Me and My Body August 30, 2009
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, appearance, hormones, surgery, transgender, transition, transsexual.add a comment
Sunday, August 30th 5:42 am
Good morning everyone!
It is cool and cloudy this morning in Ottawa. We’ve had a couple of days of cold rain, a shocking reminder that summer is almost over and that fall is coming.
And fall is in the air that’s for sure. I would like to be sitting outside writing this morning but the appeal of a warm bedroom won out. I have a nice scented candle flickering softly beside me and a coffee made from beans that I ran through my new coffee grinder.
I am not really sure why I decided to start drinking coffee again after abstaining for over six months but I have. (Actually on second thought, I was overindulging in chocolate for energy boosts at work so maybe that was why…?) A visit to the dentist last week has made me reconsider my decision though – it appears that all the money I spent on my teeth whitening will be moot if I continue with my coffee/tea habit. I think I will probably scale it back to just weekends – I do enjoy the taste of good coffee. I don’t think I really need the caffeine anyway, as a friend says, I’m pretty high strung already.
I had another pretty non-descript week. I do tend to do quite a bit more that I ever did before I transitioned so I am busy but not with anything too earth-shattering or really that exciting. I went for dinner at a friend’s place, watched a movie – stuff like that nothing really that momentous.
I would have to say though, if anything has made me really frustrated this week it has been body hair. I’ve got far, far too much of it and my alternatives for getting rid of it are very time consuming and expensive.
See, I was ‘blessed’ with blond hair. As a result, I have a fine down of the stuff covering most of my body. Only a few parts of my chest and most of my back seem to have been spared this plague. My therapist says that some of this ‘down’ will just stop growing as it gets starved of testosterone and the estrogen inhibits its growth but that takes time. If the hair was darker, I could just laser it off but since it is blond, I have to get it taken out piece by piece – ow, ow and ow!!
Add to that my thin, fine but no longer receding head hair and I can honestly say that I am very, very frustrated by the whole hair thing. To combat it I am taking Proscar (finasteride) and Rogaine (minoxidal) so that what I have on top won’t fall out. I am also going to see a hair replacement specialist this week to get an assessment about filling in the ‘widows peaks’ that my scalp advancement wasn’t able to fix.
Right now I can’t wait until my main surgery is over so that the main testosterone producing area of my body will finally be shut down. I am taking so many pills and injections right now, it will be nice to be able to reduce or even stop some of them altogether!! Once that is done I’ll be able to assess the amount of electrolysis I still need to do.
When I was growing up I was horrified to see my facial and chest hair coming in. That feeling has never left me.
If I could turn back time…
And, if I could only get rid of all this muscle mass then…
All that to say that while I am very pleased with the psychological and the physiological effects of my transition (though I wish my breasts would grow some more and my hips would come in…), my body image may never live up to my hopes and expectations.
Oh, and I really need to drop about thirty pounds too….
I think I am finally beginning to understand what so many woman struggle with their whole lives!! My body image sucks!
Pass me the bean sprouts…
Love,
Marybeth
Coasting and Living August 23, 2009
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, plans, resolve, transgender, transition, transsexual.add a comment
Sunday, August 23rd 9:32 am
Good morning everyone!!
It is a warmish 20 degrees celsius with a bit of a wind under clear skies in Ottawa this morning. I am sitting in my deck chair on my balcony with a cup of hot mocha staring out across the Ottawa river and my cat Lily is inside with a plaintive look on her face wishing that she could be out here too – unfortunately an energetic cat and a four foot barrier between her and twenty stories of oblivion aren’t a good mix!!
I think I should take a couple of sentences to explain why I write a mini weather report at the beginning of every entry (after almost three years of blogging maybe some people are curious?). I do it in homage to my late grandfather who wrote a daily diary for many years. At the top of every entry (in one of those mini four year diary books) was the date, time and a short sentence about the weather. He died many years ago now but I still remember going through those old diaries of his and ‘reliving’ the past.
It is the beginning of the fourth week of August. The summer is almost over. I am not really a summer person so I am O.K. with that really. When I lived my summers at the lake in B.C. I think I was fine with it but here in Ottawa, without ready access to the water and the generally high humidity levels, I am not really a fan. The buses I take to work in the mornings and the evenings seem like mini saunas and my thin hair gets plastered to my forehead – not very comfortable nor very attractive. Winter is cozy, spring is fresh, fall is restful but summer is just too close and muggy.
