 |
| A typical morning selfie, like the ones I post everyday on my social media. |
To be honest, I'm not writing this to bestow some kind of pearl of wisdom about how to pick yourself up by your bootstraps when you don't feel like it... I've never been good at that, and in fact I find the whole idea to be toxic (yes, sometimes we just need a good slap to get ourselves going, but more times than not, we're stuck and when someone tells us to just keep pulling yourself up, it can do more harm than good). But I feel like, for some reason, the past month has been a season where I've lost my mojo.
I'll write about this in some other blog post, but last month, my wife and I went to the United Kingdom for the first time... it was a pleasant trip, and we got to do lots of cool stuff. But since returning, I've felt really really sluggish. First, I thought it was just jet lag, but it's been almost three weeks since we've been back, and I barely got out of bed yesterday. Last weekend (Labor Day weekend), I stayed home 3 of the 4 days, and spent most of that time in bed. Anything that requires getting up before 9am is a draaaaaaaggggggg for me right now (thankfully my schedule is all afternoon stuff this term), and even after just a few hours up, I'm ready to go to bed. I'd love to talk about it with my doctor, but she just very quickly goes to blaming it on my weight (I've been big my whole life... yes, I'm getting older, but this level of exhaustion doesn't feel right).
But this past weekend, it feels like that exhaustion is being amplified by some negative thinking too. Yesterday, as I was getting myself up, I was thinking the whole time "Am I really Alicia?" "I still see Terrence a lot in myself... and I feel like him a lot," and this morning, when I took the selfie above, I honestly felt dysphoric about what I was seeing. I felt like I was seeing HIM much more than her.
I know many who would encourage me, tell me that they don't remember a time when I wasn't Alicia, or point out all of the progress I've made in my transition, and their words are 100% correct and valid. But it's very easy to let the constant public debate about the validity of transgender individuals sink in, and it's very easy to give in to the thought that "I have never been, nor can I ever be a woman."
I really don't want to talk about all of that controversy, mostly because I don't want to get into the nuances of the debate... It becomes too easy to get swallowed up in the exceptions to the rules, and use those exceptions to invalidate the vast majority of experiences (for example, the regret rate for transitioning is less than 1%... but for those who want a narrative to reduce access to gender affirming care, they will find and parade those 1%'ers as an argument that, because they regretted transitioning that none of us should be allowed to transition), but I will assert that Transgender Women ARE Women, Transgender Men ARE Men, and while it's absolutely true that a transgender person may not have the same experiences or background as a cisgender person, it doesn't make their existence any less valid.
Okay, now with that aside, I have to admit that I haven't been feeling much like a woman lately. I've felt like a lazy slob who just feels... well... stuck. I feel like things that I normally take joy in (like doing my makeup or even picking out an outfit) are just going through the motions lately. I think some of that is to be expected (I mean, I'm half way through my third year of living full time as Alicia... it can't always be as thrilling as it was the first time I got prettied up!), but this just feels... well... different. I'm not sure what it is or why it's happening, but if I could be honest, it also is giving me some level of thankfulness.
Last week, I had a brief moment where I think that "OMG OMG OMG" Alicia joy came out and I was reminded that she is still there... I was returning a pair of boots I bought from Torrid (the calves were, ironically for someone of my size, too large, and so I wanted to exchange them for smaller calf boots), and as I was walking in I saw this wonderfully dressed mannequin.
Anyone who follows my Facebook account (yep, showing my age) knows that, recently, I was "complaining" (think "first world problem" complaining) about having too many clothes. The plan is to purge some of my older clothes that either no longer fit or don't match my "style" anymore. But part of the plan has also included intending to "slow down" my spending on new clothes (seriously... five years ago, I was spending a ton building up a beer cellar... now IDGAF about that and I just want to build a bigger wardrobe), but for some reason, this outfit screamed "ALICIA", and I had to try it on:
Other than feeling a little "eek" about my double-chin (still need to lose weight), this outfit triggered massive amounts of gender euphoria. Whats interesting is that the top is technically a bralette that, with a full coverage bra underneath, works as a perfect blouse. The skirt and belt screamed "FALL" and the whole outfit just made me gush.
Yeah, I bought it... yeah, I feel some shame... but when the larger bralette and matching under-bra arrive and the weather finally begins to feel like fall, I'm going to throw this on with a pair of brown boots, grab a pumpkin spice latte, and walk around a block with lots of changing trees! You better believe I'll be getting my basic white girl on in this outfit!
There was one other thing that, honestly, has been positive about this little "funk" I'm in... while I mentioned not feeling like a woman, I also really don't see/feel like a man anymore either. I mentioned seeing "HIM" in the mirror earlier in this post, but it didn't feel like seeing a man... but seeing old semblances of "Terrence." Let me be honest for a second... I never felt like a man as Terrence... I didn't see a woman in the mirror, but I certainly didn't see (or really felt) like a man... I don't know how to describe that without getting into a lot of gendered stereotypes, but I've always been more, well, androgynous... I don't think I'd say nonbinary either... I'm not sure what I'd say, but I was trying to live an act like a man because, well, that's what was expected of me. As soon as I was given permission to step outside of that expectation, it wasn't long before I realized that I wanted to transition, and not long after that I realized there was no "want" about it... that transitioning was what needed to happen. What's crazy is that I'm a little over a month away from the 4-year mark of that day my egg fully broke... and next month, I'll be marking 2 years on HRT, and 1 year specifically on progesterone.
So what the hell am I getting at? Well, as mentioned earlier, I really don't know. What I do know is that I love who I am, even when I'm not feeling much like a woman, I'm not feeling like a man either, and it doesn't take much to remind me of who I am, and why.
The other thing I'll say here is, to be honest, I know I'll pull out of this funk. This isn't the kind of thing where people need to do wellness checks on me, nor is it a feeling of defeat or doom. I've tried working on a series on the deepest depression I've gone through (I kind of stopped when I realized that so much of what I was saying was bashing a few of the churches I used to be a part of, and while I think the humanity of ministry certainly played a role, I'm too thankful for the time I had in ministry to bash all of it either... I don't think that would be a 100% fair portrayal of things, so I've been sorting that out), but two of the biggest components were a MASSIVE sugar rush followed by some pretty significant circumstantial bumps that caused my morale to plunge... there are some elements of that here (namely coming off of the sugar rush that getting to finally live as Alicia has made for me), but this feels significantly less "doom spiral," and honestly, just a moment where I'm taking an emotional breather. I would say that, besides the terror I feel about the upcoming election, things are going pretty well! I have a lot of stuff to look forward to, and I'm pretty excited about my future. I've also had some pretty awesome things happen over the last few months too.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I'll pull through... and these kind of funks are meant to be "pull-throughable"
Hugs!
-Alicia
