I Hate To Go And Leave This Pretty Site

Regrettably, I think today may be the end for my little blog. It was hugely useful to me during my transition and it helped me to straighten a lot of things out in my own head. Albeit somewhat publicly by it’s very nature.

I had alluded to 2018 having a difficult start a couple of weeks ago. We can scratch that. I should have said devastating. It’s far more accurate. But once again, that’s not really for here at all and those discussions will be quieter and with the people I need to have them with.

My transition was and I suppose still is very important to me. But other things mean that it will be taking a backseat for the foreseeable. I’ll still continue to recover and hopefully learn but the running commentary will only happen in my head.

I never expected to enjoy blogging at all. But it was strangely comforting and awfully cathartic to sometimes spill my guts to strangers with a relative anonymity. And I’d recommend trying it yourself at times of difficulty. You can learn a lot by looking back.

I’m genuinely grateful to anyone who ever took the time to read a single word of it. And I expect to miss it a little bit at least but for now it’s just thanks, cheerio, so long and No, you hang up!

Vagitarian Options

I quite often forget about this being a transition blog. Although I suppose technically it’s now a transitioned blog. But today, I do have to admit that even after my op, there are still questions about my own transition. And most of those questions I have left boil down to the one broad category. What happens next?

I’ve already worked out who I am. What I am is a trickier thing to pin down but an area of constantly shifting progress. Despite a somewhat finalising surgery, I currently occupy an odd sort of middle ground. I’m no longer one thing but not fully another either. And that’s OK.

It is very tempting to think of surgery as the answer. I think it’s just an answer. Because there’s a further journey ahead. Most of which centres around discovering what sort of woman I want to be, now that the physical part is done.

In my third month Post Op, it seems I might have the potential to be a fairly relaxed woman. At least initially. I’m perfectly happy with untamed Denis Healey eyebrows, an ever-expanding paunch and occasionally noticing that the hair on my shapely pins is a slight shade towards Rapunzel much of the time.

Just Beyonce up my brows a little please!

At the start of my journey I’d never have allowed myself any of those things. But in the here and now, I care less about the purely cosmetic aspects of femininity.

What I have discovered quickly is that I know Hee Haw about piloting my new body as successfully as may be possible. This is also OK. I have time and perhaps Baby Steps are the way forward now. I’m going to continue learning I expect and there are new experiences to be had. I’m enthusiastically open to all of them. But at this exact point, I can only tell you this much, a map wouldn’t be amiss.

Channelling My Inner Bitch

So, been largely ignoring this blog because, as 2018 kicked off,  I was violently pinballing from one bit of tragic personal news to the next. But the break is over and I’m back for a bit. And whatever the fuck else 2018 wishes to throw my way now, I’m largely ready for it. But this isn’t necessarily a rant about that stuff. That’s for the real world and my big girl pants.

Instead, I think I’ll have a go at something that’s been ripping my knitting since pretty much the start of the new year. And that’s the current UK series of Celebrity Big Brother. So far mostly notable for it’s relentless whining and some of the most odious people ever to grace the Big Brother house.

Ann Widdecombe? I’m not even going to elaborate on her. An entirely horrible human being without any hint of redeeming qualities. If she were a crossword clue, it would be “4 letters, rhymes with hunt”. But that’s enough of that. The mainstay of my utter contempt is somewhat personally saddening though, as it happens to be a fellow Transgender Woman.

I totally get that being Trans is hard. It absolutely is. But so is life in general. And I’ve just heard enough consecutive nights of India bleating about being misgendered or otherwise feeling disrespected by other housemates who are mostly trying to meet her halfway. It’s depressingly negative. And it’s a poor reflection on the many, many Trans Women who deal with far worse treatment on a daily basis. As I write this, I haven’t been misgendered or referred to as male within earshot for a good 72 hours. You know how I learned to survive? By teaching myself not to give one solitary fuck.

Which is no mean feat incidentally. But did it I did. That last sentence is more channelling Yoda than my inner bitch perhaps but I do feel a certain righteous indignation that someone with such a privileged position to be a Trans ambassador beamed into people’s homes every night is making such a royal fucking mess of it. And I’m clearly not alone. At the time of writing, she already stood nominated by her peers and had the potential to be the first person kicked out of the house. But as much as she has annoyed me, I’m a bit sad about that. Because it’s been a golden opportunity for someone to show a fairly large cross section of the public just how normal Trans people really are. But regardless of the outcome, that’s maybe already been achieved. Trans people can be arseholes too! And that’s equality right there.

 

His-tory

First post of 2018. Taken me a little while to acclimatise as I’m still in a wee bit of pain. But I’m starting this year from a very confident place. 

2017 was as personally challenging as things have ever got. However,  I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.  Between home renovation and self alteration,  I think I stretched myself further than I’ve ever managed. But I lived to tell the tale.

And now it’s a brand new year. This is always one of my favourite things. No matter what happened leading up to it, it’s done. And it’s a fresh start for everything.  A yearly reset button that I couldn’t wait to hit.

2017 may have given me a long awaited answer but within the wider context of my life it was not always pleasant. It brought hurt and carnage to the lives of people I care about and that’s never good. 

But we’re all still here and personally,  I’m for moving on now. Whatever happened still happened but it’s also done. And I’d like to leave blame, anger and resentment way back in the past where it belongs. It’s my first full year as a woman. I’d like to start the way I mean to live. Some of that starts by choosing to let things go. And some of it by being thankful for all that I have.  Born to be alive does not seem too bad a motto under the circumstances.  Happy Belated New Year to you x