[	Tags	|	transgender	]
[	Current Location	|	Home	]
[	mood	|	Frightened	]

So much for 'blogging', here's more of me freaking out! *grins*

There are a LOT of hard things in life... (less and less so in my pants...) even if it doesn't happen often, I think we all end up saying a few times in our lives '*this* is the hardest thing I've ever/will ever have to do". I am fairly sure I have said so before and yet to look back at it I can't think of a one...

Lately the 'hardest things' have had to do with my gender identity and the handling thereof. For more than a year now I have poked and started to write a letter to my parents outing myself to them, a letter once delivered irrevocably changing our relationship, their lives, and mine. I finally finished that letter and even have it printed out and signed... It needs only a stamp and an envelope and 2 to 5 days later my parents are going to get one cold, clammy dickslap from seemingly out of nowhere.

I have had a lot of difficulty lately, I still haven't practiced my voice at all and in fact I have heard a good bit of it in some video we did for FurFright -a fur con I work for- recently. I didn't like my voice at all, but I haven't really gotten started working on it yet, if anything I still feel overwhelmingly like shutting down whenever I try to face up to it. I feel the same way now about sending this letter... I don't have the tits to call or drive down and say to my parents 'I'm a girl', but I don't seem to have the guts or the heart to send them an letter in the mail either... email seems just as bad and arguably better or worse... I don't know how to get over the hurdle or force my hand or anything else that will get this letter out the door... this letter that will change so much all on it's lonesome self... It makes everything *very* real and imminent. 

It makes me want to bury my head in the sand and not pop up for a long long time...

In the meantime work has been on a downhill slope for a few months now and I'm trying to work up the lady balls to apply around for other work, even if in the same field and hopefully better my situation, as well, I need to either come out at my current job or apply as 'myself'... a woman in transition. Both are scary as shit and both could lead to me being with out a job if things go bad... Yes there are up sides possibly, but it is terribly uncomfortable and scary.

Anyway, that's it for now. 

Fire~ 

[	Tags	|	dreams, transgender	]
[	Current Location	|	Home	]
[	mood	|	blah	]

This morning I had a swath of strange and or bad dreams that rambled on even after I had woken up once or twice and gone back to sleep they seemed interconnected at least a little.
 In the first dream I found the neighbors cat who had gotten lost and returned it, it was my old houses' neighboring house but our current neighbor was the one missing the cat. Actually they really are... anyway, Suddenly I remember I am topless and run away as soon as they opened the door and I got the cat in. 

Next  round I mostly don't remember the details except that in the dream I was in my old house-sort-of  and it was very busy; there were lots of people there and my cousin/some amalgam of some young women I do/have worked with was throwing out her makeup and beauty products, which I was grabbing from the bin just as quick as I could. At the same time I was sort of the 'helpless young girl' of the picture, so to speak. Two guys were getting me drunk and intended to have another guy over to rape me... I don't think any of the guys were 'real' people, rather just people made up in the dream. I seemed to sort of know their plans and was more concerned with grabbing the makeup and traipsing all about the house, including walking around three quarters of the interior by balancing on the backs and arms of very large wicker chairs ringed about the place - Pondering what I would do when 'the guy' arrived and sobering up/hoping I'd be sober enough to get out of the pinch. 

I woke up briefly to roll over and when I went back to sleep the danger had passed and I was at a pool talking with two good friends as they swam about, nothing was terribly amiss although the two friends are rather estranged in real life and even in the dream there was tension but still everyone was happy and enjoying the pool, floating doing laps, pool stuff. More people showed up and I took a very goofy dive in and people were laughing, all seemed fine but then I couldn't surface and someone was holding me down, I got the feeling it was my brother but I couldn't see who, I just know I was being held under and I rather quickly lost my breath and sucked in water which felt like air but still freaked me out and I woke up a little panicked.

The moral of my dreams? Don't... uhm... forget to pay your taxes? *grins* I really don't know.

----

In not-dreamland-news my love had a wonderful idea the other day concerning my lack of 'girl time' that I really need to get on especially with the place I'm at, I can't wait for everything to come together like by magic or something. 

She suggested I spend an hour every day doing *something* toward my goals. Makeup one night, or practicing my voice for an hour... I'd love to say 'etc', but I don't know what else to work on atm, those two goals alone would be very helpful, the latter more so even than the former... I am still scared to try working on my voice for real, but I have got to get over that some how. 

