Not For the Faint-of-Heart

 Just when you have stopped thinking about transition because, after all, you are a woman and that is the final word on that subject, something makes you trans again. 

Five years ago, just before coming out to the world, and beginning to live as I am now, I purchased a new vehicle. I really like that car. It has been a great vehicle for me. But it's getting on, and that extended warranty is becoming really useful because some things are going wrong. 

Guess what happens when you take a vehicle in for warranty work. Even though the license is in your name, and has been for four years, all that paperwork from five years ago comes back to remind you who really bought your vehicle. 

Four times before today, I have told them (and shown them the ownership to prove it) that I am the owner of the vehicle and that the phone number they have for me is incorrect. Four times I have given them the correct name and phone number. 

I have had to wait two months for the parts to arrive (sorry sir, but they are on backorder ... ) but finally this morning the call came to schedule the work. 

" ... ok, great, we will see you next week .. uhh ... by the way the car seems to be owned by <old name> ... pause ... should we fix that? "

Five times ... 

I am calm now. Being trans isn't for the faint-of-heart, after all.  

How To Be A Girl

In the spirit of the previous post, here is another "in the public service". 

Some good friends (thank you T & L) alerted me to this very well-produced podcast - How To Be A Girl.

Marlo Mack (a pseudonym) began sharing her and her transgender daughter’s story back in 2013, when her daughter was five. 

The first episode - Mama, I'm A Girl - was presented in June 2014. It is below in the cartoon version. Or you can find it and all others on Marla's webpage. She also has a blog, gendermom, with lots of goodies. I have checked and new posts of gendermom appear on T-Central. 

I have only listened to the first four episodes myself, so I'm going to head back and listen to more before supper. Based on those few early ones, I just had to alert anyone who might stop by. 

How to Be a Girl from gendermom on Vimeo.

As a Public Service

Earlier this year, seven months ago, I wrote that this blog was done. I wrote that I have moved on. I wasn't wrong. Sometimes you have to accept that, as a public service, information needs to be shared. 

This post comes as the result of an online chat. Coline and I were talking about hormone therapy. She has noticed something interesting and potentially valuable that we need to share so I went along with her idea to write a post here because it is clear she is right. This is information that our sisters in the community could benefit from. I did mention that few and maybe none of the sisters stop by here now, but, well, how can it hurt to post this? So, here we go!

Both Coline and I use Estrogel for our hormone therapy. I've been using it, at various dosages, daily (apart from a month around my surgery) for over five years. It is the only method of delivery I've used. Coline started out on estrogen patches. She says she hated them. They always left a dark area on her skin from clothing sticking to the adhesive. Mostly they were hard to get off, but sometimes they would just fall off and not be missed until the evening. 

A surprising thing that Coline has noticed - if you let the canister of gel sit for a week after it seems to have given its last, it will give you another pump of gel. In fact, one of hers has yielded a whole extra pump for nine nights in a row! Considering the cost of this product, that is quite a large saving. 

There was a post featured on T-Central a few weeks ago now about hormones and their effects. What I think needs to be said is that the effects of hormone therapy are different for each individual. Coline, for instance, has found that she feels more emotional since starting it. As she said, "After nearly sixty years I was finally allowed to let the tears flow." I have always been able to weep in emotional times, but have found that getting away from Mr.T(estosterone) has allowed me to act in more considered and calculated ways. I can still get angry - really angry - but flying off the handle is a thing of the past. 

As expected, my breasts grew and were very tender in the nipple area. Growth happened in spurts for both of us. I noticed a hard area just below the nipples that only stopped hurting a couple of years ago. The tissue has become so natural and soft that when I had my first mammogram last month it didn't hurt at all, in spite of warnings by friends and family to the contrary. Lucky me!

Both Coline and I have noticed softer skin and a redistribution of fat. Areas that used to have well-defined muscles (arms and legs, especially) are quite smooth and soft now. Very pleasant results. 

Temperature control hasn't been an issue at all for me. I have always perspired freely, and that hasn't changed. The extra weight that I'm carrying now hasn't helped at all. Oh yes, that high metabolic rate that came with Mr. T has gone - to be replaced by a much lower need for calories. Don't eat like you used to, girl, because it will be noticed. As Auntie Marlene used to say "A moment on the lips - A lifetime on the hips!" 

My legs, once a forest of hairs, are now mostly hairless as are my arms. Sadly, the facial hair didn't follow suit and hair on the top of my head hasn't grown back (HRT isn't a miracle drug). But both Coline and I are confident the loss of hair there has stopped. 

