Dev's Dawn

What a terrible word.

My anxiety surrounding this whole thing rises up the most when I get caught in a mindset of what I should be doing, how I should be acting, what I should be wearing as a person that identifies as trans.

At least now I can recognize it and snap out of it.  It’ll look like slowly falling into what turns into a full blown obsessive thought loop about how I have to figure out my feminine style, and go buy a buncha new clothes, but that could cost a lot of money, how will I be able to afford all those clothes, and what if I can’t figure out my style and I buy a bunch of stuff I don’t even like, I should be presenting more feminine...

Blah blah blah.

After a while of falling into that thought process, spinning my wheels, and ultimately just feeling bummed because I don’t know what the right answer is, I got to a point where I realize the whole thing is fueled by thoughts of what I “should” do, expectations of other people, comparing myself to other people who are what I consider to be the same journey, and so on.  And that that’s not the place that I want to be inspired from.

It’s helped me realize, and given me the space, to see that I’m already there.  I’m already where I am, and where I’m going hasn’t happened yet.

There’s no reason to get caught up in and anxious about orchestrating or manufacturing the path, or the destination.  It’s about being truest to myself in this moment, every moment.

I feel like any blog or journal I’ve ever had has a significant amount of posts or entries that begin with some sort of reference to the concept that I don’t write in them/post to them nearly as much as I would like to/intended to.

I also feel like I use the construction “I feel like...” a lot.

At this point, I’m 2.5 months into HRT, which consists of solely taking estrogen in pill form, without t-blockers.  The first four to six weeks left me feeling fairly disappointed, as not only was I not feeling as much as I would have hoped or expected... I wasn’t feeling ANYTHING.  After speaking with my therapist, it turns out the the dosage I was started on was EXTREMELY low, even by the most conservative standards, most especially considering I wasn’t utilizing t-blockers.  I was started on 2mg a day, and according to my therapist, a more standard starting dosage for someone in my position he would have estimated to be closer to 4-6mg per day.  Of course I wasn’t feeling anything.  Pissing in the ocean.

I messaged my doctor through the nifty online portal thingy to let her know that although I had an upcoming appointment, I also needed to go in to get my prescription refilled, and I was hoping she could up my dosage based on some personal research I had been doing and the the fact that I wasn’t feeling any sort of difference or effect.  

Fortunately, she obliged, and pushed my appointment out a month or two further down the road, which was ALSO helpful because over the course of this period, I ALSO learned that my insurance is NOT helping me out nearly as much as I was hoping they would, and every time I go in to see this doctor that doesn’t really know what she’s doing and is handling my case like she worried she’s going to break me, it costs me about 500-700 out of pocket. 

I’m still trying to figure out how to handle that, how exactly to work that out.  Maybe next time I go in, I’ll see about what the absolute least I could possibly go in would be, and discuss the fact that I can’t sustain those kind of medical bills, and that I might need to find another solution if there’s no way around it.

At the end of the day, at least at this point in time, I’m happy with my dosage and I don’t have any concerns of any kind, so if she’s happy to “be my doctor,” but that her only duties therein would be refilling my prescription every few months, that we can rock it like that, no problem.  This seemed like a cool solution because she was going to serve as my primary care and kind of just become my all around doctor, but there’s no way I’m gonna go in to see this bitch every time my throat hurts at 500 per visit.

I keep mentally checking in with myself, and of course, those that know what I’m going through keep asking how I’m feeling.

“Great!” I tell them, and I mean it.  But I can’t really talk about specifically why.  It’s a general sense of ease and clarity that I can’t really pin down and, frankly, can’t specifically attribute to the estrogen itself, either.  But I’ve gotten to a place where I don’t think that’s really the point, and I don’t think that really matters.  It’s more about this new space that I’ve created by deciding to embark on this journey, and by following through with my decision.  There’s this new safe space, this new home, that I’ve created for myself that collects all the thoughts and moments that have to do with self-love, self-actualization, self-identification, self-expression... just all the good, warm SELF stuff... that all kind of ends up getting tied to or at least abstractly related to and synonymous with gender and gender exploration in my spirit.

I can say that I feel a new sense of relief.  I can say that I am seeing with a new clarity.  I can say that what used to feel like fighting a battle uphill, or with my hands tied behind my back, or hindered in some way, now feels more levelled out.  I now feel unencumbered by a sloggy haze that used to get in the way of how I was perceiving and navigating life.

Whether this is specifically, physiologically effect of the estrogen, I don’t know, and like I said, truly believe doesn’t matter to me.  What’s important, what I’m thankful for, is the fact that I found this thing that is helping me continue to find and BE the truest version of myself that I can possibly be, and of course, in that, it will all become a cascading, domino effect of this changing that, and so on.

