My Christmas List

Dear Santa,

I know that I'm 28 and really I shouldn't be writing you a Christmas list, but seeing as how I stopped writing you when I was 4, I figure I'm due a few letters.

My list isn't long or the items on it too difficult to get, but if you could get them all here by Christmas Day, I'd appreciate it, especially since I celebrate Hanukkah as well and I'm giving you five extra days to get this stuff together.

1. I'd really like a Kindle Fire. And yes, I know that my other Kindle "mysteriously broke." But I promise to take better care of this one.

2. I'd really love to spend Christmas with Daniel, so if you could get him here or me there, that would be awesome.

3. I want the biologicals to have a good Christmas. They may be sucky to me, but they still deserve a happy Christmas.

4. I want my biological little brother to be able to come home for Christmas or to see his son for Christmas. It'd be great if you could give him both.

5. I want Cherie and the Nieceling to have an awesome Christmas. I could never thank them enough for what they did for me, but if you could give them an awesome Christmas that would rock.

6. I want everyone in my new family to have an amazing Christmas. Filled with love and good food, and laughter and joy and singing. They are some of the greatest people I know and they only deserve great things.

7. I'd really love it if you could help all of the homeless teens out there find a way to a shelter so that they can eat and maybe even find a place to sleep.

8. Is it wrong that I want Rick Perry and the transphobic doctor to get boils on their ass? It is isn't it. So I'll use this number to instead ask for justice around the world and that maybe for one day, people will love instead of hate, be compassionate instead of judgmental and not stick their collective foot in their idiotic mouth.

9. Will you please let it snow here in Buffalo. I've been signing "White Christmas" since I was a kid, I'd love it if I could have it.

10. As you know, the ex-boyfriend burned and ruined all of my "tools and toys." So if you could give me back a black duffle filled with all of the BDSM, strap-ons, binders, packers, shoes, condoms, clothes and lube that he destroyed, that would be awesome.

11. And finally, I'd love it if you could help me stop waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. I know I'm surrounded by love and support but I keep waiting for it to all be snatched away, maybe you can give me a sign that I am truly loved and no one's going to let the fact that I'm black, transgender, not the most gorgeous thing in the world, gay, and a sometimes practicing Messianic Jew, stop them from loving me. I think giving me one of the items on this list would be a very good start.

Thank you so much Santa. And next year, I promise my list will only have 3 items on there.

Okay, maybe 4.

Sincerely,

Vicktor Aleksandr B

Vicktor's Wish List

My therapist in Florida gave me a homework assignment before I left.

I was supposed to write my wish list. The Top 50 things that I wanted. Then I was supposed to cut that list down to the Top 25. Then that list was supposed to become the Top 20. Then that list was supposed to become the Top 10. Then that list was supposed to become the Top 5. And then that list was supposed to become the Number 1 thing that I wished for.

When I asked him why, he told me it was a way for me to help prioritize my brain. A way to keep my mind focused and not stress over things that weren't on my list, but maybe things that were on someone else's list.

I wish I could tell you that I had my Top 50 done.

The thing is, I don't think that I've ever once sat down and thought about what I really wanted out of my life. What I really and truly wished for.

Don't get me wrong as a kid, I wrote out a Christmas List that would have knocked your socks off, but I did it for class, it was never a list I gave to my parents and it was never something that I sent to "Santa." I stopped believing in Santa when at the age of 4 I walked down the stairs and saw my parents putting the presents underneath the tree.

A lot of bad things happened to me when I was 4 and I think perhaps that that was when I stopped "wishing" for stuff. I was still a dreamer, and I still am, but in my mind dreaming is so much more different than wishing. Wishing is something that you want that requires another person, dreaming is something realistic that you can do for yourself.

When I dream, I'm usually dreaming for other people. I dreamed for my friend Katharina to get her lifetime collar and she did. I dreamed for Mama N.J.'s Christmas story to get picked up and published and it did. I dreamed for my little brother Thorny's life to be a little more peaceful and it is. I dreamed for my little brother Brad to be able to go to school full-time next semester and he is. I dreamed for my big sister Cherie to be able to get her edits done in time and she did.

I guess dreaming for me is hoping. They very much go hand in hand, so when I have a dream list, that dream list is a hope list. But a wish list to me is something that is almost like a fantasy. I would put on this list things that I "fantasized" for, things that I never truly expected to happen to me, or to be given to me or to happen for me. And for that reason I have never sat down to write out a complete wish list.

Until today.

I decided to finish the list that I'd already started and so I decided to read over the 10 things I'd already written down so that I didn't repeat myself.

I had started to write out my wish list a few weeks ago, when I first got to NY and by the time I got to #5 I realized that I had more things marked off than written down, because I realized I already had them:

1. I want a dad, one who cares about me and is proud of me and claims me in front of others.
2. I want a family who cares about me and supports me and protects me
3. I want a career that I can be proud of.
4. I want to start a group home for at risk teenagers, those on drugs, those who are homeless, LGBTQ teens who have been kicked out and help them get their diplomas and degrees and have a place to stay and people who will support them.
5. I want to have someone that's mine. Someone I care about who cares about me, like a partner or a sub (probably both, knowing me). Someone that I can claim in front of everyone that belongs to me (gosh I sound like a selfish, possessive bastard).
6. I want to be able to spend my days writing, saving the world and having lots of mansex
7. I want to be on the outside who I am on the inside.
8. I want to be a dad
9. I want to go to Italy
10. I want to go one week without crying myself to sleep.


I was pretty amazed when I saw the list and then very happy when I saw how many things I'd crossed off.

I think I will sit down and finish writing out my list one day, just for shits and giggles to see what else I've already crossed off, but for right now?

My wish list makes me pretty damn happy to see.


-V.A.