How Times Change

Last night, my wife wanted tacos.

Now, it’s important to note that Dawna doesn’t normally want anything when it comes to meals. That’s not to say she doesn’t have opinions about food. She absolutely fucking does. But she rarely fixates on one particular thing. Usually, I can throw out a few ideas and she’ll be fine with one or all of them. Throw out too many and I can actually make the situation worse.

I’m learning.

Relationships are a learning exercise, among many other things.

But last night, there was no ambiguity. My wife wanted fucking tacos.

So tacos it was.

We rode over to Santa Fe Brewing Company because there’s a taco truck outside, and after standing there long enough to study the menu and decide exactly what we wanted, someone finally informed us they were out of goddamned near everything.

They had the boring meats left.

Dawna wasn’t having it.

The woman had developed a very specific taco vision, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to ruin it with some bland-ass chicken fucking taco. Quite frankly, I didn’t blame her. Not one fucking bit.

So we got back on the bike.

I decided to try Capital Grill. I couldn’t remember if they had tacos on the menu, but Plaza Cafe Southside was right next door, so I figured one of them would be able to satisfy my honey’s suddenly very specific taco requirements.

Capital Grill didn’t disappoint.

We ate an amazing meal.

On the ride over, though, we had both noticed how absolutely fucking gorgeous the air temperature was. It was one of those Santa Fe nights when everything feels right on a motorcycle. Not cold. Not hot. Just enough cool air moving across your skin to make you wonder why the fuck you would ever want to stop riding.

Neither of us did.

So after dinner, even though it was getting really, really late, I suggested we ride around some more.

And we did.

I headed toward downtown and started doing the loop I’ve done a thousand fucking times. No particular destination. Just riding.

Then we hit downtown.

There were people everywhere. Bars were busy. Music was spilling out into the streets. Santa Fe was alive, and so was Dawna. I could feel her energy change behind me.

So we parked the bike.

And went to Evangelo’s.

Now, there’s something you need to understand about Evangelo’s.

Five years ago, I swore I would never fucking go back there.

Ever.

Back then, I was still drinking, and one night I was at Evangelo’s having a few drinks when nature made the entirely unreasonable demand that I eventually piss.

So I went into the women’s restroom.

I hadn’t even started peeing when a woman came in and began pounding on the stall door, screaming at me to get out. She eventually left, and a few seconds later the owner came charging into the women’s restroom to continue the fucking festivities.

I had to leave.

Apparently, Santa Fe had once again been saved from the terrifying transgender menace who had attempted to urinate in a public restroom.

Thank God somebody was willing to act.

The whole thing became enough of a spectacle that people had gathered around. There was laughter. There were jeers. I left somewhat less than professionally, giving the owner the finger and suggesting that he self-fornicate.

I was fucking humiliated.

And angry.

Angry enough that I contacted the City of Santa Fe.

What followed was a weeks-long email exchange involving the mayor, the city attorney’s office, constituent services, code enforcement, and several other city officials over something that should have been unbelievably fucking simple.

Evangelo’s had single-occupancy restrooms.

Santa Fe had passed an ordinance in 2015 requiring single-occupancy restrooms in commercial facilities to have gender-neutral signage and prohibiting them from being restricted to a particular sex or gender identity.

In other words, this shouldn’t have happened in the first fucking place.

One assistant city attorney actually took the issue seriously. She pushed internally for enforcement and even acknowledged that the city’s initial position—that existing businesses might effectively escape enforcement unless they renovated—completely missed the point of the ordinance.

I offered to buy the fucking signs myself.

Seriously.

Thirty bucks for signs. Forty bucks for locks. Give me an electric screwdriver and an hour and we could apparently solve a civil-rights problem the municipal bureaucracy was struggling to figure out.

Eventually, though, I stopped pushing.

I left a positively fucking glowing Google review warning LGBTQ people about what had happened to me, declared that I would never return, and went on with my life.

Until last night.

Last night, I walked back through that fucking door.

I did it because Dawna wanted to go.

More importantly, I did it because I feel different when I’m with her. I feel more grounded. Calmer. Safer somehow. She makes me willing to walk through this world a little differently than I have for most of my life.

But apparently nobody had informed my nervous system that this was supposed to be some triumphant moment of personal growth.

My soul remembered that fucking room.

My brain remembered being trapped in that stall while somebody pounded on the door.

It remembered the owner coming into the restroom.

It remembered the people watching.

It remembered the laughter.

It remembered the humiliation.

So I was rigid, to say the least.

My eyes were everywhere.

Doors. People. Movement. Who was looking at me. Who was coming toward us. What was happening behind me. Who had just walked into the room.

Dawna noticed.

Of course she fucking noticed.

She did what she could to calm me down.

And it worked.

Not completely. I don't think you turn that shit off like a light switch. But enough.

And then came perhaps the greatest fucking irony of the evening.

Evangelo’s now employs a transgender woman as the downstairs bartender.

Well, alright then.

That’s fucking progress.

I mean that sincerely.

Something has obviously changed in the five years since I was ordered out of that restroom. Maybe the business changed. Maybe the culture changed around it. Maybe people learned something. Maybe the bartender simply walked through the door one day, got hired, and changed the place just by existing there.

I don't know.

But I noticed.

I also noticed something else.

My anger toward the owner hasn’t magically disappeared.

I saw him, and my blood immediately started to fucking boil.

Apparently personal growth has limits.

I can acknowledge that the place seems different today while still thinking the man who came charging into that restroom five years ago behaved like a complete fucking asshole. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

What happened happened.

But so did last night.

And last night, nobody gave a fuck that I was there.

Nobody chased me out.

Nobody pounded on a bathroom stall.

Nobody created a spectacle.

Nobody treated my existence like an emergency requiring immediate intervention.

Instead, I sat there with my wife.

Dawna knew the singer playing that night, and they talked between songs. At one point he dedicated a song to her while she was dancing.

And I got to watch her have fun.

Really have fun.

I watched this woman I love dancing and laughing in a place I had spent five years thinking of as nothing more than the site of one of the more humiliating nights of my life.

My heart was full.

My nervous system was still on fucking DEFCON 2, but my heart was full.

There’s something strange about returning to a place you once swore you'd never enter again.

The building hadn't moved.

Some of the people were probably the same.

The memory certainly hadn't gone anywhere.

But I wasn't the same woman who walked out of there five years ago.

Back then, I walked out alone, angry and humiliated, flipping off the owner while a crowd laughed behind me.

Last night, I walked out with my wife.

Then we got back on the motorcycle and rode home together through a gorgeous Santa Fe night.

Maybe that's the part that matters.

Not forgiveness. I don't know that I've forgiven anyone, and I'm not particularly convinced forgiveness is something we're obligated to hand out simply because enough fucking time has passed.

And not forgetting.

I sure as hell haven't forgotten.

Maybe it's simply recognizing that places can change.

People can change.

And sometimes, if you're lucky, you change too.

Will I go back?

Probably.

Which is pretty fucking remarkable considering that five years ago I promised myself I never would.

How times change.