A Lucid Moment

I got an email today from Donna Slay (aren't derby names fun?) of Northside Rollers. It seems I am woman enough to play with the big girls. So between my therapist session on Saturday morning and a birthday party I've committed to attending in the afternoon I will get myself a helmet and mouthguard which I will take along with my recently acquired skates and a winning smile to Puckhandlers Stadium in Reservoir for tryouts on the 18th. I am rustier than a rusty thing on skates but I don't think that's anything which a good amount of training won't fix. I also find myself thinking that any birthday party you turn up to with a helmet and mouthguard has serious expectations to live up to.

I'm going to have fun with this I think.

I was rather ill the past couple of days. Ill enough that I actually failed to register throughout the whole of yesterday that it was the actual anniversary of me starting to take hormones. One whole year of me reinventing myself and my body and my life.

God, what a year it's been. This time last year I was desperately trying to find a place of my own, watching my marriage fly apart and wondering how on earth I was ever going to make this work. It has been the absolute hardest, most horrible time of my life and also the most rewarding. When I haven't been curled into a ball in tears or staring blankly at the wall in stark terror wondering what on earth I've done to my life, I've been more relaxed, more happy and more me. This is something that my friends have noticed as well. both those who see me regularly and those who haven't seen me over the course of the whole year. I've been able to uncurl, to allow myself to explore who I truly am and knock aside a pile of preconceptions about who and what I am and who and what I'm allowed to be. In the process I've discovered a person who I really rather like and who I'm very much enjoying getting to know. It's a rewarding thing to discover that you like yourself. I've learned about the sides of me I don't like as well...I'm lazy, I procrastinate, I can be selfish...there are a multitude of things that I need to pound out of myself but the level of self-knowledge that I've acquired in the past year alone is worth a very dear price indeed and that process has only just begun.

So here I am. I'm only a little way along this path and it frightens me only a little less than it did a year ago but I have learned that I can present myself to the world as I truly am and that for all that the world will in a thousand tiny ways deny me that and make me want to scream and hit people, the vast bulk of people will not only allow this but congratulate me on making the journey in the first place and this is an incredibly empowering thing. What I also learned, standing in the middle of a house full of people who were there to support and celebrate and further me discovering myself is that I am surrounded by some truly wonderful people. Many in my position are not nearly so lucky. Their friends leave them, their parents disown them, their employers find pretexts to fire them. I read and heard these horror stories when I started and I was terrified of the prospect of discovering who amongst those I loved would treat me so shabbily.

God I'm lucky. So so SO lucky. Thank you all, more than I can express. I still have no idea what my life will look like a year from now as I finally approach surgery which in itself is just another gate to pass through on the road to finding myself. The uncertainty and the feeling that I'll never quite fit into this world ever again frightens me badly. It does not, however, frighten me as badly as the idea of not doing it which literally make my mind go blank and my vision fade...it's genuinely, actually, literally unthinkable which is the most bizarre sensation I have ever experienced, and not one I recommend...I've re-emerged in the foetal position crying and shaking. I've learned not to try it anymore. This is not something I can deny myself. The fact that I am not alone tempers the fear though. I will always have a small place in the world, even if the wider community cannot accept me.

So tomorrow I continue as I did today. I will go to work. Once I finish there I plan to meet a friend of whom I've seen far too little. (and that has been happening a lot lately) I hope to discuss plans for the future in a real and concrete way that will lead to me doing real and concrete things. Hell, I might even find a life amongst it that isn't entirely tied up in this transition process. If I keep doing this, my life a year from now might be rather good. I like that idea.

The annual cocktail party that's become one of the highlights of my year was last night and was, as it always is, a huge amount of fun. It seemed weird not to be there all day as I have in previous years. In retrospect, the setting up and being there until the last guest staggers out the door was part of the event and I didn't have that this year. This isn't to say that I didn't have a good time. The lovely hometime and JB have been wonderfully hospitable and the party itself was still fantastic.

