Scattered swiss cheese

 Well, the positive spin is that this blog has very much become part of what I originally envisioned; it is now symbolically how I solidify experience and make things real, and perhaps take a little agency in what I choose to keep.  Exactly what I wanted to happen... except that also means its subject to avoidance behaviors when I don't want something to be real.  So I've let the next post here burble in the back of my brain, a dozen possible subjects begging to be fleshed out, but none of it feeling like something I'm quite ready to face.  So... fuck it.  It's 3:30 in the morning and I'm wound up tight.  Lets see about letting some of this out. My impulse is to continue with the positive spin, and talk about the delightful acceptance my daughter has shown toward my transgender identity, and why I felt the need to talk with her about it so early.  I'm seeing a little through my own bullshit this morning, however, and that feels like it's going to be an...

 I'm trying out a lot of new thoughts in feeling out my identity.  One I had yesterday was "This blog is primarily for me, therefore it's valid to decide to include something because it feels right and leave it at that."  Therefore, there are going to be a number of posts from time to time that are just parts of my life that I'd like to keep, and these may lack meaningful context for others. March 31 - therapy notes "A compulsion is an effort to reduce uncertainty tied to a fear." 22Shades — March 31 Ok, screw it - not the time to be clever, apparently.  Sitting here trying to find the right words is just twisting me up further, and this is the right server to share joy on.  I had the big scary interview with Gender Pathways yesterday and now the consent form for HRT is in my inbox; sounds like I'm going to start in about 2 weeks.  Having a horrible morning physically, and I think that's overflowing into emotion and making things harder for no go...

Whelp, now I've gone and done it.  My Google search history now officially includes "Why do I want to be a girl?" and "Explaining Transgender Desires".  Honestly, life probably would have been demonstrably easier if I'd let myself ask such questions earlier, but it's coming from a slightly different angle than you might assume - for one thing, I'm already 45 years into this life, and I'm not in a gender identity crisis at the moment.  In point of fact, my self image and definitions are at an absolute peak of stability as compared to pretty much the entirety of my life. The reason I'm asking these things of the almighty Google isn't so much to find the answers for myself as it is to try and find the words to properly share these feelings.  Regrettably, the kind of post I was looking for hasn't leapt out at me, and morbid curiosity led me into a couple of religious websites for some unknown reason.  If I'm truthful, it was better th...

  Ok folks, it's time for a big one.  So far this little experiment has turned out so much better than I'd let myself hope.  The feedback I've gotten from those I've let in has been universally positive and supportive, and I've got to say, it feels fabulous to let myself have friends again (withdrawal due to not deserving friends is a common theme that comes up when my brain's pulling tricks on me.)   On top of that, I've been having a lot of big thoughts go thundering by in the last few days, thanks to actually starting to process some of this stuff.  Even with a number of things not landing quite how I wanted in the last few days, I've been noticing a lot more resilience in myself - tiny problems aren't swelling to humongous quite so quickly.  So, to put it shortly, I'm enjoying a recurrent good mood, which is wonderful and novel.    Mental health has not been my strong suit for a long time now; misfortune and disability have seemed to be a...

 Turns out that that ability to keep on trying to reframe issues is still working for me, and it feels damn good.  For close to a decade now, marijuana has been my go to tool for dealing with rampant pain and nausea - nothing else has worked as well, as fast, or as reliably.  I grew up in the age of DARE, though, and the message that drugs are ultimately bad and that even experimenting with them is a horribly weak and sinful thing has been etched into my brain.  On top of that, my first wife passed away from a methodone overdose, which just locked that attitude in even further.  So there's been a whole truckload of guilt, each and every time I address my pain.  Swapping over to THC concentrate and a vaporizer a few years ago dimmed some of my concern, as at least the stuff that was getting in me was considerably more pure and I can acheive a much finer level of control in balancing my symptoms with the inherent drug fog, but it sure didn't eliminate the gui...

 Hey all.  I've been thinking about this all morning (all night really; didn't get as much sleep as I wanted to last night), and I think it's time that I restarted a blog, in part to hold myself accountable.  Firstly, I'd like to address those who have been actively sent a link to this blog by me: you're all important people in my life that I trust (among other things, you all qualify for my criteria in wanting you here; the simple test of "Has this person intentionally harmed me in the past?"  Heat of the moment anger doesn't count; you can't conciously control that stuff, not entirely.)  Due to the way I'm built, mentally, it's important to me that you have access to these thoughts.  Not so much that I expect my words to be all that engrossing, or even relevant to you - it lands somewhere around a need for honesty as complete as I can manage with those I care about; there's a little bit of unhealthy thought behind that, in that there...