Sometimes things do work out.

I haven’t blogged since the beginning of November.  I was doing NaNoWriMo, which by the way I fully endorse, but so much has been eating up my life that I pretty much gave up on it a few days in.  I’ve been in a happy place for a long time anyway; I figure, when you don’t have time to write because you’ve been spending so much time with your friends and loved ones, doing the things you love, that you must be doing something right, so… c’est la vie.  I’ll try it again next year, if things have settled down by then.

I’ve got a lot of things to hit on in a short time, so I think I’m going to bulletpoint it again.

– The two foster kids my parents took in have been shaking the house up and making it crazy, but it does have its uppers.  This is the biggest one so far, to me at least.  The little one, a year and a half, doesn’t talk that much, but she’s started calling me something. 

Da-da. 

It kind of blew my mind at first because I’d never mentioned anything to do with my gender to anyone in the family, particularly the baby, so I wrote it off as an isolated incident and figured it was a baby’s mistake, something she’d probably never say again.  But she won’t stop calling me Da-da, which does a few things at once; makes me realize that one day, I want to be a Daddy- I always have, to some extent- and it confirms the gender vibrations I give off to people who are too young to be biased on appearance.  So that has been really cool.

– I got to change the way at least one person views trans culture.  I was riding in the car with one of my friends, and he glanced out the window at one of the pedestrians and went, “Whoa, is that a chick or a dick?”  And my immediate response (as per Calpernia Addams’ fabulous video “Bad Questions to Ask a Transsexual“) was:

“If you can’t tell the difference, then you don’t need to know.”

He looked a little shocked at me- “Well, that’s not very nice.” 

I was a little aghast.  “Since when is it our job to tell everyone else the business going on between our legs?  It’s not a matter of  ‘nice’, it’s a matter of the most personal nature.  Transpeople don’t exist to be nice, you know.  We deserve the respect everyone else deserves, too.”

He was really quiet after that, which I took as a personal victory, since he usually has a smart comeback for everything.  I think he really took that to heart and thought about it for a few minutes.  Then he changed the subject, and I chose not to press the issue.  It seemed like a damn good idea to just let it rest.  But if I can get at least one person to view gender on a strictly need-to-know basis and not as everybody else’s business, if I can avert the critical and unblinking eye of one person, and that attitude spreads, then I feel like I’ve done my part.

-And now, the big thing.  You know that gay friend of mine who I thought couldn’t see me as anything but a big, scary walking vagina?

Let’s just say things happened. 

It’s a bit delightful.  We’re kind of on a friend-with-benefits basis, which is wonderful to me.  I prefer to think that he wouldn’t become emotionally intimate with me because we’ve been friends for way too long and it would just feel odd, but he basically came right out and said he always sees me as a guy anyway.  We play video games and mess around and it’s kind of a nice guy-on-guy setup funtime type… thing.  (That sentence completely failed at not being awkward and I won’t even bother to try.) 

I almost feel weak about this, though, because I almost feel like being with a gay guy right now is less about the person and more about personal validation- “If I can be with a person who is only attracted to dicks, PERIOD, then I MUST be a guy!”  I don’t like the idea that, somewhere in my head, that’s what this is all about.  But I can’t help feeling a small amount of personal victory in this issue, either, because it does feel damn great to be with someone who couldn’t possibly see me as anything OTHER than male.

It’s also a little awkward because this is kind of an open thing involving this guy and my boyfriend.  See, at some point this summer, my boyfriend and this guy got together, and I was almost completely left out on sole virtue of having a vagina.  My boyfriend didn’t get why it hurt me so much and basically expected me to suck it up.  But now the tables have turned and this guy is waaay more comfortable with me, and is actually a little freaked out by my boyfriend, who has a lot of trouble respecting personal boundaries.  (Plus I am apparently way better at giving head.)  So now my boyfriend is butthurt, and I’m enjoying shoving it in his face just a little too much.  But it’s the first time in our open relationship that the other person actually preferred me and let my boyfriend tag along, not the other way around, and I just want him to know what the other side of the fence is like before he does it to me again. 

/end soap opera

…

For once, I’m on top of pretty much everything in my life, and I’m nervous that I’m getting way too happy with the power.  This isn’t me.  I’m not normally a vindictive little bitch.  But for once, the universe has fallen in such a way that I’m holding all the cards, and I want to enjoy it while it lasts.  I KNOW that this won’t last long, that I’m treading very thin ice, and that everything must fall apart sooner or later.

But DAMN it’s nice to be on top. 

…

(You can read into that all you want.)

Anger management.

I’ve had little to write about lately- kind of been sitting in a pool of stagnation for a while- but I feel obligated to update.  There hasn’t been much change except for the fact that my life has been taken over by a couple of munchkins.  In a sense, that has changed EVERYTHING, but it’s put me on hold.

I’ve been feeling an inordinate amount of bitterness towards the kids, and it took me a little while to figure out exactly what it was that was bothering me.  But now I’ve got it sorted out, and I guess I could stand to get it off my chest.

Just before they came into our lives, I was getting to that point with my dad where I was nearly comfortable enough with him that I could have come clean with him about everything and maybe not even have to leave home in order to start transition.  We were getting really close and he was even on good terms with Jack before he integrated.  I’d just had that talk with him where I explained that integration was happening and a lot of big things were about to change.  I didn’t say what, but I think he had a guess, and I was going to give him time to figure it out and let it sink in before I dropped the bomb.

And then these kids showed up, and he’s completely moved away from me and sunk back into this weird religious hellhole.  Now I’m expected to set the best possible example for these kids, and there’s no way I could start transition with them in the picture.  He wouldn’t allow it.  I feel utterly betrayed.  I was on the edge of finally, finally having something, a place in my life where I didn’t have to hide anymore, and these kids stole it from me.

I’m having a hard time coping with it.  I know these kids didn’t do anything wrong, and I can’t take it out on them.  I know my dad is just trying to do what’s right, and my stepmom loves those babies and wants to see them grow up right.  But I don’t understand why it has to be us.  And maybe I’m just being selfish, but this is the worst of possible outcomes for my transition.

I was so close.  And now I’m back to square one.  I have to leave home before I can even think of starting transition.

Now I’m thinking about having some kind of anger management therapy or something.  I’ve been having the same dream almost every night for weeks, where I get in a fight with someone and I’m trying to hit them, but for whatever reason, my punches won’t land right.  I miss, or my arms feel too heavy to lift, or I’m too weak to do any kind of damage, but it’s always the same- I’m trying to fight some kind of enemy, and they’re just laughing in my face.  I wake up in humiliation every morning.  I’ve always had a good right jab and I throw a heavier punch than the typical female-bodied person, and having that taken away from me every night only makes me more and more frustrated.

And plus, my anger threshold keeps lowering.  I fall into a rage at some of the slightest and most stupid things, and it makes me look like an idiot because there’s nothing I can do about it.  I don’t like people seeing me as this overly sensitive, bull-headed jerk.  I used to be level-headed and logical.  Where did THAT go?
I’m crawling in my skin.  My sex life is alternately eluding me because I can’t deal with myself or anyone else seeing me naked, among other things.  My back is slowly being raped by the binder I’ve been wearing lately- I need to order an underworks binder before I warp my ribs permanently.  There’s a whole new set of people in my life who are learning to address me with the wrong pronouns and the wrong name, and hearing the occasional “Tommy” from the one friend who even bothers to use it does little enough to cool the burns.

I JUST WANT OUT.