I caught up with a number of people who I haven't seen since this time last year and I had a couple of instances of "Have we met before, you look familiar." and similar things. This was actually huge fun and everyone who had to take a moment to realise who I was also said nice things. The dress I wore was an op-shop find from a couple of months ago that had to particular purpose at the time but which just had to come home with me. It's a spaghetti strapped sheath dress with a dark red underlayer and a black lace overlayer which I very much like. I swapped between a rather nice grey wrap and my usual black velvet bolero. The shoes were given to me some time ago by ms_killian and are heels which were tall enough to give me pause last time I wore them, but I managed to get medium squiffy in them this time without any real issues so I think I'm comfortable in them. I think I managed to avoid the enthusiastic small child look with the makeup. I think I badly need to play with this more so that on the rare occasions that I do use it, it holds fewer terrors for me. Maybe I need more frockup time generally...it's an empowering thing as I feel less uncomfortable and more like I might actually look good each time I do it. A fun thing in any case.

Back to work on Tuesday and hopefully to find that I've got a new position as team leader at work. I had a call on Friday as they'd promised, but only to tell me that they'd not yet made any final decisions. This job doesn't really have any downsides. The work is more interesting, it (mostly) gets me off the phones, it bumps my pay up a bit...really all good. I live in hope.

An odd day today. I went to a couple of gatherings, both of which involved nice socialisation. The weather was cold and wet which both literally and figuratively dampened the mood somewhat. There was odd emotional discomfort which is really nobody's problem but my own so I'm not sure exactly how to address that. It also seems I'm still having odd ambivalent feelings about being attracted to people.

Yay for Kerry Greenwood booklaunches, even if today didn't bring the wonderful sunnyt weather which usually accompanies such things. There was singing which was always good. I had a minor twitchy moment and moved on to the next gathering I was due to go to, and in truth only got there about half an hour early. There's a Melbourne genderqueer group which has some lovely people there. I feel like something of an old fart there but not too badly. Thence to Hares and Hyenas to grab a copy of this. I was amused by the fact that the central character is a transgendered cyclist called Salisbury Forth who lives in Melbourne. A solid array of coincidences that and the book itself looks fun.

Food is in the oven. I chopped onions and let them fry in the bottom of my lovely cast iron pot with garlic and turmeric and pepper and cumin and fresh coriander before dumping a tin of diced tomatoes, two tins of chickpeas, a goodly amount of chopped sweet potato, flaked almonds and caroway seeds which I'd just toasted, a little chilli oil, tarragon and a box of frozen spinach on top of it and transferring the lot to the oven where it makes nice smells and is stirred occasionally.

I have a small amount of a Pratchett novel to consume and then I think it'll be straight on to my latest acquisition. I'm not really sure how I feel at this point. Not bad, not good but a poorly stirred mix of the two.

I got off work early today (pre-arranged) to make an appointment with my therapist. We discussed my recent implosions and how I've at least partly resolved the more pressing aspects of them along with other ways in which I've progressed. I get the impression that he's well pleased with me which is nice. He also gave me the requisite letter for having my passport re-issued showing the appropriate gender, following the recent spectacular change in legislation from the federal government. They're now allowing passports to be reissued to show M (male), F (female) or X (gender neutral/indeterminate) simply on the basis of a letter confirming ongoing treatment for gender transition or in the case of someone who's intersex, an existing condition. Up until now, surgery was required. I'm very much looking forward to getting that sorted out.

Having someone who pays close attention to my development of identity but who only sees me occasionally does point up the incremental differences which I and others around me don't notice so much. Apparently my voice is coming along far better than I thought. In terms of visual presentation I'm starting to get really comfy. I now expect to be read consistently as a woman or at least to present well enough that nobody raises an eyebrow. I'm also starting to get a bit of an idea of What Forth Wears which is a bit of a breakthrough. There's still plenty I want to play with which I haven't yet but that will come. The warmer weather will open up a few more options which I've not yet played with. My ongoing op shop frenzy is filling out my wardrobe and even providing the odd bit of jewelery. This is actually a heap of fun. I'm getting to play with clothes and I have a couple of cheerfully willing accomplices which makes it even more fun. The odd occasions when I've had someone come shopping with me is great as it pushes me to try things that I might not have otherwise. The filling out process seems to have moved on from the bit of a plateau which I hit earlier so I'm rather looking forward to seeing how that goes in the coming months as well.

