I don't feel like any of those things right now. I am so worn out it is ridiculous.
Spent all day writing almost 8,000 words of documentation for my project, which thank God is wrapping up this week and I am 99% done with. Turned out pretty good all in all I think. I learned a lot, put in almost 300 hours of (wo)man hours in the past two months or so, and officially consider myself a halfway decent programmer.
On a side note, one of the friends who I reconnected with whom I hadn't come out to yet, I wound up coming out to on Friday and speaking at length with on Saturday. All in all probably about 4 hours. So his mom was always extremely devout. Like. Super hyper mega devout. D&D is a pathway to Satan devout. My friend was sort of the problem child for his family to some degree, was sent to boarding schools and all that, and didn't seem like he would follow that path. But he met a girl who mirrored his mother's devoutness, they were married, and while I don't know the exact order of events, if it was prior to meeting his wife or not, but is now up there with his mom and wife. Needless to say, I was a little worried. So I told him, and he was surprised but seemed to be accepting on Friday evening. On Saturday, he called me and asked if I had a moment to talk. So I can't cover all of it in this post, but basically it shook out like this... He doesn't necessarily agree with my "choice", but he respects it nonetheless and still wants to rekindle/maintain the old friendship. We spoke at length, with him making a genuine effort to understand as best he could. It's a hard thing to fully explain though of course. He said he's not entirely sure how his wife will react, as she was previously a bit iffy about a gay friend of his. But apparently even then, once they got to know each other she liked his gay friend just fine. Not sure she changed her mind on what I can only assume from context is "he's going to hell", but at least sounded like she liked and respected him as a person.
So all in all, he's trying, but it was definitely the most tepid response I've gotten yet aside from my older brother's simple ignorance.
Which, long story short, not sure if I mentioned in this thread or not... While I was staying with him during the Augusta Pride events, he said a few things that were just. ... Dumb. First, he and my sister in law seemed confused and surprised I was changing my name. ... Like... that's sort of a given? How could they not have realized that? My brother also made the dumb comment, thinking it was in good fun and loving, "Well, you'll always be my brother". That one definitely hurt, but my response was simple... "I'm gonna put that to the test." If he wants to think of me as his brother while I'm walking around with boobs in a bikini in a few years, I'll let him worry about suffering that bit of dissonance.
On another front, while I am being super bad about reminding people because I keep forgetting myself as busy as I've been, people are starting to switch over to Ellie and female pronouns around here more and more. My dad made a point to correct himself tonight, which was a wonderful feeling.
Lastly, I found out something weird. I ran into a woman in the mall who was... interesting. I am going to gloss over details because I am super tired, but bottom line is she told me there used to be a like... Drag burlesque club on this island in the early 80s. I was shocked. I mentioned it to my dad and step-mom, and it sparked a memory and they said they remember hearing something about that. You think you know a place.
Oh wait. No. One final thing. Had a thing that was both wonderful, but also a bit of a disappointment. The trans person I met a few weeks ago, who I had such an amazing conversation with in Belks, well... He/they seemed like they needed someone to talk to very badly, they werent even out to their twin sister. So I was working up the courage (and recovering from the transplants plus going to pride) to go over there and ask them to lunch and just offer a chance for them to just talk. It meant a lot to me make a connection like that. So I finally got the nerve, and went and asked. Well, just in the past three weeks, their sister confronted them on it and they admitted it! So now they are out to their twin. I can't compete with that.
So it is a truly wonderful thing, and I'm so beyond overjoyed for them, but at the same time I can't help but feel a bit of pang of loss that I don't think there is an opportunity to really develop the friendship further.
