Hello all,
So I have been on HRT for 11 months today, I also came out at work and online on June 15. In all of this time there's been some good, some bad, and some ugly.
I guess we'll start with the ugly,
the feminization has come along very well as you can see, I'm not wearing makeup right now, I had to get a morning 17 mile run in before it got too hot, and it's been raining off and on since so I haven't bothered to put any makeup on. Here's a picture of my face from this past Thursday,
I know, I know, at some point I'll need to get my eyebrows done.
Now the bad. My father is still not handling things very well, he has sent me several letters, which I've stopped reading, about how he's mourning the loss of his son etc. He's also apparently found Walt Heyer's website. Normally I would just tell him that he needs to grow up and try to help him deal with this, but during this same period, his mother's (my grandmother's) health was rapidly failing. She passed away a little over a week ago. There's a memorial service scheduled in mid August, and part of me doesn't want to go. It's just going to be a whole lot of drama, and even though he's the one with the problem, and he's twice my age, I'm tired of having to be the only adult in the room, it feels disrespectful to my grandmother.
Now for the good. Everyone at work has been amazing, people have switched to my new name and pronouns almost flawlessly. I've actually gotten more productive, and a lot more sure of myself. I've heard from cis women that they feel vulnerable when wearing a skirt, but I feel empowered. I'm so much more confident and assertive when I'm wearing one. Maybe it's because to me it's something I had to fight for, maybe they just have internalized misogyny that I wasn't exposed to, I don't know.
Before I started transitioning, and coming out, I never knew that someone could feel joy just from existing, but there will be times at work, or in my house where I just look down at myself and feel so overwhelmingly happy at how far I've come. I don't know if "normal" people feel that way, but it's truly amazing. Another big plus is that my friendships have gotten stronger. When I was in grad school there was a group of 5 of us who were very close. We actually put together a facebook chat session that was originally about talking to me when I came out, and has become something of a digital hangout that we will just check in and out of throughout the day. I'd missed just BSing with these people and we are again. They even said that they were sad that I never told them how bad I was feeling all throughout grad school because then they could have helped me.
Things aren't perfect, I still get scared when I go to new places, and I'm still constantly trying to figure out whether people I interact with see as a woman, or as trans. It doesn't help that I almost never get ma'amed, though I don't get sir'd either. One positive that I've noticed is that when things get hard the hopelessness, which I assume was mild depression, doesn't start to bubble up anymore. When my grandmother passed, I felt sad, but that was it just sadness. Anyway this has become very long so I will let y'all go now.
