bumped up~

So, yesterday I was feeling totally ready for my upcoming surgery. I have lists of things to do everyday to ensure I am moving steadily along. (Email this Dr to contact that Dr for approval, check in with friends arriving from out of town to confirm arrival times, etc.) And then a call came in that I wasn't expecting. It was the surgeon's office asking if I could bump up the date of my surgery by one day.

I'm not sure how 22 hrs would feel that different, but somehow it does... Suddenly, I feel like I am completely under prepared. When will I have time to cut off my curly locks into a pro-sexy-bed head look to weather the next few weeks? When will I have time to repaint both of my bathrooms, or the front porch? Then getting sad that I ran out of time to plant the flowering bulbs for spring before the ground froze. Damn it! How can I feel ready when I forgot to plant the bulbs? Riiiiiight.

So, I think it is just a scary thing ~ to think about how this procedure will change the course of my life. Therefore, it becomes easier to freak out about everything else but the reality of that sentiment. With that said...

On to other things. I wanted to thank my friend JR for helping me construct this blog. I have been so swamped, and she jumped in to post a few things, and choose pictures to add. Thanks, J ~ and for everyone else, please pardon these self-indulgent ramblings... It feels kind of awkward to express things for me in this format, as opposed to emails, where I know who will be reading what I share. It's odd.

Okay, maybe enough time has passed where I can re-approach the fear factor.

There has been so much press about Kanye West losing his mother when she suffered from complications to plastic surgery. (And of course, there is the impeccably timed release of that new film Awake, also related to "surgeries gone wrong." Even if that one was intentionally malicious.) I can not help but wonder: will that be me?

There is an odd sense of irony that envelopes me while asking that question. I have spent a lifetime hating the fact that I felt so differently, and felt so incompetent not knowing how to negotiate how alien I felt because of my trans identity. A lifetime that has be tinged with a ever-present cloud of depression (and even suicidal thoughts), not knowing how to proceed with a life that I was unable to manage, staged within a body that never felt like my own. Somehow I have found a way to break through the paralysis, and just simply try. Trying everything I can muster, to see what might just work. And in that muddled confusion, a few things have worked. Then a few more... And a little over a year since I started taking "t," the depression has dissolved, as have most of my fears.

Slowly, I began to create the life that I wanted to live most actively, consciously, mindfully. This life suddenly became valuable to me. It was something that I did not want to piss away, or extinguish with every peak on the anxiety charts. What a twist of irony it would be, if don't get the chance to continue this new life when I most want it.

I am afraid.

Not of dying, but of just not having more time. More adventures. More explorations with this new perspective. More time to spend with those I love.

It has changed me, this whole experience. Last year, upon beginning "t" I felt like I had to face my demons that haunted me my entire life. I had to face the fact that I might lose family and friends because of the decisions that I needed to make for my own wellness. Through that process, I found my greatest allies. And most importantly, I found my courage to live honestly, and my desire to live well. These demons had no power over me anymore. Whether or not I would be abandoned seemed less important, when I found myself.

I have always had a somewhat fatalistic view of the world. I used to think that it was just the depression talking. This pessimism that resided within me, inducing thoughts about the world being a terrible place to be alone. Now, I guess I still have the same kernal of fatalism, but I use it to try to live more proactively.

Not to be Debbie Downer here, but if I don't make it through the surgery ~ could I say that I have lived well? Slowly, I am beginning to see that it is precisely what I hated most about my life (the challenges, deepest wounds, most frustrating inabilities) that have delievered me here, beyond what I could have ever anticipated for this humble, wobbley little life of mine.

I like that this process is called a "transition." It is simply a metaphor. For me it is not about having a "sex change" ~ it is about having the courage to change every other single element of my life. Namely, my perspective. That wasn't working for me, and the depression was a symptom of that. In psychology, there is a term used for the self-defining chatter we tell ourselves constantly. Things like: "I'm a mess, I never do anything right." Or, "I'm a genius, I can do anything." These self-affirmations are nicknamed "the tapes" since we replay them over and over in our heads. Once we can change the negative tapes, maybe that is where we find our reserve of courage and fortitude.

For me, my greatest transition had nothing to do with gender, but had everything to do with liberating myself from the fears that told me I could live no other way. Now that I have shed those negative anchors, the only fear that now surfaces is the one about not having more time to explore this new venture.

(So, if you are reading this, it probably means that you know me, or know of me. Can you do me a favor and cross your fingers for me on Tuesday, December 11th? I need all the well wishing I can get!)

Here's to waking up from the table... Anything else after that will be good to go.