f minus 8 days and counting..
one interesting thing i want to make note of is that, as i approach my FFS in 8 days and 1 year anniversary on HRT - my feelings about my transition priorities are hilariously all over the place.
like, not in a way where i'm questioning it - i'm 1000% committed to this because it feels amazing - but more like:
when i went through a short "i'm not trans, i must be a closet cross-dresser or drag queen" phase i started wearing breast forms around the house (when no one else was home). when i started HRT, i stopped because it felt weird.. i think because i felt that wearing them was a sign that i wasn't convinced that my body would start growing my own. sort of like a "vote of no confidence" in my myself. but now i've started wearing them off-and-on again, even though i've got a natural B cup already - in part because growing them myself turns out to be slow-as-fuck and also i'm trying to be the body shape i want to end up with. it also helps to get a feel for what to expect with body parts of particular sizes (ie, it's going to hurt a lot more to walk into a doorframe boob-first when they're all real). and finally, it's also super affirming to look down and see the beginnings of cleavage appearing.
it's like whatever stigma i was feeling about it for the first 8 or 9 months has dropped away -- actually scratch that: i'm dropping a lot of old stigmas lately. i'm not entirely sure why, but it feels great.
another example is the shame i would feel around the having of and usage of sex toys, which seems to be largely dissipating. that seems stupid (now), but i think it was really tied up in the shame of presenting as a boy but having (and using) what i considered to be women's sex toys. which twists even further because many of them are from mr s. leather, which would actually just orient them more as gay..? like, that is just starting to scratch the surface of how fucked and weird shame and denial made things for me. and there's literally no prior relationship where i felt comfortable bringing a partner into that beyond tiny glimpses, which usually just made me even more embarrassed.
and now.. my face. my FFS is just over a week away, and while i think estrogen has done amazing things for the shape of my face, i am excited as hell to go under the knife. actually, even the idea of surgery, any surgery, was pretty terrifying up about 6 months ago. but i've had so much affirmation from my environment, my reflection, i feel like "why would i stop halfway?"
i see her in the mirror so frequently now, sometimes even by accident, and i feel so good about that... that the only real negative feeling i get from it (outside of our irregularly scheduled bouts of dysphoria) is just a wistful sadness that i didn't do this 10 or 15 years ago.
i guess that's not really "all over the place" at all. it's more like liberated in a way that's never been possible before.
like, not in a way where i'm questioning it - i'm 1000% committed to this because it feels amazing - but more like:
when i went through a short "i'm not trans, i must be a closet cross-dresser or drag queen" phase i started wearing breast forms around the house (when no one else was home). when i started HRT, i stopped because it felt weird.. i think because i felt that wearing them was a sign that i wasn't convinced that my body would start growing my own. sort of like a "vote of no confidence" in my myself. but now i've started wearing them off-and-on again, even though i've got a natural B cup already - in part because growing them myself turns out to be slow-as-fuck and also i'm trying to be the body shape i want to end up with. it also helps to get a feel for what to expect with body parts of particular sizes (ie, it's going to hurt a lot more to walk into a doorframe boob-first when they're all real). and finally, it's also super affirming to look down and see the beginnings of cleavage appearing.
it's like whatever stigma i was feeling about it for the first 8 or 9 months has dropped away -- actually scratch that: i'm dropping a lot of old stigmas lately. i'm not entirely sure why, but it feels great.
another example is the shame i would feel around the having of and usage of sex toys, which seems to be largely dissipating. that seems stupid (now), but i think it was really tied up in the shame of presenting as a boy but having (and using) what i considered to be women's sex toys. which twists even further because many of them are from mr s. leather, which would actually just orient them more as gay..? like, that is just starting to scratch the surface of how fucked and weird shame and denial made things for me. and there's literally no prior relationship where i felt comfortable bringing a partner into that beyond tiny glimpses, which usually just made me even more embarrassed.
and now.. my face. my FFS is just over a week away, and while i think estrogen has done amazing things for the shape of my face, i am excited as hell to go under the knife. actually, even the idea of surgery, any surgery, was pretty terrifying up about 6 months ago. but i've had so much affirmation from my environment, my reflection, i feel like "why would i stop halfway?"
i see her in the mirror so frequently now, sometimes even by accident, and i feel so good about that... that the only real negative feeling i get from it (outside of our irregularly scheduled bouts of dysphoria) is just a wistful sadness that i didn't do this 10 or 15 years ago.
i guess that's not really "all over the place" at all. it's more like liberated in a way that's never been possible before.