An observation

Still exhausted by this past week, I am hoping that a trip to rainy Brighton and their pride will lift my spirits. Mind you I am not depressed just a little raw inside, bit by bit I am finding myself swapping out self loathing and bringing in self discovery. Sometimes I don't like or I am not comfortable with what I find but instead of making it the stick I beat myself with, I simply decide to change it or live with it. Is this maturity I wonder, this new found self acceptance? Or maybe I am just too tired to punish myself the way I used to, ahh! those good old days ( ha! ).

It's a refreshing perspective, I am almost removed from myself, I am here experiencing and yet observing too, I move between my selves looking for balance and calm instead of madness. How ideal I make it all sound, this constant working to keep constancy, where has the old tortured me gone?

Steps and Starts

I didn't think it would be a big deal this, walking down the road to somewhere I've been before, the windows frosted so no one can look in, not that they'd want to anyway I'm sure. I've been here before long ago for a whole different reason, same purpose, different reason. This new purpose, new resolve it's a bit like burning, it warms and hurts me. Makes me question so much that I am not even sure I should be doing this. My heart pounds nervously against my ribs, I feel cold and my skin is hot as I fill out forms and give the uninterested bordering on belligerent receptionist my 3 forms of ID.

It's been playing on my mind for months now, this question, I could not find an answer. It twisted it's way around and inside me like wire, cutting and strangling out the small corner of joy and peace I had dug out. I slept on it for night after night turning the question over and over in my mind. What if, why not, but, maybe it's like a nest of worms these questions turning in my guts, strangling the air out of me until I can't think about anything else. I want to talk about it, to anyone who will listen and yet when they are in earshot I can't find a word to say out loud. My tongue rebellious will not speak of it, my guts rot with the questions swallowed by it.

So here I am, I could not ask anymore, I could not circle it one more time, here I am exhausted and broken by myself in this dirty GP office registering to ask for a referral to a Psychologist. They say at best it'll take 7 months for a referral and a part of me sighs with relief I want the time, I need it. I can't rush into this I think secretly I am hoping that in time the idea will wear away, just be a phase or someone will say nope that's not what it is, it's this. Somewhere I'm hoping against hope someone can prove me wrong. Pluck this thought out of me and put it in a jar filled with surgical spirit sterilized and confined so I can take it home and show it off like a gall stone whenever I need to whip out an entertaining anecdote. I remember the time I thought I wanted a different body *big belly laugh*.

I am terrified I won't find that middle ground I am fighting so hard to stay on, I'll be swept away in the promise of it all, find that what I really want, what I cannot deny is to get on that train and ride it all the way...

Dual existance

I am living two lives right now, my new name means that I have split away from myself in one world and am rooted almost stuck in my old name. They keep invading each other making it confusing not only for me but for the people around me. New acquaintances know me by my new name and yet are constantly confused by me and others referring to me and my old name and when both old and new are together it becomes even more complicated!

I can't seem to commit to either at the moment, the world keeps asking me to choose and I don't want to. It means I have to work that much harder, that I am that much more tired for it but I have only just found myself and part of that me is fluid and changing old to new and new to old, yes it's confusing and strange and difficult but it's more me than I have been in my life and I am not ready to let it go.

A name

It's been a while now, circling about in my mind, not many of them just a few and one by one they faded away until only one remained. Oskar ( Oscar ). It's my name, the name I've chosen, I put the question out what seems like a hundred years ago and now, no longer afraid of the answer I have heard it call me out saying, ' I am your name'. It's not the coolest or fastest or sexiest of names, it's a bit like a bear or a cat or a well worn chair, a little gruff and not overly concerned with appearance more substance and I suppose that is why we have found each other. I've gone for the Scandinavian spelling because I get to keep the K from my old name I don't much care for the other letters but the K has a certain elegance which I have always loved and thus will be happy to keep in my name. 

So far the response has been surprisingly positive my friends old and new in their own ways have been very supportive and this always surprises me I must say. I keep waiting for the rejection the derision but there is only ever support and it really does amaze me fill me with such joy knowing that they care enough about me and to show me that it's ok and I do so love them for it. Asking if they can call me by my new name saying that it suits me, that I look like an Oskar. How small a thing to them it must seem to say but it dam near breaks my heart with happiness to hear it, because I suppose to me they are saying yes I can see you, the real you in that name under all that flesh that you don't own I can see you and it helps me again to take a little more ownership of the body I am in.

I met another transguy the other day he's close to the end of transition for him and before I knew what I was doing I was bombarding him with all the questions I should not really ask, but he was gracious and decent about the whole thing and dealt with my questions directly which was very wonderful of him. Once again though I found myself faced with the overwhelming desire within to follow that path. For him it seemed such a normal and natural way, he seemed so much more complete and maybe even a little at peace with himself in a way I dream of being one day. Maybe I was just projecting that onto him I don't know but once again I find myself wrestling with the question should I or should I not? I don't want to keep living in this turmoil it is exhausting and lonely and sometimes just painful. Yet at the same time I keep thinking I shouldn't have to be the one that changes here I am a man and that's all there is to it surely that is enough. It's enough for all the other millions of men out there who are overweight, have man boobs and small dicks, why do I need to change what I am with drastic surgeries and hormones to be more like them? Am I not just falling into a trap here? My transness is not something I need to cure surely? Why can I not find a way to enjoy and be proud of me as I already am? Why can't I just not care about the people who are too scared or confused by me why can't I just stop worrying about this?

Words

Everyday I try and take a step closer to being the me I dream I am. Everyday I'm a little bit stronger for it, though some days it doesn't feel like it. I've spent so long trying to bury this me away hide him from the daylight so the people I could not bear to be without would not be horrified or repulsed by me. I'm slowly learning that they come round bit by bit once the shock has worn off the truly genuine ones they take a step back and find a way to accept what to them feels like a sudden change and I have to try and remember that. I have to find patience here, I'm bursting to get out and terrified at the same time what has been festering and clawing at my insides for decades now is finally being let out and although I am eager to be the me I have always been I am so deeply afraid of what it could mean, how far will I want to go, what if I can't trust myself to stop when I want to but go on beyond for the sake of acceptance they way I have hidden away for so long for the same. I hope I have learned that lesson and that the support I am finding in my friends old and new will keep that seemly lonely and desperate to please side of me in check.

For so long I have told myself no this isn't right no I don't feel this way and even though now I have accepted that I do vocalizing it and expressing it to others feels so difficult I have to push the words out, they stick in my gut as my tongue point blank refuses to work and the more I want to say these things the more resistant my body becomes. It's like a reflex for me now I feel the desire or curiosity build a sweet question or wandering fantasy grow and then burn into my bones where it is locked away and never spoken. So now I try and float the words before they become so meaningful find a way to say yes before the no reflex has a chance to kick in it doesn't always work but I just keep telling myself it's OK these words are mine and to say them is for me and no one else. I need these words to fly, be heard, draw pictures in the minds of others so that I too can take form and find reference in this world.

Pride

It's been an amazing year so far and London's LGBT Pride was amazing for me too, I met wonderful people, partied till I dropped and was a rock star for a few minutes. Sometimes you have to really stop and take note of what it is you actually do with your days, they go so fast and you forget to just stop for a moment or two and just recognize what you've been up to. I haven't really connected with pride much over the last few years but this year was different, maybe it was the group I was with, maybe it's because I was me and I wasn't trying to hide myself from anyone, maybe it was just the beautiful weather, I don't really know, but I'm going to hold onto it for the days when I am feeling low. I think it'll be just the sort of thing I can pull out on days when I need to remember that my life really is pretty amazing sometimes.