Cold Campbell's From the Can

The turn from 2009 to 2010 has gotten a lot of attention from other bloggers, news programs, and friendly conversations yet I am hesitant to speak about my thoughts surrounding this new year. I am not fully sure why, but 2009 was the worst year of my conscious life. There were some things that I fully enjoyed, but mostly I lived in a constant state of depression and drug use. I did somewhat successfully quit smoking cigaretts, although recently I have really been longing for the cool draw of the nicotine and the sudden rush and clarity it brings to my head. I have also had a few fall backs in that time, eg. 10/10 and the night of drag show. Yet, I do not dwell on these situations as failures, but as ways to keep moving on from my relationship with nicotine.

I have also changed my relationship with alcohol. This is a constant battle with me, because I am never fully convinced drinking is what I want to do. I love the act of beer consumption though, and I have to keep good beer in my life. It has always been important to me, and I think beer in moderation will continue to be part of my life. Wine has also found an interesting spot, as I have enjoyed drinking it when editing poetry. Not when actually composing anything, but in the process of making things better, or different Red Wines have found a new home.

Chess has also taken hold in my life. I find it calming and solid. I've been playing a correspondence game online, and I think that I will soon start another. I enjoy taking tie to challenge my brain to think in a slightly different way. I also have a few friends at Grinnell who find Chess interesting and enjoy playing, therefore I plan to continue games with them in the coming semester.

I want 2010 to be less stressful and dramatic than 2009, because I was a mental and emotional wreck for most of the year. I think that is because I was not happy with things in my life that I couldn't control. I think most of those things have sorted, changed or be removed from my life. I am also fully out as a transman to my family, and they all seem to be trying really hard to understand and help me through my transition. Which leads me into a year where I have to be more selfish and think about the person I am becoming. The gym is going to become a friend of mine as I want a health body for my healthy mind. I also want to work harder at school. I have been letting it slide a little in the last 2 semesters due to the stress of my personal life, but I hope to be in a place where school work and academics can thrive and where I can be proud about the work I am doing.

My transition will officially start on March 20th when I go to my first doctor's appointment, the week there-after I will given my first dose of Testosterone. April will be a hard month, where my body is getting use to the T and I am feeling and thinking in such different ways. I will soon be starting a weekly blog or webpage dedicated to my transition because it will be important to have a space to express my concerns and changes. I also spent a lot of time reading blogs of other individuals personal transitions in the last years, therefore I hope my own story will be helpful. In July I plan to change my name. By the end of my Senior year I hope to have everything lined up to live the rest of my life as a genderqueer transman. I want new people I meet to only ever assume that I am a androgynous male. As for pronouns, we will discuss that in the next few months.

Until then I will be eating cold campbell's soup from the can, and saving all my pennys for the life that is ahead of me.

Coming out Again

I am actually trucking right along as far as coming out as trans to my folks goes. All of the parents in my life know know and we are working on solutions of how to break the news to 7 year old. My father said straight up that he didn't understand, but loves me and supports me. (he also admitted to not having understood my sexuality as a lesbian but came to accept it and 'roll with it') I think it is in fact a lot of information to process and handle at one time. Especially since my father is older, and from a small midwestern town. He actually does not have much experience with folk who do things a bit different. Looking on the bright-side my dad and stepmum has a lot of questions, and wanted to make sure I was emotionally stable and conscious of the impacts of my choices It was really nice to have their support though, and no tears were spread over the ordeal.

So now I need everyone's feedback. I have a 7 year old sister who absolutly adores her big sister (that's me) and only sees me 4-6 times a year. Meaning the process of my transition will not be a gradual one that she sees and comes to understand. How do we explain to her what is going on. We won't start to process for another 4 months or so, but it would be good to have all the information and coping strategies together from the start. I still want to be the big sister she looks up to, because I love being that role model for her but I also need her to understand the terms of my transition and the fact that I will be a man and not a lady anymore. It a tough question, and I am sure there are many answers it's just a matter of picking the rightest one.

Also my mother is attempting to join sometime of online community for the mothers of transmen. I think it will be really good for her and she will learn from and be able to help more mothers. She's very concerned about the whole doctor switching business, but she understands why I must. We've been going to the same family doctor since moving to Kewanee, 17 years ago. She's in fact the woman who birthed my brother. My mother was taken back when I wanted to start seeing another doctor within the firm of family doctors because the women everyone else sees didn't understand my sexuality.

Yet, my dad and step-mum did ask a lot of questions about what this would do to my sexuality. Including, if I fell in love with a feminine gay man, would I then identify as a gay man. Or would I start to identify as straight after the transition. I didn't explain to them the complexity of my current identity and instead explained the term queer to them. The also had a lot of questions about identifications and marriage. I gave the the correct answers but said I didn't want to make any of these decisions in my life until I have to cross that bridge.

All in all, it was a good day even though I woke up with a fever. I think I stressed myself out too much about the coming out thing and made myself sick. I woke from bad dreams at 6 am and didn't feel right until late into the afternoon. I did make it to the health food store today though and got hummus and soy cheese and soy sour cream! I wanted cream cheese too, but all they had was flavored ones that I don't like.

now, back to my romantic comedies! I am going to watch Bridget Jones's Diary tonight. teehe, I am rather hopeless aren't I!

I will be a real boi

I've spent this weekend coming to terms with my tranny self. I am only 3 weeks away from coming out to my father and step-mother. In order to do this efficiently and informatively I've decided to create a time line for them, to explain to them what the steps mean to me and to them. I also want to print off some terminology, and stories of other transmen and bois who have been successful and happy.
Preparing myself for this conversation has made me ready to face my own life a head of me. I am not naive, I understand that it will be hard and complicated but I think that I am finally prepared to grow up an into who I really want to be.

Mostly it started because someone used male pronouns to explain me, and it didn't feel wrong or bad. Then I stumbled upon this which made me realize that I want to grow up and be a father. Often when talking about theoretical children, I get a little excited or I think maybe I could have children. I never thought of it from a father perspective before, but this is actually the most comfortable place for me to think of it from. I don't want to come at parenting as a mother, or an androgynous non-gender binary parent. I want to be a father, almost as much as I want to be a lawyer. This surprised me, but also excited me.

So, my timeline includes hormones, top surgery, and maybe a name change/document changes, and possible another pronoun change later on. I am ready for what life will bring me in the next 5-7 years.

p.s. I finaly bought a binder small enough for my frame. It will be her in 5-7 days. I was very happy that they were back in stock.

p.p.s. I love Ryan