I know that I’m familiar with the feeling of “I’m not getting enough, this isn’t making a difference.”  Now I don’t feel that way.  I feel like I don’t want MORE, either.  I feel like I don’t know where this is going to ultimately lead me, but that uncertainty doesn’t even for a minute make me wanna stop or slow down.

My nipples have starting hurting, and I can feel the buds of breast development starting.  I wouldn’t say it’s noticeable at this point, but it has got me thinking about how I feel about breast development, and again I say, I don’t really know.  I don’t know what to expect, I don’t know where it’s going to lead.... I’d say if it was just me myself and I, and I was only considering my own, internal thoughts and feelings about it, it wouldn’t bother me.  I might even be a little excited about it, I’m not sure.  Any hesitation or trepidation I feel about it is directly tied to the anxiety surrounding what other people are going to think, are people going to notice, how am I going to navigate and explain to people, etc.

But again, any anxiety or hesitation I feel is not enough to make me want to stop.

I took my first dose of estrogen yesterday afternoon.

It feels good to have finally, officially taken the first medical step on this journey.  I’ve many thoughts and feelings surrounding this whole thing.  How long will it take before I notice ANYTHING?  WILL I notice anything?  Will I be able to be still enough with the subtleties of my changing emotions to actually tell the difference?

I just think about when I first started taking Alpha Brain, and not really being sure whether I felt it or not... And that shit is a lot more expensive than this estrogen is.  

I suppose the comforting thing should be that, yes, I do feel the difference now.  Whether that’s because I’ve sort of naturally started becoming more sensitive to things, and feeling things more deeply, or if it’s because AB has a cumulative effect that’s more noticeable after an extended period of regular use, I think both of those things will apply to hormone usage, so we’ll see.

I guess the reality of the situation is that I would much rather a mildly, pleasantly noticeable change than the hormonal wreck that I could potentially turn into, which is what everyone’s kinda making me feel like it’s gonna be.  Like, guys, I know what it feels like to spin out into the dark space and then remember, oh yea, this probably isn’t the reality that I think it is.  I’ll be fine.

Right?

As I take my first pill, down the hatch, I can’t help but think about the Matrix.  Maybe it’s a tired metaphor, but this is the most on the nose image of it I’ve seen in my life.  The pill I take that takes me deeper down the rabbit hole.  Deeper into a realer reality than I have ever experienced before.  

At least that’s what I HOPE it turns out to be.

And it’s wild to think about the fact that on the other side of this thing, I don’t really know what to expect.  Who I’ll be.  Of course I’ll still be me.  Hopefully more me-ish than I’ve ever allowed myself to be.  But what will that look like?  How will that feel?  How will I talk to people?  What will my mind do?  What will I spend my idle time doing and thinking about?  How will my priorities change?  Who/what will I be attracted to?  What will my sex life look like?  Will there be women that will still be interetsted in being with me even if I can’t get it up?  Penetrate them?  Ejaculate?  Will I still be satisfied if all that comes to pass?? Or will I get trapped in some kind of loop of endlessly chasing sexual satisfaction and climax, never able to truly achieve it?  Scratch the itch?  Will people notice?  Will I develop breasts?  Will my face change?  Will my body hair and skin change?  Will people NOTICE, though?  

I still very much feel that even in the face of all of this uncertainty about what my future looks like, I couldn’t be more confident that I’m making the right decision and couldn’t be more excited for myself or proud of myself for making the decision, sticking to it, and doing all of the things I needed to do in order to execute it.  Lord know the road hasn’t been as long, and the hoops to jump through haven’t been as plentiful, as they have been for like-minded folks going through this process in the past, but all I have is my experience to go on, and to me, there were plenty of opportunities to drop the ball, or let it go.  Plenty of spots to get lazy or ask myself, “Is this really even worth all of the effort and risk?”

But I never had a choice.  It was never a question.  And in that way, this process has already been worth it.  To experience the feeling of unquestionable certainty of a path.  As silly as it seems, it’s nice to feel like I finally found a thing that’s my thing.  Of course it’s many other people’s thing as well, but overall and on the zoom out, this is not a normal experience or thought process to go through.  This particular road is not one that makes sense for many people, and not one that may even OCCUR for even a SECOND to very many people.  But it did occur to me.  And it stuck.  And nothing has ever made more sense.  And i just hope and pray that that certainty deepens as I get into the process.  And that I remember that that’s exactly what it’s going to be.  A process.  There’s no finish line.  There’s no end goal.  And in that way I have found my art.  And my art is my body.  My emotions.  And I vow to stay committed to the pursuit of expressing myself through my art as earnestly, and honestly, and wholly as I am capable.

Because now that I’m here, I can’t do it any other way.  Now that I’ve seen, I cannot unsee.  Now that I’ve felt real magic and wonder, I really can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.  Thinking about hormone therapy and how it may make me feel, I do believe, at least in my adult life, is the first time I’ve felt that true sense of wonder and excitement.  Youthful and childlike.  “You mean that’s possible?  That’s an option?  That’s allowed?  That’s AVAILABLE to me?”

