accept. embrace. live.

I've been kind of bitchy/grumpy this week.  On edge, a little tense, quick to overreact, those sort of things.

There's a lot going on right now.  I'm still waiting for the notification on my divorce.  There's another situation I'm not going into here that is bothering me, on a couple of levels.  But the main the thing I am noticing lately, is how how much I do not like it when I am looked at/addressed as someone other than me.  Doesn't matter what I am wearing anymore or where I am... for example, I still wear male clothes to work.  I don't like it when my co-workers refer to me by what-they-think is my name.  I went out at lunchtime and the woman at the gas station said, "Thank you, sir."  It really bothered me.  Growl.  It is totally unreasonable for me to think I'll be addressed as "ma'am" when I am wearing male clothing.  Nonetheless, it really bothers me.  I hate it, actually.  The only place I wear male clothes now, is at work.  I get home from work, and head straight upstairs and change.  That relaxes me and the wolf goes away, replaced by, um, a lamb, I guess.

No, wait.  A sheep.  I'm a sheep in wolf's clothing.  Glad we got that straightened out.

When I'm wearing my clothes, and with people I know...  sometimes they slip with pronouns or call me by my old name.  In the past, I've laughed it off, said it's OK, and it was... then.  It is getting harder and harder to do that.  Intellectually I know that it's hard for people that have known you in a certain way for a fairly long period of time, to make this change in a fairly short period of time.  I don't want to be one of those trans people who takes herself so seriously that she can't laugh about stuff.  But still.  I guess I get it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I'm heading up to visit my family in NY in about a month.  I'm taking the kids... this is my full week-and-change with them for the year, and I am not looking forward to it very much.  I won't get addressed as myself, looked at as myself, or have the opportunity to be myself, all week.  After the kids go to bed we'll either sit around and have angst-filled conversations about this, or we will have superficial conversations about other things, while the 500-pound gorilla looms.  I'd rather just take them (the kids) to the beach or something for a week, let them play, and relax with my thoughts and some wine at night.  But nope.  That's not what I chose to do for my vacation this year.  Stupid me.  The more I think about this trip, the more worked up I get about it, and the more I wish we were doing something else.  Ugh.

The other thing that has changed, is the way I view a certain part of my body.  In the past, I've been somewhat "meh" about it.  That changed to being annoyed with it, kind of a "go away!" feeling, like the way you'd swat away a bug.  The feeling now is...  I. Want. It. Off.  I don't like seeing it when I am taking a shower or whatever.  It's gross.  It's gross and it's an abomination.  A year or so until full-time + a year of being full-time = a minimum of 2 more years with this thing.

Can you tell this is all wearing on me?  Heh.   My initial plan was to be full time near the end of 2011.  Martha advised that for many of her clients, that time period shortens.  I can totally see why.  I hope it shortens for me.  I only started seriously exploring this 9 months ago.  What is it going to be like in another year?  What will a blog entry like this one look like in a year's time?  After I figured myself out, I began rehearsing conversations with friends... with family... now I am rehearsing and researching conversations with HR... the final frontier.  It's hard to imagine keeping this charade up for another year and a half.

It's so easy to fixate on the negative... and really, those "negatives" above, are things that will pass, things that will take time.  In the big scheme of things, I have it pretty good... I know this.  Next blog will be more upbeat, about what changes have taken place happened in the 4 months that I've been on hormones.  It's good stuff.

Sometimes a girl just needs to vent, though.....