Well, the apartment is secured, the furniture shopping is underway and come mid-November, I shall be flying off and returning with Shayna.
It's an exciting, yet slightly terrifying, time. I really want this to work out - so much so that I can both feel it and taste it. It's like I have a worn old teaspoon in my mouth and the butterflies in my chest are giving their wings a rest and trampolining on the knot in my stomach instead.
Having previously flushed what should, by any measure, have been a wonderful marriage down the toilet of my own hubris, I find myself wondering if I can finally make this relationship stick. Of course, no matter how good things are, it can still go south...but if it does, perish the thought, then I'm determined it won't be my fault - not again.
I'm also thrilled - it'll be a fresh start for both of us. Nobody (aside from me, her doctor, the passport control officer and the Gender Recognition Panel) will know her history and I think she's looking forward to that. Of course, I've told her that if we don't get the gender recognition certificate, then it'll be a civil partnership as opposed to a marriage, which is basically a whopping great "OUT!" for both of us (unless we don't invite anyone I know to the ceremony, which will be an eyebrow raiser in itself).
It won't change what we plan to do and there's always the risk that folks will find out her history sooner or later ... but it still has me sweating like a priest in a playground; the irrational fear of what others will say, what they will think. It doesn't help that I can anticipate, with excruciating clarity, exactly what that will be.
To hell with it - the world be damned! I already have my family's disapproval for the collapse of my previous marriage and as I prefer my own company, being a rather misanthropic hermit, I wouldn't mourn the loss of those "pseudo-friends" one acquires at work. Frankly, the only thing I really fear is the loss of earnings (and job) due to the thinly veiled homophobic reaction in the office such news would inevitably engender.
Still - if there's one thing I've learnt from the posts of other folks here, it's that there's nothing more inspiring than courage in the face of adversity and prejudice...and if I can show just half the character that some other folks here have done, then I'll be all set.
I apologise for this dreary digression into my life. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...
