stone of miles

In prosaic and banal yet probably relevant terms, today I got access information to my bank again (there was a technical issue) and set up my monthly utilities payments. I also set aside the costs for the SRS I want in a separate account (draining most of the others, so should rebuild during the year).

This in itself is minor and means nothing. But with that in place, and hopefully soon the therapist letters in place, and knowing there are open surgery dates when I am considering it…

… there will soon be no concrete obstacles in the way, so I’ll have to face the moment of decision.

compulse

It really does bother me this thing about heteronormativity as internalized in the structure of this, the only world which is so fully mirrored about me. Almost every narrative of a girl experiencing love and lust is with a man. So when trying to understand myself as a girl, I feel that unless I share those experiences with my sisters – to the extent of passionately wanting and pining for boys – then I am missing out on being like other girls. More to the point (or exactly the same point), I am dysphoric over not being androphilic.

It’s nothing simple. I have sexual attraction to men (smell and looks) in various cases. I’m growing fonder and fonder of girldick so long as it isn’t mine, too. It’s all a matter of social alignment and… energy… somehow. Men that I feel for I come across at most once in a blue moon. That makes me probably mostly lesbian. And dysphoric because I’m not into boys the way other girls are.

I think I have heard just this narrative from cis lesbians too though. And perhaps that is the way? I must find and hear their voices, share their stories, and in that I may find a strategy. Work on compulsory heterosexuality together with my gay cisters.

imbolc I

First year I celebrate it, my appropriative faux-syncretist Imbolc appropriately was exactly as not expected, which is to be expected. There was some drama which I am still unpacking, with issues colliding where I suppose everyone involved had hoped for synergy rather than malergy. I was nowhere near as graceful as I would like to have been, but think I did not do significant damage at least.

As for damage sustained, much more was gained than lost. At Imbolc is the Goddess in her Maiden state, naïvely receiving, adoring, fully open to being hurt and disappointed, and certainly not wise yet. So she makes mistakes and she hurts and she is hurt, and it is only through these experiences that she can come to understand her dynamics and learn to go beyond them when desired.

I’ll say that whether justified or not, at this point it would be counter-productive of me to not feel all I can feel. I must wallow in every cascade, every implication. Already I discovered new things, including facets of emotion I was not aware were there. It does not matter if they are desirable or not. I must stop censoring, and only after I have done that can I do other, more complex processing; how else will I be able to unlock emotion more generally? Two avatars of Chaos have both demonstrated this to me in words and action; both have hurt me in similar ways and I have love for them both.

All such aside, a dear friend suggested to me strategies for motion and increased body awareness. I took her up on some – for the first time today I was jogging (all right, briskly walking) to the Babylon Main Station, trying along the way to stay aware primarily of my body. It was exactly as hard as expected and I often lapsed, but I did sense the interconnectness much better while in motion (contra to body scanning lying down). Most interesting, and valuable going forward, was that there exists some extent of (controllable) hip sideways motion when moving. Not only can I sense this but also control it, and I could try to habitualize its increase.

Arriving at the station, this day I was all right out of bed without makeup, no shaving (but no stubble is visible since some time now), in old pre-transition bulky black exercise clothes. This too very much an emotional and social experiment which will be repeated. I was not really gendered either way, so I can’t assess it, but from mirrors, I think that if anyone reads me as male, it will be as a tall pre-teen effeminate boy. It probably confuses, and some fraction also probably saw a woman as they passed me. Since otherwise I never go out without makeup this may be a useful recurring experiment.

Did not take a sports bra on in the hope of feeling jiggling; I did not. But the body scanning approach while running seems like something I could slowly get better at, and I could also do it standing or walking.

We move.

combo breaker

Ultimately it doesn’t matter why someone is not interested in a particular type of connection. If there is an incompatibility, it means we would have needed to be two different people for a different outcome to be possible. However the incompatibility is understood or described also does not matter. The outcome is what matters, for this aspect in and of itself. There are plenty of valuable aspects of friendship I can experience with a lot of people, which is beautiful and valuable and necessary.

Meanwhile even if I do not perceive myself as flawed for an incompatibility, it reveals what is lacking in my life. And it remains that I must be allowed to be sad for that which is lacking. The fact that for so long I did not is what messed me up. So I’ll be as sad as I want. And I’ll go for all things that help me get closer to where I need.

cpt hook

So, learning things. I’m actually sad over things I decided many years ago I was not allowed to feel sad over, jeez Louise, who would have guessed? I needed “high hopes, low expectations” and mindfulness in relationships, and it has its uses, but all of me inside is needing to weep over all the times that still hurt, the breakups, the fadings out, the phases in relationships where I slowly got used to not receive any attention or focus, where I got used to being an afterthought or a complement. I can do that but I have to do more also.

I was happy – celebratorily so – at the milestone at finally having cried pre-sleep such that I have to blow my nose over and over again until I actually can sleep. Every teenage girl needs to pass this important milestone and I consider it an important step, a sign that I’ve actually grown. At some point, I will be Psycho Girlfriend, and I long for that day too.

On another level, when it storms, my past inclination has been to try to – usually with no success, but never mind that – seek hookups or escalations of play or whatever. Because validation. The thought of that now is… weird. So I want the perception of being alive and of things being meaningful that good sex brings. But unless everything relationally is Just Right, I don’t really feel that?

That’s sort of new. Thinking back at the last times I was with someone, I felt it interesting because of discovery and exploration and closeness and bonding and love. Not wanting to get off, and not wanting to seek sex in order to get off. After some time of intimacy, I can find myself warming up somehow and wanting to get off? Is this how other girls stereotypically function too? We want to be brought to sensory states and climaxes but we don’t have that wish saliently until we’ve already been at it for some time based in emotional connectivity and more conventional sensuality? Is this that whole foreplay idea?

For me then, getting off once I do want it, that is an issue. I can, with toys. I mostly can’t be seen naked, not even with other pre-op girl I am in love with, though I may be able to learn to. But coming is cumbersome, and cleaning up cum is something awful and I hate it. I really hope SRS will fix this part for me, will fix my parts while keeping them sensate.

So where does that leave me? I want to do hookups because emotion and symbolism and decadence and outlets. But I can’t easily because getting and staying in the mood is hard, without chemistry and with dysphoria, very difficult. And in the end, when I want to be stimulated, it’s a ridiculous and unsatisfactory hassle.

Perhaps once I’ve fixed my anatomy I’ll go out and have people fuck me, I’ll probably try it. May not assuage the need for connection and chemistry though. So how do I get what I need, except in relationships? Good question.