stephanie yang

this is a big one.

it has happened again, as i knew it would…one day. i just wasn’t sure when.

this word: girlfriend…is entering back into my lexicon in relation to myself. it’s definitely been awhile. almost 5 years, in fact, and here i am…learning how to roll those syllables again on my tongue and speak the word without shivers of post-traumatic stress. i mean, it’s not a bad word at all, even if it has been one that has been a tough word for me to reconcile with in recent years. it’s just a challenging word. so, as i try to welcome this word back into my personal space – in relation to me, in relation to the woman i am opening up my heart to, i am curious to explore this word further.

i have a girlfriend.

yeah, ok, i admit, yes, it’s weird, right? for those of you who know me, it’s been a while and i know i’m definitely not known for parading around with a girlfriend…or using that term in relation to anyone i’ve been involved with over the past five years…and yes, i have been a vocal proponent of using the term “lover” instead in relation to the folks i was intimately and romantically involved with. but alas, buddha does teach that change is the only constant in life, right? so here i go, tumbling along with the flow of life and all this is changing.

there are mornings when i wake up and shake my head in laughter at myself at how things change. i am in a relationship, intentionally choosing monogamy, and i am calling her my girlfriend. really. things can change that much…and, um, it’s actually quite lovely…

all this is making me think a lot about what “girlfriend” actually means. there are so many social expectations and nuances woven deeply into that word – is it possible to use such a term with that much social prominence – if we are choosing to define it for ourselves, from scratch, without the social baggage that comes with?

the basic dictionary definition i first come across seems quite simple :

girlfriend (n.)

1. A favored female companion or sweetheart.
2. A female friend.

but it gets complicated quickly. my sweetie is my girlfriend. ok, i can accept that. she is my favored female companion (despite how 1950s that sounds!), though i would add, whom i am sleeping with … but, details, right?

ha! then there’s definition #2. oh, i have a lot to say about this one! does this mean, i can have multiple girlfriends? i agree that is possible. as a queer woman who believes in polyamory, yes, that is a possible scenario. and yet, i find myself today, as a queer woman in an intentional monogamous relationship, i have only one girlfriend, right?

let’s begin with the confusion that happens to me each time i hear a straight woman refer to another woman as “girlfriend”. as a queer, to me, this means, she is referring to someone she is dating. right? for example, a friend of mine, who i know exclusively dates men, refers to her female friends as “girlfriends” – and in the singular “my girlfriend”. i have know her for several years, and each time she says it, i catch myself spinning in my head, “what? she’s gay? how’d i miss that? what?!”. then i catch myself and realize what’s she’s actually saying. confusing!

so, as a queer woman, what about all my other female friends? are they also girlfriends? or can i only refer to them as girlfriends if i were a straight woman?

come on folks, really? why do you have to confuse us queer folks? i mean, do straight guys go around calling male friends, their “boyfriends”? i don’t think so. so my sweet, wonderful straight sisters, really? do you need to call me and other women friends in your life your “girlfriends”? you are confusing me. it might lead me to accidentally hit on you one day…awkwardness, all around…

my point being, can we reserve this word for us queer folk? i mean, when i say “girlfriend” i want you to fully understand what i mean. i don’t use this word lightly…nor frequently…so now, as i am choosing to reintroduce it in my life, i want it to have weight. impact. punch.

i want you to know that i’m serious. excited. grounded. that i have found my person. someone i am choosing to spend time with. to fall in love with. to share those intimate moments like bedhead with, on a repeated basis. without shame.

as i continued to google “girlfriend” and “definition”, i came across a number of other websites that are folks asking the broader question: “what does it mean to be a girlfriend”? and all the social ideas and expectations and belief systems began to unravel.

first i found that “girlfriend” in regard to sweetheart only referred to one of a man or boy, but in relation to another woman, it’s only a friend. oh, the heteronormativity of language.

