In a little under four months, my time in the UK will come to an end, and I will go home to South Africa. I confess that I am terrified of that day. This was most rudely brought home to me this past weekend when I started budgeting for a plane-ticket and figured out I would have to halt my electrolysis or I might not make it. I cannot tell you how disheartening THAT call was.
I came to the UK to get a head-start on transition, but the best laid plans of mice and women, as they say - lets just say things didn't work out quite as well as expected. I made some headway, but instead of finished, I'm not even halfway. (if there ARE even such points in this madness called transition) I had hoped to find a therapist, start HRT, do all the rest, go home FT with letters and stuff... you get the idea.
Nothing even close. I'm too far down the road to hide things, yet not far enough along to hide things. Hell of a time to pick up and move, isn't it!
So now, I will have to find my place and those people in a country very much in flux. Our political and economic situation is precarious, society seems to be disintegrating around us, and there is still the all too recent legacy of conservative bigotry and discrimination that too many people just can't seem to get over.
But then, my situation isn't unique. The locations and destinations may change, but I think many of us have faced the prospect of having to go back to a place that doesn't want you, cannot accomodate you, seemingly hates you and wants nothing so much as to forget you ever existed.
How do you return to such a place, especially when you are forced to go back with little to show for yourself, with things half-done and undone, with little or no resources and cap somewhat in hand, and only your burning, all-consuming need to correct your body there to sustain you?
I confess that, despite all appearances to the contrary, I am deeply, deeply afraid of what lies beyond July and my return home.