Where do I begin to describe my past week?
My biggest struggles this week all resolved into trying to figure out where I fit in. As I’ve written before I transitioned I was essentially a social recluse – I spent almost all my time doing things alone or with my ex. Now that I’ve transitioned to full time, I find I really want to get out and fully experience life but I often lack the courage to take some chances and explore. I find it as difficult to write about as I do to live it.
Everything in my life is moving forward in a fairly -boring- way right now. Nothing to see here folks – I am just living my life as most women do. I can’t afford to go out all the time so I don’t. I have one close friend and between her and trying to redefine my relationship with my ex, I tend to have enough to do.
But my circle of friends is not expanding and that is a bad thing.
I need to get out and make new friends who have only known me as I am now so that I can get more comfortable in my own skin and have the opportunity to really define myself.
What is so frustrating to me is that I have known that I need to do this for at least the past six or eight months and I haven’t moved very far (if, truly, at all) towards this goal.
My excuse has been that transition is a slow process.
My excuse has been that I was going through a divorce.
My excuse has been that I need some time to myself.
My excuses are legion – but they do not change the fact that I have haven’t grown very much socially since I have transitioned.
Add to that the frustration of a truly strained relationship with my counsellor (my sesssion with her this week did not go well and I have decided to look for another therapist – a scant eight months before I go for my SRS) and a sometimes difficult relationship with my friend and I am really facing a moment of truth.
Which means it is imperative that I do something soon to balance things out. To gain more confidence and be more assertive. The longer I wait to do something the more difficult it will be to do.
How I wish that it was as easy to do as it is to acknowledge my weakness and write about it!
Deadlines seem to focus the mind so I guess I will have to set serious timelines as to when I want to get these things done.
Sometimes it seems that it is all I can do just to make it through to the end of the day – but that just isn’t good enough.
The easy comfortable way isn’t always the best way.
I can’t rest on my laurels any longer. Yes, it took courage and initiative to get this far but there is still so much farther to go.
I need to get out there and face the world so that my life can change the way I want it to.
Otherwise I am at the mercy of luck and fate.
No thanks.
I am still in charge.
No more coasting.
I need to get out there and really live my life!!
Love,
Marybeth
Fantasy, Reality and Dreams August 16, 2009
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, transgender, transition, transsexual.add a comment
Sunday, August 16th 8:45 am
Good morning everyone!!
It is the start to a beautiful day here in Ottawa – the early morning fog has cleared up and there are nothing but blue skies as far as the eye can see!!
Whenever a beautiful day like today comes along I tend to think about the summers I spent at the lake when I was growing up. It was a carefree wonderful time with a cool mountain stream fed cool lake to dive into whenever things got too hot. I was truly blessed growing up. I dream that someday I will have a place of my own similar to it, where I can swim, canoe or just laze around on hot sunny summer weekends.
It is hard to believe that we are already in the second half of August. Time goes by so quickly…
It is hard to believe that I am in my forty-first summer and that I only have fourteen years until I retire with a pension…
I have had many dreams in my life. When I was growing up I dreamt that I would just wake up as a girl one morning and everything would be right.
When I realized that that was impossible, I dreamt that I could just be ‘normal’.
When I realized that was impossible..
When I realized that was impossible, I just wanted to escape into worlds where everything was possible and everything worked out in the end.
As a young child I read voraciously. Then computers came out and I played computer games voraciously. Then I became old enough to drink and I drank and played computer games voraciously.
At its’ worst, my life (school, work, relationships, etc…) seemed to interfere with what I really wanted to spend my time doing.
Then a wonderful friend (my ex-wife) pointed out that I obviously wasn’t enjoying life so maybe I should get help. I got the help I needed and began the long, tough road to transition.
My first dream, a dream that I thought was impossible to achieve turned out not to be.
In the process, though I have gained many things, I have lost many things too.
I have gained sanity and peace in my life.
I have gained hope for the future.
I have gained increasing comfort in my own skin.
I have gain an unexpected happiness.
I have lost my partner of eight years.
I have lost the privilege of living in a house in the country.
I have lost friends.
I am in the process of becoming a woman.
I am rebuilding my life from the very foundations.