Anyway, that's all I've got this morning! :-P

Fire~ 

[	Tags	|	transgender	]
[	Current Location	|	Home	]
[	mood	|	tired	]
[	music	|	deadbolt clocks	]

Over the last few months but just as acutely if not more so, the last few weeks I've been feeling pretty blahh... It comes from a lot of things, many are the same things everyone else faces and goes though, feelings that come and go and go and come and pile up and blow off in an endless turn that every living person deals with. I don't generally post much about how I'm sad today, happy Tuesday, ecstatic Thursday and crying in my Wheaties Saturday. Everyone here knows what it's like to work, to study, to roll through a week or two or three of mind numbing doldrums or back breaking work or some key mixture of both as we face our jobs, our responsibilities , etc, etc. 

I don't post much to say much good or bad, in fact I'm terrible at 'blogging' in the littlest bit. I forget to document well enough on projects to share with others. When I'm enjoying myself I'm quite happily involved with that and when I'm working or not having a good day or anything else, I'm generally pretty well trenched in there too.

I'm equally bad these days about contacting friends, I think this gets said alot, both by me and by others on here and many other public places for a few reasons. The first is that it's true and since we're sharing, might as well share that too. The second is because we assume, hope, know? that some or many of our friends might see our post and feel a little better knowing that so-and-so doesn't mean to be antisocial, so-and-so is just busy or falls into the same trap that we do, living life keenly involved in the day-to-day and sometimes having to remind themselves to break out of it and say hello to their friends. 
That being the case here as well, I very much wish I was better at keeping touch with friends and family. I wish I could visit more often and for longer. If not that then maybe phone calls or emails or texts. If not that then true written letters as any from our parents and grandparents to as far back as one sent scroll from their hand to another's some great distance away.

Wishing doesn't really make a thing happen most often and what will is the day I take pen, a computer, a phone, a car trip and make something happen. As will a vast number of improvements and adventures in life happen if I just DO something to make it happen... But here by long and convoluted loop I get back to my opening, that of late I have felt poopie inside and seem to be having trouble making any shit happen... OR, at least feeling like that shit is and will happen in it's own time if I keep at it.

Most of this feeling is related to my gender-related changes... I am on a very fine edge of sending my parents a letter to come out to them about it all and while that shore tare me up inside, it really hasn't yet... Stressed me out, yes. But I have mostly worked through my feeling bad about telling them, now I simply hope that when I tell them, they will deal with it in an positive-enough manner and if not... well, I suppose I can be devastated then. But so long as we're all alive and kicking there is hope and so I don't worry too much about that.

All of that said, I am having trouble actually SENDING the letter and while yes, I could tell them over the phone or in person (Best choice) - I can't bring myself to... I am having the same problem at work, I would 'like' to tell the boss (Like I'd ask for a hole in the head) but when is there ever a good time to say something like this? 

Tied up in all of this is a bit of legality involving my real name, changing a few letters around I'm really just keeping my name but making it fit better... Of course, when I change it Work has to know and there is the 'telling the boss' part of this... My parents wouldn't know and the IRS/Birth Certificate, DMV, etc, etc people wouldn't know or care the difference in my name if it were Beelzabub or Alice. But the workplace of course will have to know about the name change and then it's time to out myself to all and sundry and hope that things either go okay... Or I don't know what.

This compounds with issues I already have with work... I'm smarter and a harder worker and worth more than they pay me. Not to sound arrogant but rather self-assured. I'm better than 'minimum wage' middle management retail hell... But that's where I work and I don't know how to get out of it, make more money and find something, anything I'm happier doing. Something that, if it doesn't make a difference to the world or to anyone else, at least makes enough impact on me to keep me engaged and happy as well as paid reasonably enough.

So I'm frustrated with the gut wrenching unknown of outing myself to family and 'profession' and also frustrated in general with my occupation and compensation from such. 

That frustration trickles down to more of my life, the lack of liquid funds of any substance makes it hard to get done the things of my transition that cost money, and or do do them with much speed... My electrolysis appointments have gone quite nearly as long as I've been on hormones and the effect has been slow, I can't say I'm surprised, an hour a week really isn't that much. But I can't afford much if any more and still afford to keep bills paid and me and my mate fed. I save a little but I'm not terribly happy knowing what could be a brand new car, a motorcycle, a down payment on a house, any number of things; is going to be spent on fixing a genetic mistake.

