petal circles

There is a whole new world of choices to make. I am constantly facing intersections of decisions.

I spent the last few days in Baltimore, half for work and half to visit my brother and his fiance. I had a great time, but was confounded by how often I considered if I should just come out to him. I decided I wasn’t ready, as I don’t have my feet under me enough at this point. I feel like, for my own sake, I need to take more time and get my feet under myself a little more. I want to do some more personally affirming things so I can feel settled on my path.

Each of those steps is more decisions, though! I want to get laser, pursue voice training, think about a name, do more social stuff, and feel more “out” in my day to day life. I feel a concern that if I take bigger steps, especially with my family, then to get knocked off my feet would come with bigger consequences. If I have practice standing, and have been through lower-stakes challenges and can see how to weather those, then it will be easier to know I can withstand whatever weirdness or surprises or what have you that comes up with my family.

On tenterhooks all morning before my appointment but I got the prescription! Ready tomorrow and then it’s over for you hoes

I’m at the Hollywood for a couple movies - two John Woo flicks, The Killer and Hard Boiled. John Woo’s stuff has always been a blind spot for me, so I’m excited to get these both under my belt on the big screen.

This place is so great, I love volunteering here. Free movies, infinite snacks and bevs, and the camaraderie can’t be beat. This is definitely somewhere I look forward to coming out, because I know everyone will back me the fuck up. I am still getting used to thinking of myself as a woman! I keep doing silly stuff like referring to myself as a guy. I figure it’ll get more straightforward the more I do things like present as a woman in public. Much of my “masculine” presentation has simply been from not challenging the default perception of myself - big, hairy, and casually disheveled tends to do that.

I was listening to an episode of SRSLY WRONG earlier, my dearly beloved podcast. It keeps helping me to remember about the wonderful non-traditional library projects I’m aware of in Portland. The tool libraries are the obvious ones, but finding out about the kayak library was so fucking exciting and I’m looking forward to that for next year. I feel like there’s got to be more out there that I’m missing. Besides that, I would love to see a city or county grant program for these kinds of orgs, god knows how far $5k would go for something like them.

out at the coffee shop for some tippy tappy laptop time, drinking a tasty lil macchiato and having a good quiet morning. Left A asleep in bed and got a hot shower and shave. Don’t particularly enjoy shaving but it feels less burdensome, and the result is more pleasing than it used to be for sure.

I’m really still not over how different it feels to be able to look at my bald face without feeling intensely bad and weird about it! Wish I had thought that the feeling might be dysphoria so many years ago.

I can feel myself struggling to keep clear of too much pink cloud. There’s plenty of moments where I feel the rush of recognizing myself - everything from going to the thrift store for an outfit (even though I chickened out!) to hearing that A told a coworker today! Even making another post tonight gives me the rush.

There’s this other feeling, though - the question about being trans “enough”. Yes, it’s cliche! I started reading the book today even! Yes, You Are Trans Enough! But the moments of doubt weigh heavily, and if I don’t catch them I know they could overwhelm.

Even though it’s been a week and a half, I already can tell that I have less doubt about myself than I did. Previously it was always “am I trans? am I? what if I am? how can I know??” Now, the voice that asks if I’m not is nowhere near as powerful as I would have guessed. Amazing!!!

This evening A and I managed to talk some. They’ve felt pent up about stuff, and getting them to share was a relief. They told me that there’s some stuff they need to work through, but they struggle because they know it’s not stuff they can talk to me about. I’m grateful they recognized that, but it’s so hard that they are so socially independent. They simply don’t have people to talk to about these things. I wish I could point them to a group of some kind, but good lord do I know they wouldn’t take to such a suggestion… from me, at least. They are friendly with coworkers, maybe there’s a chance some of those relationships could help them find that support.

I hate that they feel so alone about this. They have been wonderfully supportive, offering to do makeup on me and stuff, referring to me as “she” to their coworkers, everything! What love, I am so grateful!

I’m watching The Matrix. This movie is so fucking trans, it’s incredible. Cinema!!! I don’t think there’s a normal interaction with a mirror at any point. Lots of reflections! All warped!