So I was reading over my last post and I noticed something came out a little wrong. The part about intelligent comedy and what not. I wasn't trying to say I'm more intelligent then most of my family. I'm not afraid to say there are some. But what I was trying to say is I listened to George Carlin, they listened to Buddy Whaisname. Our sense of humour simply not mixing. Same with the music.
Anyway, enough of that.
Something interesting has been happening to me the last few days. I'm not really sure how to describe it because it's a feeling that I actually have to concentrate, or not concentrate, I'm not sure, on feeling it. I felt it first looking the the mirror on friday before I went to bed. I was being lazy and not taking my make-up off before going to bed but I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I had my wig off and when I looked in the mirror I noticed I still looked feminine. It's either because my hair is long enough to look good now, or that with the combination of whatever else the hormones have done had me looking feminine to myself.
I think I have mentioned the "fake it until you make it." attitude. It's sort of how I get through life. I've operated, and made decisions many... many times as if it was happening to someone else. That's how I've been doing this transition as well. Just go through the motions and it'll all work out in the end. I don't know how to describe not putting any emotional stock into something, even yourself, but that is what I do.
Tangent time. This is something I have developed over time out of necessity. There's this thing humans do that causes a host of problems. People let themselves get attached to everything, their car, TV, guitar, favorite dishtowel, whatever. I've stopped myself from doing this. When living a life of constantly finding new people, places, and things and then just walking away from it all with no good-byes it starts becoming very hard to deal with yourself. This attachment we all do ends up in pain. Every. Single. Time. Your favorite shirt will eventually be unwearable, your favorite TV show will end, your pets will die, your lovers will leave you.
I used to get unbelievably attached to things, especially people and animals. Every loss to me was like tearing out a part of my soul, I'm pretty sure losing my pet cat was the last time I've felt like that, about 10 years ago. Though I guess a handful of people have managed to slip past the defenses over those 10 years.
It has had a few effects on me. One, I don't feel the horrible stab of loss when something or someone exits my life, it was going to happen anyway. I take situations and people as they come, how someone acted yesterday rarely has an effect on how I react to them today. I say rarely because, be an asshole enough times and I'll tell you to go to hell. But I don't register what people say to me. Yes, I hear them, I process what they say but it doesn't stick with me. I don't attach whatever just happened with that person like some sort of label. Same goes with everything else. I have no attachment to anything around me because none of it defines me.
All that sounds not bad, some of it even good.. almost wise. But the other side effects are starting to outweigh them. No more feelings of loss, but that comes hand in hand with feeling empty all the time, no one and nothing able to fill that hole. It has to be one of the things that boggle people about me. Who the hell is Rebecca, what does she do or like? Difficult to connect to people when you have nothing about you that they can compare to themselves. I don't feel any more. I used to be so compassionate, so empathic I would know there was something upsetting you before you did. Now, I just as well be walking around the matrix, every face just a symbol of a husk moving around the world. I've had my eyes closed, rummaging around my own head for a long time and now that I'm lifting my head back up and looking around at everyone it's very obvious to me I've missed a large part of the conversation. I know so much about *me* but I have no idea how to apply that to the real world. I have no idea now what I do and don't like, which sounds trivial but it leaves me lost often enough. I know who *I* am but I know nothing about how that person fits in with the rest of the people in life.
So what does this have to do with me in the mirror? Well, I've been doing this transition with no attachment. As much as I've always wanted it I'm just waiting for it to come to an end somehow. I already can't afford my HRT, I'm waiting for the month that I can't take my medication, that won't be a happy month. So, from conditioning, I'm waiting to lose something else I would have rather gotten attached to, but I'm not letting myself.
Don't get me wrong, transitioning has clearly had a positive effect on my life, anyone who knows me can spend ten minutes with me now and see that. I just haven't been letting myself believe it is happening to me, I look in the mirror and I feel more like I'm looking at someone else. What happened that day is it actually felt like me looking back at me. It was fleeting, and as I said, I have no idea how to summon it back up, but it was amazing. The reality of what is happening dawned on me for a brief moment. I really felt like that woman is ME. I've almost been scared to feel that feeling, I was concerned it would turn to utter terror. Into "holy shit what the hell am I doing?". Instead it made me smile, my eyes brightened, I stood up on my tip-toes and squeed. I started sizing myself up, picking at my hair, messing with my shirt, just in general enjoying what I seen, in every angle. I did that for a bit then realized how much of a girl I was being. I finished brushing my teeth and went to bed probably more content then I've been able to be in a long time.
Then the next day during mid afternoon I was laying in bed, fully dressed just having a little lay-down. I looked down at myself and the feeling I had yesterday started to creep in. This time I wasn't looking in a mirror I was looking at myself. Again, that feeling of "this is happening to *me*, this is how I look now." I don't know how to explain it, it's like watching something in a movie then turning to see that same thing happen in your room to you. Almost an epiphany of reality. I actually thought to myself "I bet if I touch my leg right now it will feel crazy." so I did. I was right. Feeling something on my skin is a feeling I haven't become used to yet. Simple "make-out sessions" with my partner are a sensory overload, that I actually can't endure it's so intense. When I touched my leg while on the bed it was like I injected something into my leg. A one finger touch, through jeans and it coursed from my fingertip through my thigh stopping at my knee. I gasped and cried actually. The intense reality that was hitting me made me unable to do much else.
And then I realized how happy I was. How when I look at myself, and I actually feel like it's me, it almost like a childhood, arm-pumping "Yes!", it feels like victory. That fleeting sense of "self" being the most intense, centered feeling I've ever had about me, I felt it right through my whole body. The other amazing thing about that feeling is I'm not convinced it's not coming back. In fact, today I feel like it's the inevitable result that will come from my transition.
The imagine that's in my head right now of myself being a woman that has that centered feeling being my norm seems almost like I'm picturing Wonder Woman. A woman with so much substance it looks like time is on her schedule, not the other way around.
I'll get there, some day.
No comments:
Post a Comment