Simulacrum

Well, what a packed week I had. I did go out Friday to see Red Durkin perform. She is hilarious, and she had herself "screeched in" after the show, lol.

The entire week was great, I missed a few things unfortunately but it all went well from what I hear. We are doing a good job here in Newfoundland promoting trans awareness. There are constant changes being done to discrimination laws as well, there was a debate thursday morning in the house of representatives to include gender identity in the NL human rights act. It is exciting to see these changes even trying to happen, we have come a long way since my teen years.

Ugh, I hate stating dry facts so back to my feelings...

As I mentioned I wanted to talk about my speech. Well, that's not exactly true. My speech kinda is what it is. The video is there, it went well enough as you can see. I did get a great response from the crowd afterward, I was approached by several people who were appreciative of or moved by what I said.

Watching the video of myself though, that was a new experience for me.

I always hated pictures and videos of myself. There is not a single picture of my male self that I like, the sound of my male self speaking like a male always sounded wrong to me. If I ever listened to my own recorded voice before I would quickly turn it off and possibly throw it across the room in disgust. Every picture I look "wrong", like there is something underneath that I was missing. Like a painting with a hidden picture in it I just can't see. There is one actually that I always liked. It was of me in grade eleven with my long hair, and I look more like a girl then a boy.

That was how I expected to react when I watched the video of myself. I figured I'd turn it on, watch about twelve seconds of it and turn it off. Instead what happened was I was riveted to the video and I was smiling pretty much the entire time. I found myself watching it and thinking "aww this is going to be over soon." like I wanted to see more of me. That is a totally foreign feeling to me. Everything seems to "fit". Even my voice slipping in and out of being where I like it doesn't throw me off while watching it because it still seems to fit in a strange sense. My movements, facial expressions, everything about that seems so right. Even the nervous clap I did at the end because no one realized I was done just looks cute to me. Normally something like that would embarrass the shit out of me.

I don't really know how to describe the powerful feeling underneath it all. Yes everything feels "right" but the feeling of feeling "right" is euphoric... and astonishing. It's like being adrift for years and seeing the tip of an island over the waves of the ocean. You're not quite sure how far away it is but there it is, safety, hope, comfort... home. It's where I belong, after all this time of floating aimlessly.

When I take the time to think about it, like I am right now, I can't help but giggle, and laugh, and cry, and relax. That woman in that video can't be me can she? Yes it can, and is.

I could never picture my male self. I don't know if I can stress that accurately enough. I could never, still can't, just summon up a mental image of my male self. I just literally can't picture that face. I can picture myself now on a whim. I can remember how I looked doing something, or I can even make up a situation and picture myself in it. I actually have a self image now, an identifiable one.

Ok, enough for now. This week has left me with a good bit to talk about but I'm going to stop here for now.

Back soon