Be All Again

So like I said there would be some jumping around. I read my last two posts and decided I really do not like them. They are long and boring. Just the kind of thing I hate. They are "dear diary" posts. A friend asked if I keep a diary, I said no, just the blog. So I am going to push this back to my usual format. Clever commentary, aka smartass.

So the blow by painful blow approach will go out the window now. And you will get left with me making remarks on goofy shit. And hopefully with some of my transness mixed into it. I think the first thing I am going to do from this point is stop talking about passing. That is my own internal insecurity. If I was a bit smaller, and shorter, I am thinking it would probably not bother me at all.

What my ten days showed me, and cured me of, is that I can go just about anywhere, at anytime, with almost no concern other than some throwback wanting to kill me because I do not fit his model of "right". And since I am a big girl, he probably will think twice, especially if I strike a Tai Chi stance with him and then use some Chin Na to break his arm. :)

The part about it that has probably been the most rewarding is finding natal women who think I look ok, if not downright good. This is the most earnest complement I can think of. I joked that the highest complement at Be All would be for somebody to ask me how long my husband has been coming to Be All. Of course that did not happen. But it is what I am seeking.

I had several things I learned at Be All that I want to take away in my more usual style. The first is I was able to go outside the bubble and come back. I went shopping by myself at a mall, again. And this time I did not just sort of browse and merely ask where the dressing room was. I worked with the clerks on outfits accessories and other things. Basically I shopped like a friendly woman would and was treated the same. Everyplace I went I was treated the way I wanted to be. And for me that is a big gate. It says, even without hormones and FFS I can be perceived as a woman by others. And part of my angst over all of this time, something that prevented me from doing anything before this, was the idea in my head that that was not a possibility. I stand corrected. It is not only possible, it has happened.

The second thing was that almost all of the women I met while being "me" told me I was cute. They commented on my skin and my eyes, how I well I had done my makeup, my clothing choices, and accessory selection, they treated me like a sister. I have had to learn how to take a compliment, this has been a challenge for me. And it makes me think, with future hormones, possibly a little FFS (which I am now thinking amounts to some soft work in the short term), and some additional soak time as me, I will actually be a decent looking, interesting, woman. That is huge if you consider I had no idea that it was possible at this time last year.

The third thing is that I love being female. I love the freedom to move without constraint, to express yourself. Guy me never, ever, ever, ever, danced. Girl me dances. Mind you it took several key events to get me there. My first dancing event was at Keystone, and it was kind of a bunch of us on the floor in a circle with a DJ. This was discovery. But the transformational event was watching my friend Tammy dance in Philly. I was content to watch, she has great moves. But beyond the moves I watched her go to another place in her head while dancing. I do not know what to call it, girl heaven, fem zen, whatever. I could see she went to a place where her world had been sorted out, she was in tune with herself, her body, her mind and her spirit. All female, all in sync. And then she melded it with the music, the mood, and the room. And she was happy. That is really the wrong word for what I saw. She was in Nirvana. That is closer. And so I determined after seeing that, I wanted the same thing.

Well I did it. It happened at Dr. Z's party with a live band. I fell into the zone. I felt great, became one with who I am and for at least a while I was in sync, mind, body, spirit. And it kind of shows in the pictures from that night. And now I am addicted. If you think crack is bad, you should have some of this. After that night, I know this, there is no way I cannot transition. There is no way I can wait five+ years for it to happen. I am going to have to be me, and relatively soon. And so that was transformational for me. I found that I could get to that same place again and again at the other events at Be All, me, music, dancing. Bam, there it is.

Fourth, I learned just how much transition is probably going to cost me and how much it is going to hurt (financially and physically). The financial part I am less concerned about than the physical. Mind you I have a pretty good pain tolerence. I met with every surgeon at the conference, and listed to each tell their story. Why they were better than the other guy or gal, why they have corrected the other's mistakes, why their "product" is better for me. My conclusion, they are all cookie cutter to a point. Basically they each have an empirical idea of what a woman is, and when you go to them, you hand that over, and let them decide for you, what you are going to be, how you will look. I am not sure I like that being the control freak that I am. On the other hand I cannot see myself with a mirror and a scalpel. Autosurgery seems like a bad idea to me. I wonder if it is against the law. If not it should be.

Anyhow I made no decisions officially yet about anything. I will let it simmer in that chunky stew of a noggin of mine. What I will do in the meantime is look into Estrogen. That part I know is a given. Then lets see what I have after that point.

The last thing, and this is a real surprise for me. Female me is apparently attractive to others, or so I think. I know some of you are laughing right now. But seriously, I had decided that one of my biggest fears in transition is that I would end up as this old lonely bitter broad. And even at this early stage of transition I have made "discoveries" that this will not be the case. Now you need to know, I did not go seeking any of this. It has just happened. I am not going to offer specifics, that would be what you would call "personal shit". But I can say this I have had enough dialog and interaction to know that when I am ready, there is probably somebody out there that will be into me for me, and I am not talking Tranny Chaser. In fact, that is a space that I have had no intersection with other than to hear stories. Truth be told, I want the person I am with to know, believe and treat me as a woman.

My friend Mara warned me. She said "You are going to have so much fun as a girl". She is so right. Life suddenly seems way more interesting. Technicolor. I have more friends than ever. I feel freer than I can remember. I am more even. I have never had a desire to "go out" before. And yet there it is, present in me. My social life has expanded from watching TV to living. This is an unexpected turn of events in my head. And I know this is probably the euphoria of discovery but I am going to take it. Will it last, I have no idea.