Back in the swing of things

First and foremost, many apologies for such an absence! Last school year I didn’t do so well, given my pretty consuming focus on transition. I’ve spent this school year really recommitting to my school and work, so in turn there have been other pieces of my life that took a back seat – obviously, the blog was one of them. But, I’m back! Or so I hope/intend. Tuesdays are the plan right now – once a week to get back into the swing of writing (other than for school).

So much has happened that I never got around to writing about! I don’t know where to begin. Ideally I’ll write about all these things in turn, but here are some bigger things from the past half year or so.

I’ve had a girlfriend for most of the past year. Her name is Alison, and she’s wonderful. We seem to be the “opposites-attract” poster couple, and our Sagittarius (her) / Libra (me) dynamic is an interesting one, to say the least. But she’s been of growing importance over the year, and has been an incredible support through all these changes. (Also, not trivially – she has turned me into a cat person. Not to the exclusion of dogs, mind you, but still. This is a big deal for me.)

Last July, I went to an Indigo Girls concert with Alison (gay gay gay) and had a really good, full circle kind of experience there, given my love/history with IG music. The last time I’d been to a concert of theirs was just before I’d started gender counseling, and I remember looking around the concert hall and wondering whether transition would mean the loss of this community. This time, a band named Coyote Grace opened – the lead singer is a transman. I pretty much lost it (just a little) when Amy Ray did a solo performance of “Second Time Around,” which is the song I have playing in the background during every shot of testosterone. The whole concert was just… calming. Reassuring.

In August, I was able to legally change my name and gender, which was just all kinds of wonderful. It’s also led me to think a lot about the privilege of having all that paperwork in order. I also did aftercare for my best friend Jonah following his chest surgery. That was both really wonderful and really difficult, as his mom was there and she just reminds me so much of my mom. I couldn’t help feeling like the things she said were all things my mother felt but never said. Also, being on the other side of the waiting room doors gave a lot of new perspective to my understanding of my own surgery.

The first semester of school went well, but not as well as I’d hoped. I did well in two of my three classes, but really struggled in the third – mostly due to the ungodly huge workload from my teaching assignment under a horribly unhelpful professor. I took a class outside my department, and for the first time I experienced a room of peers who didn’t know that I was trans. It was a safe space, as the course was in feminist methods of research. I made a couple new friends, and eventually I came out in the course of (relevant) class discussion. I continue to experience the privileges of being read as (cis)male, and it’s both revelatory and unsettling in ways I hadn’t quite expected. It also puts a lot of new decisions on the table, like when and where to disclose that I’m trans. Anyway, in terms of my body, I struggled with aftercare for my scars, which I actually wrote about, and also with getting back to the gym. I’d been fairly diligent in getting to the gym before surgery, and was then under strict orders to take it easy after surgery. So I suppose this was another case where getting back in the swing of things was difficult for me. I should mention that the gym isn’t only about health for me, but also a part of my transition and body projects. (Something else to write about.)

This semester is going much better than the last, and it is also my final semester of classes! I have a very full plate before I can move onto work on my dissertation, and it’s a little overwhelming at times. However, I’ve been working on reorganizing my life and restructuring my work habits. I’ve struggled with ADHD for a long time now, and have just recently been getting the help I needed all along. (If you’re interested, check out this book as soon as you can. It’s seriously been a game-changer for me.) I feel like I’m at a place where all I want to do is my own research, my own work – forget classes! forget teaching! Bring on the problems of the world, because I am finally ready to get to fixing them. But, hurdles are hurdles, and I’ve got to jump those first before I can get to the finish line. One bite at a time.

January 18th was my one year anniversary on testosterone, and just a few days ago was the one year anniversary of my pre-op consultation with Dr. Medalie. My one year anniversary of the actual chest surgery is so ridiculously soon that I don’t know where the year went.

The holidays were much better than last, save for a pretty bad experience of transphobia at my bank at home when I tried to change my name. My mom stood up for me in a pretty awesome way. We had dinner one night with my godfather and his wife, which was the first time I’d seen them since before I’d started testosterone (and had surgery!). It was difficult because of the amount of time that had passed (and the letter to which I never responded), but ultimately not so terrible. I still struggle with finding the line between having compassion for others’ pain or difficulties with my transition, and having compassion for myself by not feeling guilty for their responses or wondering what in the past I could have done differently. Similarly, I still haven’t “come out” to the extended family. They live a few states away and we rarely see them. I’ve never felt particularly close to any of them except for my grandparents, and especially not after some pretty offensive lectures from them on separate occasions about race, politics, (homo)sexuality (“We don’t have straight pride day!”), and whether I have the right to express an opinion to them… etc. In other words, I don’t feel particularly obligated to justify my life to them, as is surely inevitable once they find out, but the longer I wait to tell them, the longer I’ve put my parents in an awkward closet of sorts.

I often think to myself (particularly after realizing a mistake I’ve made), “There’s no handbook for this.” No one tells you how to come out to your parents, and especially how to tell your baby sister. No one tells you about the bitter part of the sweetness of taking your first shot, or seeing your chest for the first time after surgery.  I guess that’s what all of this, all of our queer blogging and archiving, is really for – writing ourselves down, to start piecing together these handbooks a page at a time.