These months do stack up fast. I'm rapidly approaching the 10 month mark on hormones and starting to contemplate some sort of party to mark the one year mark (22nd November). Dare I say that with a little more personal resolution, the scary bits soon might actually be noticeably outweighed by the fun bits? I have new friends and new clothes and new me. I still have to gather some of the valued old bits together. for all that I keep saying that I can't neglect them, they've still somewhat fallen by the wayside. That's going to be part of the process of continuing to gather the bits together.

An odd few days and I think I'm trying to resolve far too many things at once. An otherwise lovely day at the Krae Glas invest was marred by multiple triggers turning me into a wibbling mess who had to go off and hide in the corner several times, not always successfully. Many thanks to those who found me and made the right noises and most particularly walked me in circles until I settled. That aside, it was fantastic to be at an SCA event again and not only to catch up with people who haven't seen me for some time but to be received so warmly. It was also fantastic to sing again even if it did feel peculiar every now and then to be singing the bottom line of the score. Given that I'll never be an alto, it's either rumble out the counter-contralto part or not sing. I am so not not NOT giving up singing!

I didn't get the expected therapy session on Saturday morning. Apparently my therapist had a sudden onset of something bad with his appendix which was severe enough to warrant emergency surgery. Given that, I really don't feel like I got the worse end of the exercise in this but it's a little ironic that the one time I actually really wanted to vent at him, it all fell through.

Sunday, I had plans for the afternoon but in the end I slept in (after not sleeping much at all during the night) and pottered. Laundry was done and experimental stuff comprising shallots, bacon, Swiss mushrooms, fennel, butternut pumpkin and blue cheese was baked and pureed into a ridiculously rich mess and spooned over gnocchi. I'm working my way through a fairly generous serve for dinner as I type this and I do rather like it.

So I shall progress gently for a bit. I have social engagements which will prod me here and there but which will also make me happy in some important ways. The tricky part with dealing with everything at the moment is that I can't compartmentalise things, they're all far too incestuously interwoven. So I can only tease out knots here and there until things start to look coherent again. Well at least I can't complain about being bored. It might be a bit fraught sometimes but if nothing else, it's awfully interesting.

Right, bed and a book. Incidentally, Judith Butler writes awfully densely, even for someone producing an academic rather than popular work. Worth persisting with though methinks, even though I'm already piling up quite a assumptions in the text that I'm waiting for her to resolve.

Well that was a fun weekend. Yesterday was a Kerry Greenwood book launch for 'Medea' which was fun, as those usually are. I know she turns these things out as fast as is humanly possible but I could wish to see them more often. This was followed (as they usually are) with a meal across the road which included a glass of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Porter, one of the more chewable beverages I've had of late. This was followed by a lovely afternoon/evening with montjoye which involved a trip to Spotlight mostly to get lace trim to help with the lining of the utterly spectacular coat that she's nearly finished and partly to get thread to suit the cloth which she so generously gave me. We then had yummy corn and ham and vegetablish soup while watching Sherlock Holmes and in her case, hemming her coat.

I got home to discover that tenbears's old van had vanished from where it had been parked out the front of my place for the past few weeks. I called him, he called me, the police called me and the matter was resolved this morning by 10B locating it parked up the other end of my street. This didn't really surprise anyone. The clutch pedal doesn't work, and it is therefore something of a challenge to drive any great distance if you don't know how to manage a manual gearbox without touching the clutch. We stripped it of everything of value, something the thieves made a complete non-attempt at it seems, and left it parked there as the battery is completely flat. Roll starting it is theoretically possible but I'm not sure I want to play that game in a narrow street with cars parked on both sides.