☆ girl·friend (gʉrl′frend′)

noun

1. a sweetheart of a boy or man
2. a girl who is someone’s friend
3. a woman friend of a woman

then came the more interesting definitions. a few of my favorite (from various websites):

1. Once you make the choice to be girlfriend you tell the whole world you are exclusive and are commited to a relationship. Dating is the start of that relationship and where you check each other out and get to know someone.

um, really? you tell the world? oh wait, is that what i’m doing here? crap.

2. It needs to be mutual and I’ve never had to actually ask my gf’s to be my gf’s. You should gain, through time, respect and monogomy with the person your with, based on a deep emotional connection. It obviously includes only sleeping with that person, but that type of thing shouldn’t need to be addressed.

i’ll have to remember this one, with a girlfriend, sleeping together shouldn’t need to be addressed. really? have you never slept with a woman? trust me, it needs to be addressed…

3. A street name for cocaine.

enough said.

i don’t know what it is these days, but all i feel like i’ve been doing is taking risks. not the jumping into a shark tank while on my period, with a bloody nose, kind of risk…but the kind of risks we face everyday that feel much more nuanced. risks that involve our hearts, our livelihoods, even the paths we choose to walk in life…and i can’t seem to stop taking them. oh my.

5 years ago i set a journey in motion that was all about taking a risk, i thought. i quit a good job, began to live off my (not so impressive) savings and opened myself up to trust that i could carve a sustainable path as an artist, a writer, a filmmaker…i took this risk because i could no longer breathe in the life that i had thus far created for myself. i was dying…my soul demanded so much more…i had to respond.

i thought it was also a calculated risk, as my girlfriend at the time offered to cover me financially, if needed, as i found my new footing…the thing is, less than 2 months after i quit the job and took the leap, she walked out…pulling that safety rug out from underneath my feet…and i was left bruised, on my ass, staring down the monster that is risk, for real…

to be honest, risk at that point totally frightened me. it took me a long time to get back up on my feet, without fear that she would knock me back down again. my crutches came in the form of jobs i took that offered safety…they were financially responsible even if they were freelance…but i never really let myself truly step out on the plank that kept teasing me in my peripherals….these weren’t the jobs my heart craved.

perhaps it was in the decision, the leap i took in moving to LA at the end of last year. perhaps it was something else…but here i am again. staring down risk. this time, however, i am on my feet and we are becoming friends. last week, in a meeting with a working film director/writer here in LA, she asked me point blank, why LA? why hollywood? this world is a mess and was i sure i wanted to walk through this muck to get what i want…to be a working feature film director? was i sure?

i’ve thought a lot about her question in the days since and still my answer is yes. god, yes. i am choosing to take the risks required to get there. to get to where i long to be. where i need to be.

something about risk draws me in…perhaps it is her scent. perhaps it is the way she pats my head when i do something good. perhaps it is the way her voice caresses my ears each time my feet land safely on the ground. i am learning to embrace risk…because without her, i will never get what i want. she refuses to let me settle. for five years i have been taking risks with my career and my art as my stride becomes more confident and familiar on the planks that cross my path. with each leap i sprout new feathers on my unfurling wings. risk is offering me this.

oh yes, and then, there is my heart. when the girlfriend walked out, my heart screamed fuck you over and over at the world and slammed herself shut in an iron cage, refusing to come out again for years. during this time, i told myself that taking risks with my life, my art, my money were somehow enough…but to take a risk with my heart, that was too much. the perils i could fall into (again) loomed too huge above me. risk, when it came to my heart, was more than a monster…she transformed into death…long claws reaching out to impale, to maim, to kill.

i ran from her in this form. i shut her out, distracting myself with her other iterations. i convinced myself that i could survive with a heart squirreled away in a box, as long as i was focusing on my art. i tried to believe that without my heart i would still be able to breathe.