I have fortunately kept my job and my professional standing but it seems that, in some ways, I have to prove myself all over again.
I have to break down the long established heavy walls around me and let other people in.
I was an introverted loner before so now I want to get out to explore the world and meet new people. But I need to find the courage to overcome a lifetime of conditioning.
A friend of mine pointed out to me this week that, despite all the progress I have made, I was still seeking to ‘escape’ things.
Upon reflection, I realized she was right.
I don’t play computer games anymore. I don’t drink as much or as often as I did before either.
But this summer I have devoured fiction books – one after another, without much time for reflection. In July I went through the whole Sookie Stackhouse ‘True Blood’ series by Charlaine Harris and now I am going through the Rachel Morgan ‘Hollows’ series by Kim Harrison at a similar rate (with a few other fiction books read along the way…). I hesitate to count up the number of books I have read this summer so far…
I know that reading isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but to read that much means I am neglecting other things in my life.
I have relied on current, sometimes turbulent, friendships and neglected to seek out new ones.
I have paid my bills but neglected to budget or really engage in any other kind of fiscal management that I know I need to do – especially with a really expensive operation coming up in the next year.
I haven’t done any forward planning, career-wise or retirement-wise either.
I know that I need to do all of these things so that I can realize my dreams.
Books, and the stories they tell, can provide comfort during stressful times. Conflicts are resolved and the girl gets her man – almost every time.
Transition (and divorce) is a stressful time but as with everything there needs to be a balance.
I have been courageous in many ways but I need to be more courageous to build myself the life I’ve always dreamt of.
I need to find the balance between comfort and challenge.
I need to find the balance between fantasy and real-life.
Love,
Marybeth
Unanticipated Happiness August 9, 2009
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, happiness, past, present, reflection, society, transgender, transition, transsexual.add a comment
Sunday, August 9th 6:24 am
Good morning everyone! It is a relatively cool 15 degrees outside and it is supposed to be cloudy and rainy for the next two days. July was the rainiest month on record in Ottawa (235 mm or 9.3 inches!) and they say August is supposed to be the same so I guess I should keep my umbrella handy!
I have a scented candle lit and I am drinking a cup of ‘Rainforest Expresso’ courtesy of my new (gorgeous!) coffee maker. I can make myself a cup of coffee in three minutes – no muss, no fuss!! Here is a picture of the lovely new addition to my kitchen (a red Keurig B30 Single Cup pod coffee maker (http://www.timothys.ca/product_details.php?product_id=193)):
It is actually nice that it has been rainy – everything is so green this summer, there isn’t a burnt brown lawn in sight! There has also been enough sun that it hasn’t felt too depressing to me and, besides, I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t mind sitting inside with a good book (or five or ten…).
It has been a good summer for thinking and inevitably, somehow, I think of my transition. I feel so much more comfortable about almost everything since I have transitioned. Sure, some days are better than others, but I have never had so many experiences of unanticipated happiness.
Unanticipated happiness?
I am sitting in the bus going to or coming from work and all of a sudden I get a feeling of immense happiness and well being.
I am sitting at work staring at my computer screen and I suddenly get a big smile on my face.
I can be almost anywhere at any time and all of a sudden I just feel happy! And, no, there isn’t anyone special in my life, who, when I think of him, makes me smile (though I can’t wait for that to be the case one day…!). I haven’t won a lottery (well, I guess I did win a kind of a prize…). None of those things. It is just that for the first time the most essential thing in my life is right.
I am finally becoming the woman I have always known I am.
I was invited to a small gathering of trans-couples yesterday – married couples who have stayed together despite one of the partner’s transitioning. One couple had a son who was eight or nine years old and they recounted a story about how when they told him that his father was going to live as a woman from then on – one of the questions he had was – ‘That isn’t going to happen to me is it? ‘No’, they replied. ‘Good’, he said.
My response to that story was that it is a wonderful gift to be so sure and secure in your gender at such a young age.
It is something I never had the comfort of experiencing. I mean, I was sure that I was a girl at that age but I already knew enough not to be too forthcoming about it.
How I am feeling now must be how most ‘everyone else’ feels their entire lives.
What a wonderful sense of happiness and well being.
An inner sense of satisfaction.
Nothing to hide.
Only to be.
I am so thankful!!
