ideas generated by the experience and decide what I want to do with it.  I know I want to do something locally to continue the mission of BUTCH Voices.  I loved collaborating with the BV PDX team and hope to stay in contact with them.  I especially love collaborating with my wonderful and amazing partner, Roxy, and we will definitely find ways to combine our talents and energies in future projects.

I want to thank my fellow organizers, the people who contributed money, time, materials, the vendors, the presenters, the performers, the guys at the Hawthorne Theater and especially the attendees, who made all of this such a worthwhile and successful event.  Big Butch Love to you all.

 

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