thing is, i can’t survive like this. i wasn’t surviving. i wasn’t breathing. my heart so deeply craves love. deep, soul fucking love…i can’t deny this anymore. in this new dance i am finding myself in with risk, i am opening up to what it might mean to truly take a risk again with my heart. i have now unlocked the door, i have opened the box…i am starting to let in another set of eyes and hands. i am stepping out…

i am seeing someone now…in both an intentional and articulated way…and she surprises me. this surprises me. to get here, this even so initial step between us, i have had to take some huge risks with my heart…ones i wasn’t sure that i was going to be able to take. i am making choices that surprise me and yet, feel so completely right. all this has been much harder than i ever thought it would be…and at the same time, it has been so much more beautiful and amazing than i ever could have imagined.

there’s no turning back. i don’t know where my feet will land with each leap i take…and yet, i can’t imagine locking my heart back up again. risk is again shapeshifting before my eyes.

as i more fully embrace risk, i am getting closer to what i want. every moment, every day. in taking risks, i am reclaiming my ability to fully be. i have relearned the art of joy. my full body is learning how to breathe again, in sync with itself, with the universe, and above all, with a destiny that is beginning to take shape.

a few years ago…ok, well, maybe a few more than 10…i was going through a break up that made me question, probably for the first real time, “who am i?” i began searching…peeling back the layers of masks i had plastered on over the years, hoping to find some sort of constant. something true. i was looking for myself. my self. what i found, however, were the words of thich nhat hanh, that there is no such thing as a “self” or the “i”.

at first, these words deeply challenged me.

since then, i have struggled with this dharma, struggled with this idea that “i” do not exist…so i kept searching deeper and excavating wider…expecting to figure out who i really was…to prove this statement wrong. there had got to be a stable core somewhere inside this swirling existence, right? i pictured saturn. i believed i was caught up in the sand and debris of the orbiting rings and if i could sift through it all hard enough, i would end up facing the planet at the center, my truth.

since then, i have wandered through more relationships, numerous break ups and a few lasting connections…i have gone to film school, stepped off a “promising” career path, moved (back) to LA and reframed the ways i choose to live life…i have also dedicated myself to several years of therapy, body work, spiritual journeys…plumbing my hidden recesses for the key to figuring out “me”.

when something that felt like a glimmer of truth was found, i would speak it out loud and try it on for size. sometimes it would fit, other times, just almost, and still other times, these items stared back at me like outdated jeans, two sizes too big. i began to start piling up the pieces that fit in a box, hoping that i could put them all together like a puzzle one day that would be a picture of me. the constant me. the central planet that held all the other pieces together.

over the years, the box actually got quite big. i felt like i was doing spiritual and psychological archeology…finding artifacts and treasures that together, told the full story. sitting with this box, i hoped it could cast a holographic image of who and what i was…soon, given the pieces in the box, i began to speak of myself as simply a contradiction. the pieces fit, sure, but they didn’t necessarily make sense, together. so this must be then, who i am? right?

this is the the closest i’ve gotten to identifying a static core, which is to say that i am both/and: a contradiction of desires, identities, beliefs. i traced this all back to my lived experience as a mixed-race, hapa person…that all my multiplicity was rooted in that. i began to believe, especially in this past year and a half, that i knew who i was.

then, today. something happened…i noticed that a number of the things in the box no longer fit. at all. even in all their contradictions…and if they no longer fit, what does this mean – especially as so much of my identity is built around these things?

is it because my perspective, circumstances and life experiences have changed so dramatically in the past 6 months? …if that is in fact the case, then there can be no static, constant “me”. my exterior is always shifting, which in turn, moves around the glass in the kaleidoscope…casting each time a new pattern as each of the pieces of glass shift and move and catch the light of a cycling sun.

i get it. today, i finally understand what thich nhat hanh was so simply telling me all those years ago: there is no “i”. to believe that there is, is to hold on to something static whose existence dissolves away as time passes. nothing is static, permanent, forever…especially not me. as my context shifts, so does my desire. so do my hopes. so does the size and shape of my goldilock’s perfect bed. change is inevitable so all i have is right here, right now. right?