It felt like I was going to spend the rest of my life waiting for my first appointment at the new UCLA Gender Health Center to come.  The program is brand new, and of course, highly impacted and severely understaffed, so it took 2-3 months from the point of making my first phone call to them to the point where I was walking through the doors of the clinic in Santa Monica. 

So of course, I was given all of the time in the world to fully think all the thoughts and feel all the feels.  I went through periods of excited elation, anticipating, WISHING the appointment day would just be upon me already.  Then periods of doubling back, wondering if this was even the right decision AT ALL.  Was this really what I wanted?  Was this really what I NEEDED?  What if I’m just faking all of this and none of it is really what I believe or feel it to be?  Am I supposed to be figuring out another way to do this?  Shouldn’t I be able to feel better in my body, as it is, as God made me?  

And I surprise myself by having a thought like that last one.  It’s insane to me how in a time like this, the indoctrination and, let’s be honest, brainwashing, of my religious upbringing can peak its little head up.  Humbling, really, because I like to think that I’ve reached a new place in my life when it comes to spirituality, one that’s open to all and free from the limiting beliefs that characterized the Christian “faith” of my youth.  But that shit’s still in there, buried as it may be.  I can still feel a pang of guilt and shame for feeling the way I do.

The moment I realized that this IS in fact that course for me, the most absolutely necessary next step for me in my journey, came when I was thinking about what this appointment was going to look like.  What the doctor’s were going to say.  Whether this was going to feel like an audition for the doctor to determine whether I was trans enough to deserve the hormones I sought.  And I had a moment where I imagined being denied hormone therapy, and I was absolutely heartbroken in a way I can’t describe.

And then I thought, “Well that’s pretty telling.”

So as I’m sitting in the appointment, having the doctor and the psychologist ask me questions about my history, and my goals and expectations, and all of the “Have you thought about this and that” type questions, thinking seriously about how my body will potentially never be the same, neither in form, nor in sexual function, I realized that I this is absolutely undeniable.  Despite the concerns, the hesitations, the worries that I might have about what may or may not come in the future, NOTHING is big enough to STOP me from starting.  

Maybe I’ll start hormone therapy, not like how it feels, or realize that it really WASN’T right for me, and I’m open to that too.  But I’ve never been so resolute in the fact that I will not be able to live with myself and continue on throughout my life if I don’t try.  I’ll always wonder what could have been.

I kept thinking about how it would probably be pertinent to start a blog or a journal or something as I’m embarking on this journey.  That maybe I would be glad I did.  That maybe it would be something that I could look back on to remember how I was feeling at each stage.  That maybe it would be something that I could share with people that are having similar feelings that may provide some comfort.  Or at least normalize those feelings a little bit.

This last Monday, October 29, 2018, I took what I suppose is my first real step down this road that leads who knows where.  I mean, I suppose there were a bunch of little steps before it, but this one felt the most.  Official.  I went in to have my sperm banked in preparation for HRT.

I have a lot of weird feelings surrounding it, and I guess I just want to process those feelings, as well as, like I said, use this as the occasion to warrant starting a new time capsule to memorialize ALL of the thoughts and feelings I’m sure to be flooded with over the coming months.

I guess it was just very strange... surreal... to the very first step toward anything that had anything to do with family planning (besides an abortion appointment) in this way.  Wanting HRT.  Going to a facility to jerk off into a cup to preserve my own seed JUST IN CASE I find myself in a situation where I want to have a biological child of my own down the road.  Having to check the “Other” box in answer to the question, “What’s your reason for banking?”  Military? No.  Vasectomy? No.  “Other: Pre-HRT”

My very first REAL action toward thinking about or planning for a future.  A child.  That may or may not ever exist.  By myself.  In a room.  Jerking off into a cup.  Just in case.

The reality of the situation is that I’m glad I did it and I’m glad it’s over.  One of the non-sexy, non-glamourous parts of this whole process, but it had to be done, and now it is.  I like being able to check things off my mental check-list, it’s always such a relief.  Like the dissipating of a dark cloud that’s been pestering me for a time.

Now on to the next step - in two weeks I’ll be going in for my first doctor’s appointment tied to HRT...  I don’t know what to expect, and I don’t know if I’m going to be walking out that day with a prescription, or better yet, the bottle of pills itself, but I do know that I’ve been through the range of emotions of “Am I faking this?  Am I trans enough to do this?  Am I making the right decision?  Will I regret this?” enough to know that all those and similar feelings are coming from a place or anxiety and other negative emotions, and when I can get out from under them, I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of rightness.  I’m exactly where I’m meant to be, exactly when I’m meant to be, and I’m on the cusp of something big.  And beautiful.