Everything (including my own urine!) smells stronger than before to me, while Coline feels exactly the opposite has happened. Sadly my appetite hasn't been diminished (darn!). And on the subject of smell, we both agree body odour has all but disappeared. If you have reassignment surgery, be aware that feminine hygiene is a whole other subject that you can research on your own ladies. UTIs are real and more frequent now, and, yes, cranberries do help a lot, but only use real cranberries and pure cranberry juice - not the fake cocktail stuff. There is a capsule supplement of concentrated cranberry that worked well - recommended by my pharmacist. 

An important caution - do not self-prescribe any drug, especially one that can cause damage to your body. Only an endocrinologist can make sure you are staying healthy while on HRT. 

As Coline says, and I cannot agree more heartily, the most important result of hormone therapy - we are just so darned relaxed and happy! 

Everything is Fine Here ...

I am posting one final time to say goodbye properly, and, as well, to clear up a mess caused by deleting an uncharacteristically hasty and messy post.

Yes, this is the last time I intend to post here for many reasons, most of them included in a post I did on my other blog; the blog I intend to continue to post to, when the spirit (the one I have left of the two that battled for control so recently) moves me.

I would especially like to thank my friends in Portugal who account for over 100, 000 of the over 500, 000 visits here. I really would have liked a comment or two from any one of you; ah well.

But, seriously, my sincere thanks to those who did comment so generously: Calie, Jenny, Petra, two Aunties, Dru, Melissa (rest in peace, love), and so many others who encouraged me at the beginning. A special shout-out to Tom, Lindsay, and Ellena (who left this world better by living and sadder by dying) who brought others here. She and they knew nothing about the world of a transgender woman, then learned more than they ever wanted to about this one in particular.

There are over a hundred followers, and I know most don't stop by anymore. And, yet, I also know that some do: Rouchswalwe, Joey, Emma, Anne, Lucy, and so many others whom I haven't heard from for ages, but remember fondly, and would love to catch up with.

There are others who became friends. I see them regularly, or irregularly. We talk or chat - thank you, too, and I hope to talk to you all soon ... tonight, in one case, I know already that we will chat.

So, I am fine ... everything is under control, apart from those things that should never be under control; the fun bits!

As Nadine tells us:

Love You! 

Love Yourselves! 

Real

“Real isn't how you are made, ... It's a thing that happens to you."*

Almost six years ago, a post called Timeless appeared here.  It narrated an imagined encounter with a guide on the spiritual plane (if that sounds hokey ... ah well) named Aadi, and an alternate self, Beth. This was not the first post of that sort. Dreamtime encounters became an important part of my search (or quest) for inner peace. To be fair, it might be that becoming open to the idea of dreamtime encounters was what was important and the rest flowed from that.

So much has happened to me since then, and yet when I read what that person (who seems so remote from who I am now) wrote those years ago, it still feels authentic. In retrospect, Aadi and Beth should have seemed far-fetched (even to me), but they weren't - for me then or now. They were facets of myself and it was very important for me at that time to know them and flesh them out in these posts. Aadi and Beth were companions and helpers along the way on a quest that ended with me accepting who I am. 

I was on that quest for many years. It took me to dark places where danger existed - but demons were not slain. Instead, they became better understood and eventually accepted or, at least, put in their place. 

Long before starting this blog and connecting with real people who could help me understand myself, there were visits to fiction sites on the internet where folks like me were magically transformed to become real. As we know, stage magic is all in the preparation. In the end, nothing is really transformed. The rabbit and dove are always real before they are pulled from the hat. The assistant only appears to have been sawn in half. 

A different sort of magic lives inside of us and takes a sort of preparation that is quite different. After it is over it feels more real than anything sudden, theatrical, or mysterious. Yet, if I tried to explain what happened to me and all the transformations before name changes and surgery, it would sound ... well ... like magic. 

Any decent quest changes the protagonist forever. Without the journey, I would not exist now. Without the struggles I couldn't feel the peace I feel now. 

It seems to me the source of transformation for good is love - for others and self.  The Velveteen Rabbit*  would never have become real without the love of the Boy. For me, the child was within. There was forgiveness, then love from that long-neglected child. What sealed the deal was the love given by others. When I reached out, love came from so many directions; from people whom I had never met before (or since in many cases). Without support and reassurance from them, I might never have come home from my quest. Yet, looking back now, it seems like coming home safely was inevitable; just like a novel. 

The very end of my quest involved two people rescuing each other, and that story would definitely make a wonderful fantasy fiction!

"And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.
And then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen a flower grew out of the ground, a mysterious flower, not at all like any that grew in the garden. It had slender green leaves the colour of emeralds, and in the centre of the leaves a blossom like a golden cup. It was so beautiful that the little Rabbit forgot to cry, and just lay there watching it. And presently the blossom opened, and out of it there stepped a fairy."

*The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real,  Margery Williams

“All my life I have been wandering in the dark - but now I have found your heart - and am satisfied.”

 “And what do all the great words come to in the end, but that? - I love you - I am at rest with you - I have come home.”

Busman’s Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers