Sarah's New World

[sarah1972]

This seems to be a good place for everyone to document your journey. Time for me to also jump on the bandwagon...

I'll start off with where this journey has taken me so far:

I admitted to myself being trans in April 2016 after a nasty episode of post party depression. Told my wife in May. She was shocked but so far is sticking around and trying to be as supportive as she can, even tough it is not easy for her at all. We have a beautiful daughter who is now 22 month old and we are still committed to each other.

Started Therapy in October of 2016 (there was a big work assignment over the summer which prevented an earlier start).
Took my first pill of E January 3rd, 2017. Came out at work June 1st, 2017 and live full time ever since.

This is where I am today in a nutshell...

I use this thread to just document some of the odd, fun and also the sad things happening these days :-)

[sarah1972]

Jan, 25th 2018 - Men are strange beings.

Last night I had one of these moments where I thought what kind of strange beings men are.

So here is what happened: I am on a 6 week work assignment / trip. I had a lose dinner appointment with one of our sales guys for last Monday. Spent all weekend doing my hair, did my nails, dressed up pretty, spent extra time on makeup. There is nothing romantically going on, but I wanted to have the feeling of been taken on a date.

Then he ditches me for a night in New York (To be fair: he had meetings in NY and decided to stay)

So... I complain to my girlfriend (who happens to work in inside sales) that I am all dressed up for a nice dinner and get left pretty much at the altar. This was mostly a fun comment to her.

Then I forgot about the entire incident.

Last night I get a call from him, that he just picked up a nice dinner take out and that he will stop by work and bring me dinner. Which was really lovely. Turns out my girlfriend nudged him.

Guess... we talked him into feeling guilty for cancelling dinner

Then it hit me: There have been sooo many cases where I have been talked into a guilt trip before but I never realized how easy it is.

Made me feel extra female and powerful    #GirlPower (OK - I do feel a bit bad about it)

[sarah1972]

Jan 25th - Weddings

Recently a lot of people around me are getting married. Some again and some for the first time. Others are waiting for proposals (desperately).

Soooo... for the last three weeks I desperately want to be a bridesmaid In a pretty dress with nice hair, attending the bachelorette party.

Guess my Hormones are going crazy these days...

[sarah1972]

Jan 26th - ARGGHHH Post regarding guys

Earlier this week I had posted about an issue in a bar which deeply disturbed me. https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,233293.0.html is the full post.

I had some time yesterday to finally figured out why this was bothering me more than it should. I lost a sense of security that night. SO far I have felt pretty safe being out and about. I have had nightmares about that specific town where someone tries to grab me (give me the presidential handshake) and then discovers a big surprise and I ended up beaten up in the hospital.

While this guy may have really not meant any harm, it was a stern reminder that anything can happen anytime and anywhere. That is why I can't easily get over it. Need to work on my situational awareness I guess.

[Jessica]

Hi Sarah 🙋 love that you started this.  It's a great way to condense your travels in one thread.

Jessica Marie 💁

[Megan.]

Yay, the Sarah thread! Ty for starting one, I will enjoying reading on your adventures!

Your comment on the 'bar incident' and feeling vulnerable is interesting. I have yet to find myself in such a situation,  though I'm not niaeve enough to think it won't happen. I'd like to think I'll stand up, defend myself and be strong, but I wait to see how I really react!

X.

Sent from my MI 5s using Tapatalk

[sarah1972]

Jan. 29th Whirlwind weekend...

Some of you know, I am on a 6 week work assignment away from home. Customer was very nice and allowed me one weekend home to see my baby girl and my wife and before they could even think about the offer I had jumped on Amtrak and off I went...

Was nice to see them! But also a big change in life. While I am on site in a Hotel, I do feel a lot more feminine than when I am back home. Interesting... I am full time, so it is harder to explain. Maybe having a wife and kid around makes me almost fall back into a more male role even tough I don't want to. Also while working home office, I am more "soccer mom" with plain clothing and usually no makeup. Being on the road for work is dressing up every day and spend the 10 minutes on makeup every morning.

On a positive note: For the first time I had a kid on a playground ask the dreaded question: "Are you a boy or a girl?" and when I asked what she thinks, she immediately said "girl". I had to wipe off a few tears and just left it at that. Big smile in my face. Completely made my day!

Also made up for the messed up morning: Was lucky to be home, main sewer line clogged but we noticed early enough to avoid any big drama. Had to get it cleaned out and may look at a full replacement soon. Guess I have to cut back hair removal to pay for that adventure.

Still a pretty normal and boring suburb soccer mom weekend... Bit of drama, keeping the kid entertained, doing laundry, go shopping, pick up meds and did work a little bit.

[Jessica]

On a positive note: For the first time I had a kid on a playground ask the dreaded question: "Are you a boy or a girl?" and when I asked what she thinks, she immediately said "girl". I had to wipe off a few tears and just left it at that. Big smile in my face. Completely made my day!


This was a wonderful thing to happen to you!  It made me smile too just reading it.

[Laurie]

Hi Sarah,

  Listen to the kid. We all know your a girl and so do you. Just keep believing that and you're okay.

Hugs,
  Laurie

[sarah1972]

Hi Sarah,

  Listen to the kid. We all know your a girl and so do you. Just keep believing that and you're okay.

Hugs,
  Laurie

Yes I do believe in myself being a women... Every day I look down my chest and see my little A cups confirms it (as long as I don't look any deeper at least).

Getting this kind of confirmation from a kid is actually very affirming. First kids always tell the truth. And she did not know me or my history. So I do seem to at least give off enough female vibes to get kids to gender me correctly. Yes, she questioned it and that will always happen since Testosterone had enough time to damage my body but still, she saw me as a women.

The other issue is that these places are still a bit stressful for me, especially indoor play grounds. Dad's have been known wanting to protect their kids from the evil trans ness of the world and if anything would ever happen, it would devastate my wife and impact me too. So I am usually very careful. So far so good. Every now and then I get a confused look but that was really it. Maybe having my wife and kid there with me makes it a bit safer but I don't know....

[sarah1972]

Winding down after a long work day. Found a web site which tries to guess your gender and age based on a photo you upload...

Right and wrong. (well... right and right BUT you never tell a women how old she looks, it should have said 32)

I did run a few more photos. Pre-transition it guessed me between 5 and 10 years older. Starting around 6 month HRT, it started detecting female and now consistently female :-)

[Kendra]

45 minus taxes and credit card interest equals 32. 

It is so rewarding to see ourselves roll back a bit of visible age as transition jolts us into taking better care of ourselves.  HRT is a factor but there is more than that - I see so many of us (in either gender direction) realizing the importance of health and making good long term decisions once we have a better understanding of our true selves.   

[sarah1972]

45 minus taxes and credit card interest equals 32. 

It is so rewarding to see ourselves roll back a bit of visible age as transition jolts us into taking better care of ourselves.  HRT is a factor but there is more than that - I see so many of us (in either gender direction) realizing the importance of health and making good long term decisions once we have a better understanding of our true selves.

Ha... good idea.

This worked better:

[Bari Jo]

Ooh a new blog.  Iove reading about people's lives especially when they are full time.  thanks for starting your thread.  Everybody has such unique experiences, it's awesome.  that playground scene is precious too.

Bari Jo

[Laurie]

Hi Sarah,

  I tried that with 3 pictures of me. They all got me as female, but it got the age wrong all 3  times. I am 65. It came up with 60 then 46 and lastly 55. I should have tried on of my old persona.

Hugs,
  Laurie

[sarah1972]

Feb 3rd. Mojito

Sitting in a dull hotel room in boring Stamford CT, drinking Mojito and watch servers crash.

Wow - that is a start to a post  Initially my post for today was planned to take about "normality" So... How did I get here? Me drinking any alcohol is such a rare occurrence that it is a great indicator of a day going sideways. In no way related to my transition. Just a bad day at work.

I have talked about this large project I am involved in. We have pretty much been working and testing for the past 9 month and invested many engineering years. Project is supposed to go live next Wednesday and we have been hoping for a quiet weekend before the large bulk of users come online Monday. Last tests seemed to be pretty successful and I was hoping for a quiet "go-live"

And what happened? System broke down around noon and was down for over 90 minutes!!! Something that cannot happen once we got life. Rarely had such a bad meltdown with our system. Not a good sign for the next three weeks. My co-worker was about to quit on the spot. Still not sure what happened, While I am writing this I am also on the phone with our developers trying to figure out what happened...

Interestingly enough... I was pretty calm over it. I had a similar issue 18 month ago, and I would have had meltdown over meltdown. What a difference a few hormones make.

Anyways, back to the topic of normality.. Yes, this is my normal life. All this happening now as Sarah. In a dress and heels. and happy.

Guess the Mojito is taking it's toll, I'll continue my thoughts on normality another day.

Sorry for the rant...

