Friday night, midnight. And what am I doing? Writing. Because I’m so anxious, so excited and nervous and my mind can’t stop thinking but can’t focus either. I’m wired. So I’ll take this opportunity to let it out. I’d be going all over this in my mind anyway, while attempting to fall asleep, in vain. I have a huge headache from all the anxiety. I’m shaking, getting hot flashes, cold sweats. My sleep has been deprived all week, yet it would be impossible for my brain to turn off right now.
Time for Lasts
Today was my last day at work for a little while – I’ll be working remotely, but I won’t be in the office for at least two weeks, maybe three. My last day at work with boobies. It felt monumental, like something I should write down. It almost felt like when high school graduation was approaching – you start counting your lasts. My last week. My last physics class. My last homework assignment. My last test. Then you turn your head and it’s over. Fast forward to a few years and it’s waaaaay over, and you hardly remember any of those moments, how you felt or what you were thinking. There’s a vague inkling in the back of your brain, stored somewhere but too faded to distinguish. That’s how I’m going to feel about all of this in a few years, and that’s why I’m writing it down.
What was there before?
Last night I was discussing with my significant other how I don’t really remember the days before the confusion. Or even during the confusion. Clearly through confusion I have been. However, once you know something, you can’t un-know it. So my pre-trans-knowledge days are fuzzy. My pre-asexual days are long long gone, seeming so childish, like a youthful memory where one was barely gaining consciousness of the world. You don’t remember anything of the times before you could remember something (your pre-conscious days). Every time I make a discovery, it’s like a re-birth. Every conclusion makes me gain consciousness of something while crippling my memory of pre-conscious days, as if those memories had never formed in the first place.
What is there now?
I am thinking of everything and nothing. The anxiety has been mostly slipping through my unconscious, slowly seeping into aspects of my life, subtly affecting my sleep, my concentration, my procrastination. Curiously enough though, the surgery itself has not been consuming my thoughts. I have been a frantic, last minute search for any information I can find. Desperately I’ve sifted through dozens of transgender related blogs, trying to find someone out there, something that can quell this thirst for… for what? I don’t know for what, but I’m information hungry and my brain feels it. My interests have been newly awakened, again, but this time with more force.
The Hunger
It’s probable that, for the first time, I feel a need to connect to someone. I’ve sifted through forums online, forming an indirect conversation with anonymous avatars. Usually I end up too put off to comment, the conversation has de-railed into something irrelevant, and/or there’s really nothing new being said. Reading blogs is mostly a one way conversation – I can’t up and ask the blogger something about how they feel, then get a response, and do a nice back and forth, like a real tete-a-tete. I can only hope that they will post something today, now!, that I’ll read it, and I’ll feel satiated. Except I don’t. I want to reach out and say, hey, I’m like you, sort of, let’s talk! I want to ask questions for which I don’t know the answer, and they might or might not, but at least we can commiserate in our misery of the unknown, or celebrate in the euphoria of a eureka.
As desperate as this may seem, I do in fact have real people to talk to. I have my significant other, whom I trust with every single molecular thought that crosses my brain. But it’s not the same, because I’m transgender, she is not. And while she can read my mind, well.. that’s exactly the problem. After a while we have a limited experience (my experience mostly) and there’s only so much we can know and learn by just talking between us. So there’s this unfulfilled need of mine to talk to someone about this, someone other than me and my other me (that’s why she’s my significant other).
Let it out
If you feel this way in any way, take a moment to email me. Say anything. In fact, here’s a template: “Hi! I’m bla bla (real or fake name). I read what you wrote on your blog, and you told me to contact you, so I am. [disclose as much information as you’d like]. I really don’t know what else to say, but that’s that. [And then ask me any questions if you’d like. Really, anything]”. Of course, nobody really reads this blog anyway, except my significant other, and as I mentioned, we already talk to each other too much as it is.
Time for Firsts
And as my body approaches its last days as a fully featured female, I will begin to encounter my first firsts. My first time in surgery. My first time seeing my chest. My first time taking off my shirt. My first time of feeling rid of this burden that has haunted me throughout the years. My first time feeling like a big weight has been taken off my chest. What does that feel like? I’m about to find out, and I can’t wait.
“Desperately I’ve sifted through dozens of transgender related blogs”
What blogs did you read? Because a few months ago I was trying to find more trans info, but I couldn’t find anywhere that I felt comfortable. I feel like kind of a creep hanging out in FTM spaces even though, well, most people are binary, and transguys are going to have a lot of the transition info I need.
I’ve found very few neutrois-specific sites. It feels like there’s a wealth of information on asexuality by comparison.
(I will also probably e-mail you soon when I get online at a time that is not 2 why-am-I-still-awake-AM.)
I’ll update my blogroll soon. And sadly I went to bed early, but not to sleep, so now it’s waaay past the “2 why-am-I-still-awake-AM.”
I am so happy to have found this blog (well not really found, you followed my brand new blog so I came to see who you are and are now reading all your posts from the start) thank you thank you thank you for documenting what’s going on in your life. I will email you when I have read the next couple of years and am up to date 🙂
One of the silly questions I have about surgery is whether there was any issue regarding incontinence. Was the procedure short enough that they just told you to pee beforehand or whether you wore an incontinence pad or whether they put in a catheter (ew!!!!).
J.D., I had a fairly long surgery (5 hours) and they did not catheterize me. I peed before going into surgery and I guess when I got out but I really don’t remember doing that. As far as I know, there were no incontinence issues and I do experience that occasionally. I don’t think it’s normal procedure to use a catheter for this surgery. At least, I’ve never heard of anyone having one. Hope that helps.
Your passage you entitled, “The Hunger,” I’m definitely experiencing that – a super strong urge to reach out and try to connect, during a time of trans-uncertainty. Since I already feel like I connect to a handful of other bloggers, this manifested in wanting to connect to a person in real life – I honed in on this trans-guy who works for an after school program where I work. I started to feel obsessed with becoming his friend, but not really knowing how to go about it. It was intense and uncomfortable. I talked about it in therapy, and that seemed to dispel the tension. I finally just introduced myself to him. Maybe we’ll become friends, maybe not. It was certainly a surprising feeling that suddenly surfaced…
Thank you for this blog. As the mother of someone about to have top surgery, I have benefited from your questions, insights, and experiences. I am preparing a letter to family and friends, and will use your blog and the website as a resource.
Glad you’ve found this (very very very old) post useful! There are a few entries in the Featured Voices series written by nonbinary teens and by their parents.