After that I immediately showered and changed as I had to be in Camberwell for a rather fun concert in which the soprano was a recently met friend who I suspect I'm going to see more of and who accompanied myself and montjoye and Ms J for a nice dinner afterwards. Music and dinner and conversation is a great way to round off a weekend.

On a slightly less pleasing note, it seems that people will still drop in "he", "him" and "his" when referring to me if they're not actively paying attention. This isn't a complaint per se because in every other respect people have been respectful and lovely. It does illustrate how I'm perceived though when that's the reflexive construction used. I'm guessing it's primarily the voice that's the culprit but it shows that I have a long way to go.

I've had an account in DW for a while and it allows for crossposting to LiveJournal so I'll give it a shot now that I appear to have reached a critical mass of people I know posting here.

Today more or less marks six months of living alone. For all that I don't like some of the reasons for living along I've come very much to like having my own space. I've filled it with a clutter of stuff that in a lot of ways is me and shows how I've changed.

I added to that clutter tonight. The lovely Ms Killian told me of a sale in Target and arranged to meet me there. From that point, we collected armsful of clothes on sale and traipsed into the change rooms for a frenzy of Trying Stuff On. Yes, no, that cut suits you but not in that colour, you should get that one, that top doesn't go with that skirt but would be cute with jeans and and and...FUN! Also most educational. I simply haven't had the opportunity to really work out What Forth Wears. Some of the stuff I buy will be a failure and some of you will occasionally see me in stuff and shake your heads in disbelief. It's experimental. I'm going to try to avoid going overboard but I'm also going to explore and that will happen mostly in the context of safe environments ie. around people who know me and care about me. That'd be you. *points* So when I turn up to parties and other gatherings, that's my time to play with my appearance and it's when I will push boundaries.

So I'm going to ask that you be honest about stuff. It's nice to be told that I look nice but when that's all I ever hear I wonder how much is genuine and how much is just people being supportive. If I look like a shrieking tranny, SAY something. I may agree, I may not but much better than "Oh yes, the green sequined jumpsuit and yellow nail polish really suits your complexion."

A challenging thing but also fun.

Perhaps steampunked though.

Despite having dithered and angsted about how I was going to dress for the steampunk party hosted by the ever delightful montjoye and having utterly failed to find anything despite extensive op shop raiding, in the end I just rummaged through my wardrobe and it actually seemed to work out ok. The outfit in the end was the knee high leather laceup boots I wore to taleya's wedding, long woolen skirt, satin waist cincher and velvet bolero jactet, all in black and a high collared white cotton shirt which I rather like. Silver/marcasite/garnet earrings and a red cameo pendant provided a spot of colour. The motorcycle goggles I found in a shop on Friday were the obligatory steampunk accent.

Once dressed I realised that I no longer have any nervousness about playing in feminine clothing. I would have happily gone shopping in that outfit. (indeed a bottle shop stop would have been nice, but circumstances dictated otherwise) People are still tripping on the pronouns but most people realise it and pick themselves up on it. It's feeling less and less like a game of dressups (the costume nature of last night aside) and if I'd worn masculine clothes last night, *that* would have been uncomfortable. Basically, I felt comfortable, friends who I'd not seen for a while asked thoughtful interested questions and at one point I got dragged out into the hallway to be a darling of the camera. I actually felt a bit pretty in a way that wasn't entirely due to people telling me that directly. I'm also rather looking forward to seeing those photos.

Other than me getting to play with clothes, it was a glorious party. Lovely people, fantastic food and lots of fun with the theme without it being thrown at you in gobs which so often happens at theme parties. Compliments to the hostess, definitely.

Today was a day of consolidating my bombsite of a flat which hasn't been completely successful but the kitchen is resolved, Experimental pseudo Thai chicken, corn and mushroom soup (with ginger, coriander, chilli, fish sauce, leek, tarragon, cider vinegar and rice noodles) and bread made, laundry done and I still got time to sleep in and also have some lazy Sunday couch time. I think I'm happy. More of this please.