Money aside, the process is frustrating as it is with out adding the upheaval 'outing' myself will add into the mix. The holidays found me in near tears as I tried to shop for a simple pair of shoes or boots for the season but what is an simple act most of us take for granted (I never have trouble buying big-ol-mens boots after all), or even enjoy, I couldn't. I wasn't made right so my feet don't fit anything a 'normal' store would carry in a 'normal' womans size. This is sort of trivial, but it's one of those emotional things that while unimportant to most if not all of life, still hurts like a son'ova'bitch. 
It's little things such as that or having to force myself to speak up and say 'oh, she.' 'no no, her' when my lived ones in the know say 'he' and 'him' when we're in private (Not around my workplace or family)

Things like getting comfortable in my own skin in public, let alone in slightly more awkward situations like bathrooms, changing rooms, etc have been seemingly on hold while I flail restlessly with the buggery of trying to spit it out to my family and co-workers and boss so that I can move forward in a meaningful way and begin to try again and 'for realsies' get comfortable with myself out and about.

My voice has been another hangup and perhaps my biggest... Of everything it has caused me the most pain and depression when faced with changing it. Not because I love my voice, stars no, but because it is so very hard to change. It takes a huge amount of work and practice to really change a voice and I have had a lot of trouble getting myself started on that. 

I did voice 'work' once and while in the end it was a gang of fun and something I would do again in a heartbeat, that was purely me reading lines as well as I could manage, not me trying to sound different and believable all the time. Not me trying to sound different than I always have around my friends and family and co-workers and somehow keep up with it and be 'normal' at the same time? If our voices cracked when we were teenagers we got upset, it doesn't feel better to be that awkward when you're an adult, none the less because of WHY I'm aiming to sound different. 

Of all the things I've done or face doing to be who I should be, my voice freaks me out the most, it seems the hardest and most awkward, outing, embarrassing thing. I've actually had nightmares about it and I've seldom dreamed about anything related to my gender stuff, certainly not in such a painful way. 

I suppose those are all the greatest things frustrating me of the last while... Things that seem very frustrating or upsetting or daunting right now and the realms of worry they spin off into touch a lot of other areas of life. Mostly though they are problems unto themselves and the rest of life moves fairly normally.

I wish very much that this whole change was over and done with... but like I said, wishing doesn't make it happen. Work does, and so sooner or later I've got to get to work on it, and like all work it will find it's end naturally. It doesn't seem to help knowing that right now though.

This is mostly just a rambling rant to get some feelings off my chest, or at least make a stab at working through them. 

So I've been be-bopping about others blogs a little and mused on how quite varied the spectrum of people is. Transgender folks for certain, in part envying those who can be and are SO very 'outspoken' about themselves, who are willing and able and eager to try so many different things. 

Different fashions, different styles, different ways of expressing themselves, different sexuality and so on and so on.  It seems terribly exciting and liberated/liberating from the sidelines to one on a much, much slower and generally less flamboyant track.

Does that make me 'uninteresting?' perhaps... but I don't think so. Mundane? No... But closer than the former... I have lots of interests, I do plenty of things, but day to day it's a lot less colorful. And in the mater of gender which infuses and surrounds and lays beneath all these little things that I do, that most anyone does I think. That part of me is a little more laid back too.
Nothing to worry about, although I wish I had that kind of courage to be different so that I could more easily move though all the changes and fears and big hurdles in life.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and holidays,

Fire~

 I'm terrible at concise journaling and blogging... I either just recap the last X amount of time since I posted, or ramble...  Usually all of the above together. *grins* Sometime I might take a real stab at covering a topic from A to Z with as little deviation as possible.
Hopefully being a little more focused will mean posts easier to follow and about more interesting things than 'I'm alive and working' :-P

For now it's one of those X amount of time posts.

I visited FurFright this last weekend and had a wonderful time getting to see friends I've not gotten to visit in the last year or more!    I helped out on Staff again this year and bounced everywhere from Registration or the Dealers Register and Stage crew and in between.  - The highlight of course was getting to see my friends and hang out, if only just a little. But I also enjoyed the car show up on the parking garage and playing Forza 4 in the game room. I really liked working Reg and the cashier for a while too. 

Ty did rather well in the dealers room and I'm very proud of her for coming so far in her art in just a few years!

Unrelated I've spent damn near all summer working on my truck and little else. Pretty much all body work this year, we managed to get the car painted. I put on what I'm going to considered the last coat of paint last night.  It's not terribly great work, but it is a thousand times better than what it looked like all beat up before. It'll be a daily eventually and I'm not really concerned about it looking great, just OK... IE, not god awful. 

I haven't had much time to do much else this summer, I haven't been sewing or working on any reenacting stuff. I haven't worked much on 'me' either, aside from regular electrolysis and keeping up with my HRT. I take semi regular trips out like shopping, trying to get more comfortable and better at presenting as a girl. When I can I also go out for breakfast or dinner with Ty and or friends/inlaw. Or get a long weekend like FF to enjoy.

