Long Time Gone

Updating this for the first time in a long ass time...

Still in transition. Its taken a lot longer than I had originally figured it would. I still don't pass for shit. But, I'm being me as best I can.

I'm still working. Been at my job a little over a year now. Really no transition issues there. Everyone accepts me for who I am. But, really, I hate my job just on the basis that it's intellectually and socially unfulfilling. Also, I'm pretty pissed that in spite of the fact that I had the best performance review in my department I still got the same shitty insulting pity raise that everyone else did. It was a nice way for them to say "Thanks for the year of hard work, you neednt bother doing that any more." But, it's a job, and I need one, so I'll keep it...

Been doing some volunteer work as well. Been fun. Making new friends. Also have found a SURPRISING amount of respect there. Wish that I had the confidence to do it a lot sooner, because just being there and being productive has done wonders for my emotional well being.

Love life is still.... There's a girl in my life... Not sure what's going on there, or if it will ever happen. Went on four dates over the winter, and then things got weird... Mostly a her thing, not really anything to do with me. Relationships are a thing she's afraid of, and not realizing that I on our fourth date I told her I had feelings for her, which she handed well, but when I asked for a 5th date a few days later her brain suddenly had the "oh shit, I'm actually in a relationship!" realization, and she shut things down.... I guess "backed waaaay off" would be a better description. We've been doing this dance ever since where she'll start to get close, then back away, then close, then away, then close, etc. About 6 weeks ago she started to seriously reengage, and I thought we might end up becoming at least good friends. But, it seems she's backing away again. And so the dance continues.

I dunno. Not sure what to do about that. First time I've ever been in the situation where someone's behavior says they're interested, but they're afraid to act on it. Neither of us are really going anywhere tho. So this dance will probably go on forever.

Oh. I did eventually legally change my name and gender marker. And rumor has it my health plan will cover GRS next year, though I'll believe that only when it actually happens.

But, I dunno. Really not much to report. Just doing the daily grind. My life is pretty mundane.

Signing off for another god knows how long...

Signing off, for now...

This will probably be the last entry I write in this blog for a long time. I've removed and archived all prior posts for my own reference, but, I no longer see the need for them to be publicly available. When I started this blog, it was to chronicle my transition. At the time I didn't have the slightest understanding of how inseparable transitioning would be from my daily life, and to be honest, my daily life isn't that interesting. And the mixture of transitioning and the mundanity of my daily life is, at best, confusing. Every time I think I understand anything, a new variable pops up, and any sense of understanding goes out the window. So, my ramblings on here only serve to make me look totally deranged because they're extensions of me sorting through many complex things, without the vocabulary to make sense of it all, AND taken out of context. So, I don't see the need to give the world fodder to think I'm crazy. If you are transitioning yourself, you probably understand somewhat what I'm referring to - the confusion of life. And if you aren't transitioning you wont understand without a common frame of reference.

So, one last snapshot into my life -

I'm fine. Still struggling to find my place - to figure out how I fit in, how to interact with the world around me. But I'm fine.

I still as of this writing continue to be excluded from the trans community, and thus have no access to support from anyone who has the slightest clue of the struggles I'm going through. It's rough, but I survive.

I still don't know how to effectively communicate my issues to the CIS folks who are willing to provide me with support. So, they don't understand, and don't know how to help. A transman I know from a long time ago actually articulated this problem for me better than I could myself - "It is sometimes hard for *insert supportive person here* to find the right way to communicate to me that they love me for who I am, and love my body as it is, AND that they supports my decisions about changing it." I would take that and expand upon it further by saying that it's hard for people to support my decisions about changing my body when I've offered them up zero justifications for my doing so (both because I don't owe anyone a justification, and because I also don't know how to articulate it to someone who is comfortable with their body as is).

But, I have housing, food, employment, and each day I march a little more forward on my quest to be who I should be.

That's all.