It's been a while and I thought I should reintroduce myself. It's been about two years since I was active here, and then I wasn't very active anyway. I'd post under Calliope and used a painting as my avatar. Well, many months and changes later, I'm back with my new name and my new look.^_^ I started E in February. It's been a crazy, amazing, perplexing, bodacious journey since then.
I've met incredible people, had wonderful experiences, and already it's like there are closeted transgirls looking to me for mentorship. :s I'm not sure how I feel about that, exactly - I can relate my experiences, but they really need to forge their own path. As I have done. I guess I wanted to pop back on the forums, share my own experiences with the hope that somebody may be helped by them, and also to look to others in the community for support and direction - because I'm most definitely still in need of that!:) I'm out to most all of my friends. I'm out to my mother. I'm not out to most of my family, and not out at work. My target is next Spring to come out. Really, I have no concerns with work and if my dad's side can't take it and be respectful, then ef them. As much I'd rather not, I CAN do this without them. And I have to. What finally hit me in February was that this isn't something that I can ever escape. It's going to haunt me for the rest of my life, unless I transition. I realized that I didn't want to die, never having known what it felt like to be a woman or to be recognized by society as a woman or loved as a woman by friends, family, or partners. I didn't want to die a man, haunted by that specter of what I longed for all my life, but would never experience. It was too much to think of it that way - the thought of living out my days as a man was like a condemnation. So, here I am, a woman.
And I've never been happier in my life! Obviously, there are still craptastic days, but the highs are much higher and way more frequent. And a lot of that depression and hopeless that I had before has evaporated. It really feels like things can only get better as I come out to more and more people, and realize that I'll still be accepted and still be loved, for who I am, not how I look or do my hair or talk or what flesh I have. I'll be me and I'll finally be scorned or loved as me.
Things matter to me now. People matter. I matter.
Okay, I'll end the melodramatics there.
So, hi again everyone! That's where I'm at and now I'll go meander about the forums for a bit and see what's up. Laters!