[Laurie]

Hi Sarah,

  Having worked on mainframes, servers, disk arrays as well as the smaller stuff for over 40 years, I think I can say I know the stress such things can cause. When you are working on a down system that "Cannot be down" it is about as high as it gets. I feel for you Hun.
I once took over for my supervisor on a mainframe that would crash whenever it felt like it. He had been there for 2 weeks and I was there for 9 days after. This was the Las Vegas sewer system's Computer and they had a billing cycle coming up with a couple million of dollars at stake. I spent more time on the phone coordinating thing and speaking to people way about my pay grade in my company and the City's than I did working on the problem. We did got it resolved though in time and on my watch. It was a very obscure problem with a simple fix.
  These things will get worked out and things will be okay again. Meanwhile ((((HUG))))

Hugs,
  Laurie

[sarah1972]

Thanks Laurie! Hugs back to you!

I know we will get through it. It is the third time I am doing this special thing, so I am starting to get used to it. I also know that the next time in two years, we will try again with a brand new technology stack, So we start all the testing over again.

What is interesting tough is how my attitude has changed from the last time 18 month ago. I was ready to quit or jump of the next bridge (depending on the day). This time I am calm, smile and just try to get it fixed. I know my post does not sound that way.

What has changed? My Hormones have changed. I don't deal with my gender dysphoria which free's up space to deal with other stuff... So I am thankful for the blue pills I can take every day which bring me so much joy and happiness :-)

(and now I better stop drunk writing)

Hi Sarah,

  These things will get worked out and things will be okay again. Meanwhile ((((HUG))))

Hugs,
  Laurie

[sarah1972]

Feb 4th - Normality

I live a life of a soccer mom for most parts. A boring soccer mom living in the suburbs. With an SUV. Dropping of my kid at day care in yoga pants and flip flops. I take my day-to-day fashion cues from other soccer moms. They have accepted me into their inner circle But you know what? Boring soccer mom is good. Very good. Recently I came to a point of calm normality. I am on hormones for 13 month, out at work and living full time for 7 month. It all feels natural now.

I can easily handle a full work day in heels, my makeup routine for everyday is down to 10 minutes and I only keep an emergency stash of male cloths. People very rarely use my dead name and at least strangers use almost always the correct gender. People who know me still slip up, but that is understandable.

The first few month after admitting I am trans where plagued by doubts and fears what is about to happen. Starting therapy 6 month later finally helped confirm (I know a long time but there was some work stuff interfering). Once I started hormones, I had a fabulous first 6 month. I had strength, energy was happy all day and started accepting myself.

Oddly enough, the next 6 month have not been all good. I had all kind of dysphoria and really struggled a lot with how to move forward. What surgeries and when? How to improve my marriage and the realization that against all I thought I did develop genital dysphoria.

Somehow I got out of it and now I am in normality mode. It just feels normal. I do my nails every two weeks, my hair is shoulder long, work and customers are fully accepting and I am generally in pretty good mood. Love my new life every minute.

There is still a lot on my mind: The surgery discussion I need to have with my wife to figure out timing, Name / Gender change I keep putting off due to the rules in Germany being just ridiculous. Hoping for my hair to grow a bit longer. Refine my manners. But you know.... I am still calm about it. It will happen once timing is right.

So... Back to the big game and monitoring my servers. 

[sarah1972]

Feb. 7th - One of the Girls

Feeling like being part of the girls this week :-)

I have mentioned the project I am working on before. In a nutshell, this project happens every two years. My customer is bringing together several hundred professionals to work on this every two years and a lot of them are repeat participants, only about 30% are new each time.
This will be my third time.
First time I had no idea what was going on with me.

The second time I had already admitted to myself I am trans but I was not out. So it was interesting. Secretly wearing girls jeans, pantyhose and clear nail polish. I pretended to lose a bet so I can paint my nails purple. I did tell one of my closest friends about it back then. I still pretty much was male.

Now it is the third time doing this. 100% myself, 100% girly. While I have been working with the customer constantly, usually as soon is this over we start planning and building the next one, it was really interesting to see how all the temporary workers would react.

Overall it has been a total success. I am pretty much accepted into the girls club! Out of several thousand conversations so far, only two slip ups of my old name, no misgendering at all. And that applies to the "old timers" as well as the newbies. I have to admit there have been a few questioning looks but there is nothing I can do about that... I am seen and treated just as one of the women there :-)

It was very odd to see the "yearbook" from last time and my old self in the right top corner. Some mentioned they remember me from the last two times. This is even better since it really shows how normal it seems to them that I am finally myself. Still waiting for a few of the "old time" friends to show up here...

Makes me very, very happy :-)

Slow night tonight before the craziness starts tomorrow through the end of February...