Ages
Can't believe it's been almost a year since I've updated this journal. Last year was actually really good. I finally made a regular income from my efforts at working from home. Of course, the reason I had no time to journal was because I was was busy working around the clock to help my clients. But I actually have a lot of money in savings and guaranteed income for the year to come! Last year was a complete blessing.
So now that I have the money in hand, I have to get serious about my transition again. What I need is a hysto and bottom surgery. At this point, if I were to save as much money as I did last year, I could afford bottom surgery with a hysto out-of-pocket. So I've decided to go for completing my surgeries within the next two years.
At this point, this all feels like a total burden to be completely honest. Top surgery and all the initial parts of my transition were very interesting and exciting. But I don't really feel enthusiastic about what's to come. I do feel that I need to do the bottom surgery to be complete, but I think I've hit sort of a pit where I don't even feel that motivated about moving forward in my life in general. I know it's going to pass, so I'm making myself finish up my surgeries soon because I know that it's something I'll appreciate in the distant future, even if for now I don't see how surgery makes a different in my life as a recluse.
I have mixed feelings about the financial component of this all. I'm pretty fortunate that I've been able to put myself in a situation financially where I can afford to just save. I think that in addition to saving for surgery, I've been doing the things I need to do to give myself a good financial future in general. I just am really hoping that I can find a way to do this that won't wipe out my savings. I'm going to try to get my insurance company, once I sign up for a plan, to step in with the surgery. As I discussed before, I think it's only fair since the new law is forcing me to pay premiums forever that would go towards everyone else's medical needs. So I think it's only fair that I get the things that I need covered. In general, I've been doing a good job of increasing my income, so I actually do feel confident financially, even if I do end up allocating a large chunk of my savings towards the upcoming surgeries.
At least on the plus side, I know that my life can truly begin once I get these surgeries behind me. I've been keeping to myself for the last four years or so, so I forget the issues I had prior to keeping to myself. But I did have trouble even really wanting to be close friends with others with these surgeries hanging over my head. Right now, the situation isn't as bad because I've had time to gather myself and improve other areas of my life. But I do need to feel a sense of physical completeness before I can ever be around others extensively again. Fortunately, for now I'm actually pretty happy keeping to myself. But if a time comes when I want to emerge from my cave and reenter the world, I will need to be complete to prevent my dysphoria from cropping up.
The other way I'll feel a bit liberated is that I will never have to make plans regarding the physical portion of transitioning again. Because I will no longer have female body parts, I won't have to make the unconfortable psychological shift that would be necessary to account for them in medical settings. I've fortunately been able to avoid having to deal with those parts medically up to this point, so it will be nice to just have them removed and altered so that they're never an issue again. Even if my body would be different than that of a male, I will at least not have to discuss female body parts in relation to myself. I actually think that after that point, I could even be more open about my transgender status in very select cases. A main reason I stopped wanting to be around "queer" circles is because I felt that people were always asking questions or making references about my anatomy that made me disphoric and uncomfortable. Yet, if I get those things removed, those types of questions probably really wouldn't bug me that much. It would be like someone making acne comments; when I had a case of acne in my teens, that would've hit a sore spot and really hurt. But now that I don't have the acne, I could easily yap about how I used to have terrible acne and not care at all about sharing it since it's not affecting my body today.
It's too early, but I do wonder what I want my social life to be like once I emerge from my self-imposed solitude. The one thing I think that's pretty neat about all of this is that I'll get to actively choose the kind of life I want to live and the type of people I want to be around. Most people sort of have those things picked for them early in their lives as they allow their temperments and external influences to shape their social environments. Of course, I don't expect that I really am going to know what direction I'll go down today. My guess is that I'll pick my circles based mostly on hobbies, so who knows what I'll be into in two years. But I do look forward to being able to branch out in a way where I get to be more in control of my destiny. That's one thing that makes these years of sacrifice worth it.
So now that I have the money in hand, I have to get serious about my transition again. What I need is a hysto and bottom surgery. At this point, if I were to save as much money as I did last year, I could afford bottom surgery with a hysto out-of-pocket. So I've decided to go for completing my surgeries within the next two years.
At this point, this all feels like a total burden to be completely honest. Top surgery and all the initial parts of my transition were very interesting and exciting. But I don't really feel enthusiastic about what's to come. I do feel that I need to do the bottom surgery to be complete, but I think I've hit sort of a pit where I don't even feel that motivated about moving forward in my life in general. I know it's going to pass, so I'm making myself finish up my surgeries soon because I know that it's something I'll appreciate in the distant future, even if for now I don't see how surgery makes a different in my life as a recluse.
I have mixed feelings about the financial component of this all. I'm pretty fortunate that I've been able to put myself in a situation financially where I can afford to just save. I think that in addition to saving for surgery, I've been doing the things I need to do to give myself a good financial future in general. I just am really hoping that I can find a way to do this that won't wipe out my savings. I'm going to try to get my insurance company, once I sign up for a plan, to step in with the surgery. As I discussed before, I think it's only fair since the new law is forcing me to pay premiums forever that would go towards everyone else's medical needs. So I think it's only fair that I get the things that I need covered. In general, I've been doing a good job of increasing my income, so I actually do feel confident financially, even if I do end up allocating a large chunk of my savings towards the upcoming surgeries.
At least on the plus side, I know that my life can truly begin once I get these surgeries behind me. I've been keeping to myself for the last four years or so, so I forget the issues I had prior to keeping to myself. But I did have trouble even really wanting to be close friends with others with these surgeries hanging over my head. Right now, the situation isn't as bad because I've had time to gather myself and improve other areas of my life. But I do need to feel a sense of physical completeness before I can ever be around others extensively again. Fortunately, for now I'm actually pretty happy keeping to myself. But if a time comes when I want to emerge from my cave and reenter the world, I will need to be complete to prevent my dysphoria from cropping up.
The other way I'll feel a bit liberated is that I will never have to make plans regarding the physical portion of transitioning again. Because I will no longer have female body parts, I won't have to make the unconfortable psychological shift that would be necessary to account for them in medical settings. I've fortunately been able to avoid having to deal with those parts medically up to this point, so it will be nice to just have them removed and altered so that they're never an issue again. Even if my body would be different than that of a male, I will at least not have to discuss female body parts in relation to myself. I actually think that after that point, I could even be more open about my transgender status in very select cases. A main reason I stopped wanting to be around "queer" circles is because I felt that people were always asking questions or making references about my anatomy that made me disphoric and uncomfortable. Yet, if I get those things removed, those types of questions probably really wouldn't bug me that much. It would be like someone making acne comments; when I had a case of acne in my teens, that would've hit a sore spot and really hurt. But now that I don't have the acne, I could easily yap about how I used to have terrible acne and not care at all about sharing it since it's not affecting my body today.
It's too early, but I do wonder what I want my social life to be like once I emerge from my self-imposed solitude. The one thing I think that's pretty neat about all of this is that I'll get to actively choose the kind of life I want to live and the type of people I want to be around. Most people sort of have those things picked for them early in their lives as they allow their temperments and external influences to shape their social environments. Of course, I don't expect that I really am going to know what direction I'll go down today. My guess is that I'll pick my circles based mostly on hobbies, so who knows what I'll be into in two years. But I do look forward to being able to branch out in a way where I get to be more in control of my destiny. That's one thing that makes these years of sacrifice worth it.