Getting back on horses

Two weeks of deliberation has got me there, you'll be relieved to know.  I want to get back on the horse.  The big thing now is trying to figure out the best way to achieve that aim.  You might say that it's obvious as to how to do it, but I need to be sure about why I'm getting back on and to make sure I can stay on this time.  The last couple of times I have been thrown off.  I want to be ready for that sucker.

I have thought about little else of late and the idea of getting to be me again makes me feel an internal relief that I can't even begin to describe.  There is a relaxation and assurance that comes with it that is so fantastic.

As I said in my last blog, I still have a number of hang ups, but I think it's important to develop thick skin.  I felt overwhelmingly supported by the comments on my last blog.  The people who read this and help me are genuinely awesome.  They really helped me to look at the problem of my lack of confidence differently.  I do just need to get used to the fact that people stare anyway at people whether they are trans or not.  It's no different and that even if it is, does it matter anyway?  I need to stop being ashamed of being me.

I've also been bad.  I know I said I wouldn't dive in and do loads of shopping, but I have done a little and am a dress and two pairs of shoes better off.  I love shoes so much.  I saw a pair of ankle boots I liked.  I've always wanted some, so they were a yes immediately.  The other pair of shoes match the dress.  Of course.  You can't buy a dress without shoes, surely?  Based on a recommendation from another blog, I have also set up an appointment to get a new wig.  I've always struggled to get this right, so it'll be great to buy it from a professional and to have it cut to shape.

Beyond that, I'm starting to think about plans for trips out and Rhi time.  Things are in the offing with not much confirmed yet.  But that will change and I'll keep you up to date in terms of progress.

I guess the biggest thing is that now I'm back off holiday, I'm tackling the weight issue with a vengeance.  I know I've said it before, but I have improved appearance to strive for, a small operation to go through and I want to improve my healthiness and fitness.  You know, just in case things move forward.

Thank you so much for your continued readership.  It's been a tough year and I'm sure there are horrible times ahead, but I think I'm taking the right decision for me for once.  I think that equally its exciting...

Judge, jury and executioner

Following my last blog, this will be of no surprise to you.  I’m grappling with the idea that I might need to just re-emerge again after 8 months of hiding away.  I guess there are some internal challenges with doing that.  Mainly that I have developed some fantastic coping habits relating, for example, to how productive I’m being.  I need to find a way to be Rhiannon, holding all the other things in check and maintaining some things I’ve discovered that I love about my core personality.

But there are also some things that I really need to work through.  Last time I bounced out from a hiatus, I didn’t really handle it well.  I jumped straight back in and to be honest, went a little bit crazy.  I spent loads of money on Rhiannon, work took a dip, personal life got short changed.  Like Dracula let loose in a blood bank, I greedily went mad for everything girl.  I need to learn to integrate a little more this time and to decide how it is going to work.

A key focus is going to have to be to gain clarity about my longer term objectives.  Where do I want this to go — is it going to be full or part-time?  What are the knock on effects of that decision?   Moving forward in anyway, means very likely going back through the horrible loop of potential divorce.  So how can I deal with that a little better than I have?  Or should I not manage it and hide again: lying and fibbing to maintain my family.  That isn’t really me, but its an option that needs consideration.  I can't keep going through a boom and bust cycle.

There are also a number of issues around my confidence that I need to address: I need thicker skin.  My thinking was pushed forward by April’s fantastic and very honest blog.  One of the biggest issues I have is that when I’m out and about, I am ashamed of being Rhiannon.  I feel like I’m being judged constantly by everyone I meet, which creates a real insecurity.  A stray look can be enough to send me in a spiral.  I feel like in the two seconds of someone looking at me, they have spotted from a mile away that I'm trans.  My brain then thinks that they have acted as jury, judge and executioner, instantly thinking I’m stupid, ugly, horrible or worse. When an actual judgement happens, the impact is even greater.  The waiters at last year’s Christmas party have a lot to answer for as their reaction really got to me.  I desperately need to get to get more assured about my appearance.  Not that I need to "improve" it, I know it is ok (apart from my weight), but that I need to feel more relaxed and comfortable in my own skin.  I have to believe that its ok.

There is a lot to do and to think about, but the journey starts...again.  Albeit from a very different place of thinking now.  Internally, I’m breathing a sigh of relief though.

Can we ever really escape?

Of late, this is the question that I have pondered most.  As I commence my annual holiday, it is probably the first time in months that I have had an opportunity to think.  The other allied question is do I ever want to escape?

Anyway, by way of update.  Things are going ok.  Mainly because I have thrown everything: heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears. Literally everything, into my work.  Is it any wonder that work is going well? Those of you who have read this blog for some time will know that I use work as a kind of transgender escape tunnel. It pushes girl thoughts from my mind.  Not completely. Obviously. Like most of you, approximately every 10 minutes, the pang of desperation to be a girl haunts my mind. The feeling of inadequacy that I'm not female.  The constant wish that I was able to be myself.  Pervading every thought.  But when there is so much work to do, I can mentally push her to one side and robotically get on with the next tick item from my list.

Since I have given up alcohol too: the result of my January illness, none of my "vices" are allowed to flourish.  Jill is a very dull girl.  When you are trying to escape from the biggest of all "vices" (who you are) and alcohol is not available, where else do you turn?  I have never even tried smoking or drugs.  Given that I have an addictive personality, I'm not sure either is a good idea.  So work it is.  To quote Grease's Rizz, "there are worse things I could do."  I guess its the way I'm wired.  I have to be full on with something all the time.