i know that what i am writing about is the stuff that buddhism 101 is made up of, and yet, i haven’t understood it in my body until now. it is one thing to hold dharma in my mind…it is another thing altogether to feel it move through my body….now, it is the letting go of these pieces that feels so hard.

as my truths evolve – year by year, day by day, minute by minute – i am arriving at the understanding that everything truly is going to be ok. without judgement, i am allowing these shifted items in…trusting in the present, trusting the larger truth of how change works. trusting that i can let go of who i think i am, who i want others to think i am…and simply enjoy the colors and patterns the kaleidoscope creates as each piece falls, catches light, enters in and moves on through…

this is perhaps one of the best examples of why i am in love with words:

i’ve been thinking a lot about gifts lately which may come as no surprise to you as we are wandering through holidays based on gift giving here in the states these days. mostly, i am curious about protocol, intention, desire and the drive to give gifts – even when it forces one to challenge finances and behave solely out of obligation. and yet, it is december, so we give gifts. lots of them…and we receive them as well…both expected and unexpected.

this got me thinking: what is the root of the word “gift”? so i looked it up. on this site, i found this – which is pretty much resonant with other sources i uncovered, but the best written:

Gift
From the Old English “asgift,” meaning, “payment for a wife” in the singular and meaning “wedding” in the plural. The Middle Dutch “gift,” now written as “gif,” meant the same, but today means “poison.” The Old High German “gift” also became “poison.” From the root “geb-”, from which in English we get “give.” There is another German word, however, which incorporates the word “gift”, but which retains the older meaning of “payment for a wife”. The word is “Mitgift”, which is the modern German word for “dowry”.

no really, that is what i found. i have to admit, this is not at all what i expected, and yet, i am not surprised. i wrote a short essay for the most recent issue of make/shift magazine about the use of the word “wife” in queer space – in which i explored the linguistic history of the word…everything is connected to wife, it seems, as it holds perhaps one of the most static definitions and usages throughout time. and now, i come across this – a seemingly neutral word – “gift” – and yet, it too is illuminating the ways in which our language – not just our traditions and cultural practices – are actually serving to reinforce the existence and role of the “wife”.

my brain has been spinning furiously this morning as i attempt to make sense of all of this. really? the etymological trajectory of the word is quite fascinating:

dowry/bride-price –> poison –> (often) a tangible manifestation of love/appreciation

how does this then shift the context in which i give and receive gifts, knowing that in doing so, i am participating in a linguistic system whose history is tangled up in the perpetuation of heteronormativity and ownership of women’s bodies. this is the conundrum, isn’t it, that jacques derrida so painstakingly laid out – that to deconstruct language (as i am attempting to do), it is impossible to do without using the constructs of language itself. we never can escape…

my mother wrote me a note in my birthday card this year, simply stating: “our past is not our future”. i’ve been thinking a lot about that statement these past few months, wondering if it is possible that such a statement could be true. i’m still not convinced as i believe that whether or not we acknowledge it, our future and our present are indelibly formed by our past in many ways we may not always be able to see.

i feel the same about words and language and semantics. their histories and previous contexts are brought with them through time and use. i agree that using language creates shifts in meaning and context, however it never can erase its past.

and yet. i do believe that through this process of deconstruction we can make more creative and politicized choices about how we engage words and language. i don’t know yet where i will situate this understanding of “gift” in my life – as my experiences of it are still well divorced from their etymological roots.

i leave now with two more questions:

1. how does this affect my understanding and appreciation of gift economies (dama in Mali) and how they are historically and culturally based in collective survival, not individual ownership?

2. if giving and receiving are like breath, can i find a way to continue to give and receive without reinforcing capitalist notions of ownership and bodies?

a colleague in grad school used to tell me often that i “think too much”. i hear her voice now in my head and i respond the same way, with a hearty nod and belly full of laughter. how can it be thinking “too much” if what i keep coming up with are more questions, not more answers…and plus, what is “too much”, really, when it comes to a thought?