Things Are Getting Better

Things have happened in the last few months.

One: I've started to be really comfortable with calling myself 'trans' more than 'queer', which I think is a real step forward, because it's more...me.  I'm still queer.  And I'll still be genderqueer even if I do transition--it's possible, I've decided (discovered?) to be FtM and still be genderqueer.  So I'm thinking of myself now as transmasculine, if not quite a transman.  It fits.  And I'm okay with this.

Two: Because of this, I've started going out in public in boy-mode lately.  Not all the time, because it's Arkansas, and it's summer, and it's damn hot to bind all the time, but enough.  I'm okay with it.  I'm not freaked about binding and even packing in public.  I'm starting to buy more boy clothes for occasions like this.  I bought a nice short-sleeve plaid button down the other day that'll be much more comfortable in the summer than a long-sleeve with the sleeves rolled up.  I think I'm gonna go get a pair of khaki cargo shorts soon, too, to go with it.  Which is kind of a big deal for me; I haven't worn shorts in years.  Mostly because I don't shave my legs, and I'm self-conscious about it because I'm still publicly female and therefore still expected to shave.  That said...I think it'll help me pass if I do decide to wear shorts.  I'm getting some swim trunks, too.  And, obviously, a women's swim tank, but that's mostly because it's necessary.  The swim shorts have me stupidly excited, though.  The clothing and the binding and the presenting as a boy has been really freeing.

Three: My Bunnie, my bestest bestie, is now officially my girlfriend.  This happened a couple of weeks ago, but hell.  I've been busy.  Anyway.  She told me on the phone one night--and yes, she's still away, still not home, but it's okay--that she's figured out in all this time away from me that she really is in love with me.  And we're already planning our wedding, which really, we might as well have been doing all along.

So that's my update on life right now.  I'm settling into my identity and excited about being officially in a relationship.  Next step is probably realising that this apparently makes me a straight man, which I find hilarious in so many ways.  Of all the things I never thought I would grow up to be.

Long Nights Are Long

Sometimes I can feel the levees breaking.

Rarely in my life do I ever get to a point when I don't let myself feel my emotions.  It's not always a good thing, but I thoroughly believe that the best course to take with my own emotions is to let them happen.  If I'm angry, I let myself feel that anger, even if I have to temporarily stopper it to let it out later.  If I'm upset, I go someplace private and I cry.  If I'm happy, you'd better believe everyone around me knows it.  A lot of times, I do subject the people around me to my bad moods, and I do feel bad about that, but I feel like if I try to bottle it up and smile when I just want to scream, I'll go utterly insane.  At heart, I'm a hurricane.  Something has to give.

This is the first time I can remember that I have found myself sitting here knowing a bad mood is coming on, and I can hear the floodgates creaking, ready to burst, and I'm here screaming "no!" in the back of my  mind because I don't want it to happen.  I don't even know why.

And that's twofold confusion--I don't know why I feel this black mood pressing down on me, nor do I know why I feel like I can't just let it happen.

I kind of think the mood itself is just because I'm having a fantabulously dysphoric day.  Today and yesterday have been shit for that--I know I'm in for it when I wake up in the morning and have my hand resting on my breastbone and am wondering what all this soft tissue is, and then I remember that I do still have breasts, and I can't bring myself to get out of bed because as long as I'm lying flat on my back, gravity is doing its part to make me look less like a girl.  I dream so often that I'm free of my feminine characteristics that I often wake disappointed, even for just a few minutes.

The thing is, I'm still not sure if I would change if I had the money to go through surgery.  I don't want any manner of genital surgery, I know that much, because honestly, my ideal body is fine in that regard.  But the secondary characteristics...I think sometimes that I want the top surgery, and I want to go on T, and then I would be okay.  But then I wake up with no dysphoria at all and things are fine for a week or better and I'm okay with my body because I'm just me inside, no gender/body dissonance, even if I still don't fit my ideal.

I've been questioning myself a lot lately, about whether or not I know what I am.  Terms shouldn't matter, but I feel like I need to have a word to describe myself, or a string of words at least.  I like the term trans-masculine.  I don't think I'm a transguy, not fully, but I do feel like the word 'girl' does not fit me.  Nor do I feel I'm purely androgynous or agendered.  It's confusing.  And a little painful.  I hate not knowing things.

And I kind of realise at this point that the reason I'm staving off this mood is because I'm alone right now, because my friends have gone to bed--which I should do too and therefore fault no one for--and I have no one to take this mood out on.  That makes me a horrible person.  I think I'm just now realising that my moods suffer from the "if a tree falls and no one hears it" syndrome; if I'm in a bad mood and it happens when I'm alone, I feel I have no right to complain or talk about it or anything like that.  Which is bullshit, I recognise, but I never said my brain made sense to anyone but me.  This could explain why I always feel like taking out my bad moods by writing.

It's almost always a safe bet that if I'm in a particularly black mood, my characters are going to suffer royally.  So I'm a little bit sadistic.  I can't help it.  It balances out all that masochism.

I think at some point, I need to write an entry solely about what I see when I think of me, about the image I would like to present to the world.  I'm sure someone would find it amusing.  God knows I do in my more lucid moments.

I'm still not feeling any better.  This is why I try not to hold my emotions at bay.  I always feel worse in the end.

I think it's time for ice cream.