The outside world is astonished at my increased productivity.  My friends see the underbelly.  The sinking into regular despair.  The inability to reconcile my "new life" with the reality of the old.  The desperation to be Rhiannon.  The days that work doesn't win and a kind of depression lands bringing the futility of pointless resistance into sharp contrast.  The jokey comments about nail polish or nice dresses that aren't really jokey.

Really, despite everything I might think, the success in leaving the girl behind and being a high work achiever is not really a success.  There is never ever any escape.  And more importantly, I don't want there to be.  She needs to rise.  The consequences for my marriage and family of allowing that to happen do constantly play on my conscience. But I know that the pull to be myself, to deny her no longer, is stronger.  I know it's a matter of when not if.  For now the fight, rightly, continues. I win battles, but never the war.  Can you ever win a war that deep down you want to lose. Prolonging it for the sake of others is perverse, even if it is the right thing to do.  But bit by bit, day by day, losing I am.  And I've never been happier (or prouder) of being a complete loser.  The woman who is winning is beautiful, kind, loving, fun - and most of all, she deserves her time in the sun.

Drowning in dysphoria

Sometimes, its like the desperation is just overwhelming.  Its like a deep down sadness and unhappiness that just cause me to sit at my desk and instead of working, to just cry.  Its like you want your insides just to rupture out of your body and to turn you into someone different because what you are just isn’t right. Its like you need someone to reach inside of you and bring peace because there is none available.  Its like there is nowhere you can go to escape from your self, I go with myself wherever I am, even when I would prefer myself to leave.  Its like a detachment where nothing is quite real.  Its like an isolation you can never explain.  Its like you are alone with a problem you can never understand. Its like wishing the numbness I sometimes feel would come back because at least then I’d stop feeling like I do.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some very happy, productive times.  This morning just isn’t one of them.  With nowhere else to turn sometimes, my thoughts are laid bare for you here.

And a butterfly emerges…

Just a really quick blog tonight.  I am on my back from London to home on the train having had a long, but fun day working in the capital.  I visit a few times most months, so it is a very routine thing for me.  Probably every 4-6 weeks, one of the pleasures of going to London is that I get to go for dinner with Becca of Muttering fame.

For those who don’t follow her (why not?) you need to know that Becca has made the fantastic and enviable journey from male to female.  Having been her friend for a number of years, I have had the privilege of seeing this journey happen through a series of regular snapshots of meeting her.

Our first meeting made me realise that we would forever be friends.  It revolved around a very expensive bar bill in a plush London hotel bar.  We were both in man mode and both equally hated the fact.  We nattered like we’d been friends for ever.

Several meals later and fast forward a while, we ended up last year at Sparkle together where her strength gave me the confidence to enjoy a weekend in Rhiannon mode and to build on the start I’d already made.  Tonight we reflected on that time as we talked.  That weekend really was a turning point for her too and since then she has never looked back.  Her transition started later last year and she has faced, head on, her challenges, with an internal resilience that I personally find inspiring.

She is beautiful, feminine, poised, feisty, challenging and kind hearted.  Everything a woman strives to be.  I blog because spending time with her tonight made me realise that I am so so proud to call her my friend.  As you know I grapple with my future and my gender and Becca’s single mindedness, focus and attention to every element of her transition shows and helps me see that there is an art of the possible in looking like, and being accepted as, the woman some of us were born to be.

Struggling on...

I’m so sorry I’ve not blogged for so long.  Truth be told its been a very weird few months since Christmas.  Driven by (and I’m not trying to exaggerate) a life threatening experience and fuelled by what I last blogged about.

Over Christmas and New Year I was hospitalised with an illness with a 40% mortality rate.  Fortunately I got better, but after days of worried looking Doctors standing over you, you begin to be a little afraid.  After nearly 3 weeks, I escaped hospital and got home.  Much more quickly than they expected thank goodness.  Together with some necessary life style changes, I’m feeling better than ever now.

But what it did do was to change my attitude to life.  I’m sure I’m not alone, but it led me to think two things.  First that being Rhiannon alienates me (literally) from my family and the people I love should be the most important thing to me.  Second, that being Rhiannon complicates my life to such a degree that I needed to find a way of simplifying my existence.

Before Christmas you will recall that I had an upsetting experience of being sirred a lot in a restaurant when I was out as Rhiannon.  That, combined with the above meant I really got the bit between my teeth to not do this anymore.

So I stopped.  Completely.  Totally.  And without looking back.

Since January therefore, whenever I have thought about being Rhiannon, a numbness has kicked in so that I didn’t feel like talking or thinking about her.  I almost felt sick when I thought about any aspect of my gender confusion.  I haven’t dressed, blogged or done anything in general.  It still crossed my mind from time to time, but almost was other worldly with it being about someone else and not me.

A couple of months ago, I rejoined a tg website I was once a member of for a few days, but left very hastily. It didn’t feel right.

My friends have been impressed by my resolve.  Even I thought that after so long, I’d cracked it.  I no longer felt the urge to dress and the mental cruelty of feeling like you are really a girl had disappeared almost completely.

But as I’m writing, I bet you can guess what has happened.  Over the last few days, the feelings, the desperation to be a girl again have begun to awaken.  No action taken so far.  It is still very early, but it has.  I can feel the numbness fighting it back, but bit by bit it is asserting itself.

I think that the rational side that sees the complexity it brings and how unhappy it makes other people and is screaming “no”.  So I await what happens, unsure of how I feel about it.

Latest photos...

Every so often, I go to Trans-Femme in Swindon in the UK for some photos to be done.  Being made up and photographed is a really great way to spend the day - and this time, these are the results.  As ever, please be kind!

If you are ever interested, I now have a growing collection of photos of me on my Flickr page. :o)