I'm off for now, take care and be well!

Fire~

Apologies if anyone's seeing this twice.

[

mood

|

curious

]

I'm blogging! *grins*

So, I've always loved 'old'... Old cars, houses, books... Old everything. I make mention mostly because I'd lost the train of thought that had initially had me open up LJ. Mostly, it had to do with designing my imaginary and perhaps, I can hope and plan for, future home.

While I have no illusions  that 'old' = good, I do firmly believe that old very often *can* equal just that, but more often can be thought of as comfortable, homey, well used and or nostalgic.

But on other items, molding and trim, cabinents (apperance, doors etc.) , sinks and fixtures, hardware, interior and even exterior doors and so on. I just have to imagine a home, modern, new, yes, but with features like these that don't just harken back to another age, they are from that age... Features and items that have lived 40, 50, 70, 100 useful years and may live that much more (so long as I don't burn my house down cooking rahmen noodles) 

Those features and items that I very often feel give personality, give history, give a homey warmth that is impossible for anything new. In part, because of design. The craftsmanship of something made to last, made by someones own hands, or process far more involved than any today. Perhaps, 30 or 40 years from now, I'll see some doorknob or molding piece made in the last, oh, 10-20 years of today and think 'oh for when we made them that way, and not with our telipathic doorjamb machine'... But I still find it hard to believe that I would.

So perhaps it is silly to imagine a new home with wood floors that most people contracting the construction of their dream home would have heart-attacks over. How could a floor look this way, where are the 3 coats of polyurithane!? Why are they uneven? - But, I imagine it... floors that might have been at home in a colonial or rough-hewn home of decades, even centuries earlier... just with a solid plywood subfloor and 16, or even over-kill 12-inch center joists below! 

I imagine solid wood doors with old fashioned knobs and skeleton-key locks, lovely, solid old hinges. Real, working shutters on the windows... Just, perhaps with modern double pane, insulated windows. I imagine deep cabinets, but with classic hardware. Wood stove in the kitchen, but with a range so I don't have to stoke the fire *every* time I want a hot pocket *grin*

This is sort-of... okay, very rambley, so for the sake of your time, and mine, I'll cut it short. ^^

Fire~

[	Tags	|	dreams	]
[	Current Location	|	Home - Basement	]
[	mood	|	confused	]

*chuckles* a very few of you had gotten to see my house in H.M., where I lived with my parents and brother still before moving out on my own.

We lived there for more than a decade so it's not surprising that my subconscious goes back there often when I dream.

What is strange to me is how often my dreams shift toward cleaning the basement, whatever I was doing, whoever I was (remember, dreaming here)  I end up seeing things from my perspective as I begin cleaning the basement. Invariably one of the first things I do is start in on the laundry, which is sprawled out over the concrete floor in mounds, both loose and gathered in trash bags from the many previous attempts to tidy up.

As I begin to start filling the washing machine, fully intending to wash *everything* down there before we (the family and I) move. I take special note of any of my mothers clothes that I like and place them in special loads of wash or make sure to remember them to find them later, fully intent in either case of sneaking them away with me. I believe it's always implied in my dreams that though we are moving; I am moving out as well and not with the family. Sometimes there are a very few bits of other girls' clothes in the laundry as well, things I don't really consider taking, a thing or two from my brothers exs', something from my cousin from a very much younger age, etc.  

Eventually the dream moves on, I begin dismantling my father's train set, cleaning boxes of other crap, people who were chasing us earlier in the dream return, or whatever else a weird dream might move on to.

It's the fact that my old basement and my trying to clean/steal clothes features in my dreams of some reoccurrance, at least a good 3, 4, 5, 6 times now that makes me wonder, why do I dream this?

It makes basic sense: I lived at that house the longest, through 98% of my formative years as a child, adolescent, and young adult. I've lived other places before then, but not so long or at such an age that I could tell you as many details about the place as I could this home.  There was certainly always cleaning to be done down there, piles and bags of clothes, blankets, etc. perpetually staged in front of the washer and dryer. The basement certainly always was in need of a cleaning. And yes, I had rummaged those bags on several occasions for anything of my mothers that I might wear... generally pickings were slim, between styles not what I'd like, sizes vastly too large for me, or stains from the basement floor. I can't recall hardly anything that I'd liked enough to have taken,given the chance... But I'd always wanted to really have the chance to rummage through one last time, save what I could before it all ended up in a dumpster as we moved, or I moved, out of that house.

At any rate, a glimpse into my silly mind!

I'm off to work,

Take care, be well, boobity boo! 

Fire~