I was on the phone with mom this week and she mentioned that many of the people whom I had spent my teenage summers with were back visiting the lake where my parents live. I have so many great memories of those summers but when I think of them now I can’t help but experience a pang or two of regret.
How much different it would have been to have lived those summers authentically, as I am now? To have been truly myself – to have been a teenage girl – all those summers ago.
I try not think about it because it makes me cry.
I am so happy I have finally transitioned.
I am so sad that it took me so long to have gathered up the courage to do it.
I will visit my parents at the lake next summer, after I am finally complete.
I can’t wait to dive into the lake and get an at least an inkling…
…of what might have been.
Love,
Marybeth
Change and Being August 2, 2009
Posted by Marybeth in acceptance, friends, society, transgender, transition, transsexual, work.1 comment so far
Sunday, August 2nd 7:36 am
Good morning everyone!
It is soggy and rainy outside this morning. It was raining really hard last night – so hard that I could hear it through my closed windows while I slept!!
I am sitting in bed looking at the grey skies and drinking my mocha – the clouds are in so close that I can hardly see across to the other side of the river.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my transition this week. Time has gone by so quickly (pinch me it’s August!). It has now been three months since I transitioned to full time and I’ve accomplished so much.
I found myself slipping back into old habits a bit this week though.
One of the most interesting things I’ve discovered about transition is that the more I become myself, the more clearly I see my personal situation for what it is. Prior to my transition I compromised a great deal and accepted many half measures in my life.
Now that I am more fully myself I look around and sometimes I can’t believe the situations that I have ended up in.
My current job is one case in point. I am in an enviable position – I am employed in the public service. During a recession there really isn’t any better place to be – I am truly blessed. But the job I am in now is an almost daily exercise in frustration due to a few personalities that are in play. I put up with it prior to my transition because (I guess) I was dealing with so much other stuff. Since I have transitioned, I can see things more clearly and it is a bit depressing. I need to stay in this job until, at the very least, I have had my operation so I will just have to make the best of it.
In a similar vein, as I’ve written before, I see the relationships that I’ve had and am currently having in a new light. While it is convenient to say that I am basically the same person I was before I transitioned – it can also be very misleading. I am and I’m not. This fact has had a disruptive impact on many of my relationships lately. I get really uncomfortable when I feel ‘pressured’ to be the person I was before in any given social situation.
Transition to full time has been a very uplifting experience in many ways but it has also been a very ‘odd’ period of time for me too.
Now that I am truly myself all of the time I feel free and alive most of the time.
But there seems to be a few ‘anchors’ from my previous existence still weighing me down.
I will say again that I understand why some transsexuals leave the city where they existed before transition and move to a new place where no one knows them.
In some ways it might look like you are ‘running away’ from your past – not dealing with it.
But I question that now.
For me, it seems that there are too many opportunities to fall back into the ‘comfort’ zone where I existed unhappily before. In a new city I would, as a matter of course, reach out to new people and new experiences.
The old me is a shadow of the person I am now. We are the same person but as Aristotle said, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
I see things differently now than I did before. What worked for me before may or may not work for me now.
Transition for me is a process of discovering what fits and what doesn’t fit for me.
This week I became a bit depressed by the enormity of it all. I have to assert my new ‘whole’ self in my work, in my relationships with people who knew me before and in all the parts of my life. I can’t be afraid to try new things and experience life in ways that I didn’t before.
It is embarrassing to admit but, as a friend pointed out to me last night – I might be slipping back into my old coping mechanisms to avoid dealing with my problems. I had a beer yesterday afternoon and then passed out on my futon. It didn’t solve any problems and, since alcohol is a depressant, it may have compounded the feelings I was having. Instead of having a beer in my apartment I should have gone out and done something productive and social.
I am (more than a little) superstitious, so I tend to see portent in some of the little things that happen to me from time to time. After a really good Chinese food meal on Friday night, the fortune cookie said – ‘It is time to make new friends’. I have thought about that a bit this weekend and I think that since I have transitioned, even old friends are new friends because I’ve changed so much. My old friends are, in reality, new friends because I have changed so fundamentally.
My reality has changed.
My expectations have changed.
My life has changed.
It is a new world in so many ways.
I can’t be afraid.
I need to get out and explore it!!
Love,
Marybeth
