T-Minus 3 and Friday thoughts

Well it is Friday, the sun is shining and it is a bit cooler today than it has been so I'm happy. I wrote in my last blog about feeling tired and rundown, I guess it was worse than I thought..

On Wed after I left work, I went home, had dinner and decided to unwind a bit before going up to get ready for my session. Generally my sessions at this point are every 3-4 weeks and I usually make them for 7 pm. Being a 45 minute ride I try to start getting ready to go around 5:30.

After dinner I decided to sit down and read for a while in an effort to get lost in a little me time, just kind of unwind as I mentioned. Dee went upstairs around 5 to do what she needed to do and somewhere around 5:35 it struck her that .. Geez, Karyn hasn't come up to get ready that's odd"

She proceeded downstairs to check on me only to find the following. Poor Karyn sitting on the couch, with the book being held open to the page and zonked out cold. Yes, I fell asleep in the middle of reading and never lost my page!! Apparently I was so tired that she said it took her a full 2 minutes to get me to come too.

So yeah, I'd say I was a bit rundown!

At my counseling session we went over the feelings I had about the name change. Between Anne and all my awesome trans-sisters I am happy to say I am feeling a LOT better about it. While I'm not saying my nerves are gone, I am saying that I now understand that they are very normal to have at this stage. At some point I was beginning to think my anxiety was pointing toward one big mistake, I know it isn't though ..

So all of you who have extended yourself to me I will say a heartfelt thank you too. It is in all that encouragement that I find some sense of peace and yes Sara I do believe you are right. I need a little selfish Karyn time this weekend.

Sara made an interesting point in her comment from my last writing. She said that she wishes I'd open up a let a little bit more of the negative aspects out so girls behind me see what they are in for.

While life gets better as we work on ourselves it isn't always in a perfect frame of mind. In fact because we are Trans, something's we tend to view differently than a gender girl would. For instance if my wife and I were to take a walk through the mall and someone looked at us the Trans mind focuses on being read, the gender girls mind focuses on "Hey someone is checking you out!" and being the paranoid T-women that we tend to be we never tend to believe that. (BTW Thanks for the analogy Cyn it was a good one I had to use it)

In transition is takes a lot to get from point A to point B and we all need to do that in different ways overcoming our own fears as we move along. We go from Depression and guilt to Fear, Fear to Self-acceptance, self acceptance to full acceptance, full acceptance to visually and emotionally being who we are, and yet in that journey each phase causes its own set of obstacles to overcome.

I was able to beat the guilt and fear of who I was easily. I was lucky that the people around me were very accepting and that help with my own self-acceptance. Where my fear and anxiety started in that phase was worrying about what others would think of me out in public. The steps to conquer that we to add things slowly and get used to them For me just going from boys jeans to girls jeans was a big deal. Now I wear girls jeans almost exclusively. I wear girls tops almost all my time away from my job but they are very androgynous and plain. At least for me this way people try and figure me out and I am happy when I get female pronouns.

To move into the next phases have been an enormous step for me and they still to this day cause me anxiety. A feeling that I truly hope the name change will help with by building more confidence. Then I can make the move into more feminine looking clothing. Still what a stranger may see isn't what I assume they see and sometimes is very hard for me to see visually. I look at pictures of myself a feel as though I don?t pass well yet others tell me I look great. The trans mind then kicks in and reasons it to be "Oh they are just being nice." It doesn't matter whether it is a passing look in a mall or a compliment from a friend or loved one, there?s always a way to have your mind invert what they are telling you.

Calpernia Adams was recruited to help Felicity Huffman get ready for her role in the movie Transamerica and when asked by Felicity what it was like to be trans, Calpernia broke it down very well into one thing. She told hee to picture every time you step out of the house the feeling that every person you see is staring at you, and laughing as well. It is the exact emotion that I"ve been attempting to over come in myself.

Transition isn?t without its bumps in the road but with every step positive and negative I've learned a lot about myself and the world around me. I've learned that I had a lot more strength emotionally than I ever believed I had. I've learned that I misjudged the people around me and how compassionate they can be. I've learned that most people will say nasty tings behind a keyboard and yet would never say it to your face. I've learned that it took me 40 years to see how beautiful a sunrise really is . Or for the first time noticed the incredible floral smell in the air on the bike at the time of year. I learned that I wasn?t broken and unlovable, that I was just a little lost. I've learned how much blue eyes can tell you without the person ever uttering one word. The fact that I love the feel of soft skin. I learned that a good cry CAN make you feel better and many many other wonderful things.

So yeah, transition has its missteps and low moments but what we gain from it is so much more rich and true. It's probably why I don't focus as much on the negative aspects of it, I spent 39 years of my life being negative, I love being positive for a change. I am not without my moments but hey I'm human ..

T minus 3 . Yes I?m getting excited!

Again thanks for all the wonderful comments and emails. There's a little bit of wisdom in all of them!!

~Karyn~