A change is as good as a rest

Well I've been off out in the wilds these last few days and it has truly given me a chance to just take a breath and be myself and not think about anything to do with my body or gender. I went out to a festival ( my first ) and camping ( my first time ) with a few friends of mine who I am very blessed to have because they let me be me in a very unique way. I can be whatever I want and they still very much full of affection for me and I pay them the same courtesy. I suppose that sounds trite to some, used to death, beaten to it's corner, but these are the breaths of fresh air that remind me that it's OK despite all these questions and trying to work out who I am and what I am about. There are some pretty incredible people in my life who think I am pretty dam special and I need that.

When I am swimming about in my mental drama's and turmoils as I am want to do at times, I can get myself back to ground by remembering that there are some very cool and beautiful people out there who think I am pretty cool and worth being around and they don't give a monkey's what gender I am or if I decide to dye my hair pink and start wearing mini skirts. These are the people who make my life worth living, I spend a lot of time worrying about what people will think, how they will react, that I may hurt people with my decisions. These people are the people who tell me it's not about them, it's about me and it's my life and my self who has to ultimately live with this stuff these people are my gold, my treasure and I can't imagine not having them in my life now I have them there. It's funny that we stumble upon each other by accident almost, there is no expectation that at that moment you may meet someone you will truly love for just being them and that they will love you back. This isn't about being lovers, it's not sex or attraction in that sense, but it is deep and sometimes uncomfortably intimate ( for someone who is used to keeping people at a distance ) but it's not something I ever want to walk away from.

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.

Lovers and Fighters

Off to The Lovers and Fighters Convention by some magic of the universe I am dressed as smart as I can to the one show I desperately wanted to see but couldn't get tickets for. It's funny how the world just does what you want sometimes.

So my lovely new butch friend from the RVT had her friend drop out at last minute and she thought of me to ask to go and see it ( amazed and grateful I really was, how lovely of her to think of me after such a short time of knowing each other ). So got there early and met another friend as I was crazy excited about going and I sure as anything wasn't going to sit at home and bounce a hole in the floor :). We sat watched people drank gin and bourbon ( not together of course ) and then she had to go catch her movie. Not much later my other new friend turned up in cow print pajamas and quite unsurprisingly carried them off very well, I think it's a confidence thing myself you can't have style without confidence.

Anyway off we went to see the film I was super excited people around me also had made an effort we were the best dressed in the NFT that day.

The film was a video document of a performance of The Genderqueer Playhouse, filmed in front of an audience ( some of whom I recognized hehe ) interwoven with interviews with the performers themselves. I was instantly jealous that I had not had the chance to see this myself but very glad that someone ( in this case Mike Wyeld ) had had the idea to record this for people like myself to see. This film spoke to me as a celebration of the myriad of gender identities out there and it offered me a huge comfort once again seeing people I know, some of whom I have seen perform, once again giving of themselves so personally to get the message across that this is not a binary world in terms of gender. There are many twists and turns to finding that place we can be ourselves in. Sometimes the journey is fun and sometimes painful but definitely worth it.

For me just beginning to find my feet on this journey this is a deeply important message, before I started to accept my own identity questions and reach out to other people who had already started exploring this I didn't know there was any other option open to me other than being male or being female and that's a scary place to be for me finding myself asking questions about my gender again after so long. 

Like I have said before if I was 19 and had the options available to me now I probably would not have thought all that long about it, I would of gone for it no question, but now I've lived in this body coped with it found ways of not hating it a part of me has become more afraid of the idea of changing it. Which is in itself strange, someone asked me quite recently what if I had the surgery and I didn't like the results and my reply was even if it all went horribly wrong and I was deformed by surgery it would still be no worse to me than the body I already have. That answer shocked me I didn't see it coming the words fell out of me like they had been sitting there for years waiting for that question and when it came I didn't have the time to filter it for me or for my questioner. I don't know what to do with that answer, I don't know how it fits into this new world and I am afraid of where answers like that will take me.

For now though I am just holding onto the messages from the film I hope in the future I can see some of the performances I haven't had a chance to see yet, I look forward to getting to know some performances better and to see where the Trans community goes with the documenting of it's history. Already so much has happened in my lifetime I have seen so much change and it has given me hope for the future. I hope we in the Trans space can continue to keep its inclusiveness I think it is the most powerful tool there is. To make everyone welcome and accepted is a message that cannot be eroded I hope.

I also think it is incredibly important that people are starting to recognize the importance of documenting the Trans movement more and more. These are the voices and stories that will help and save more people like me looking for somewhere safe to think the things we have not dared to, to find the spaces and people to talk to about what we could not before and this sense of history and community can help to reach out to more of those people lost in their own gender wastelands.

Hard Choices

We all need a bit of physical contact, usually a hug from a friend and I've been thinking about this. What does someone touching you say, on a very unspoken level for me touching says I am accepted. That I am not some kind of monster or diseased or wrong, it says I think you are nice enough inside and out to make me want to physicially connect you to me in a non-sexual way.

Lately thoguh I am finding it harder and harder to let people touch me, it's not that I don't want it because I really do and in a way that is the problem. I crave that physical contact in a way that when someone does give me a hug or touch my arm it is so intensely personal fo me that it is uncomfortable. I miss the physicality of people only recently have I found people around me willing to touch me in a friendly way and it is addictive. I must keep acceptable boundries even though I am not sure where they are. I cannot allow myself to crave that contact the way I do, I may have to go back to my glass bubble just to keep my sanity.