This may just be my worst entry ever.

Jello blog.

Yesterday was fun. I was invited to go on a walk with a friend, but there must have been some communication breakdown as it turned out to be a run, which was fine with me but I wish that I wore looser clothing as I was trying to dress queer and my pants were waaay to tight to sprint in. =P It turned out to actually be a profound, thought provoking experience which I really hadn’t expected, but I was grateful for it. I think I'll save that experience for a latter post.

Afterwords we went back to his house in Hillcrest, he made an awesome diner. Then we wandered around the gay district for a while, mostly people watching. So, I saw dozens upon dozens of gay “bros”, muscle bound macho guys wandering about – but where are all the whisper thin artistic types??? Are they all already taken? Maybe they're just avoiding the clubs. (Mental note – look up “queer open mike poetry readings in San Diego” tomorrow.)

We ended up at some tiny club/bar that was mostly populated by lesbians and queer people. I liked it because it wasn’t so overpoweringly loud and they were playing 80's music, which I love. =P My friend seemed to like it too, but I wonder if it may have been because he spent a lot of time time checking other people out. ;)

I got back from Hilllcrest at 0200 and I went to sleep at 0230. I woke up at 0700 so yeah, not much sleepies for me. =( I snuggled up with my cat until around 0800 and then I got up as it was obvious that a full nights sleep had once again alluded me.

After I got cleaned up I walked over to the new Panera Bread that just opened near my condo in the hopes of getting some early morning exercise and a healthy breakfast, but I was disappointed. They got my order wrong and when I got the right one the egg whites on my sandwich were paper thin, cold and rubbery. AND it was on white bread, which is nutritiously worthless.

After that I wandered over to Walgreen’s to get some other supplies *whistles* and then I headed back home. All in all it was a good walk, especially since I'm still wearing my hoodie to cover up the wounds on my left arm and I got hot as hell. Those wounds are going to leave some nasty scars and seeing that the hot San Diego summer is rapidly approaching I'm going to have to stop worrying about freaking people out and just wear my normal clothing. It's going to be hard to explain them when coworkers see my arm. The department picnic is next week and I don't want to go.

I spent most of the rest of the day practicing mindful meditation. It was very hard for me to let go of some of the issues that I'm dealing with at the moment, but I did a pretty good job I think. I mostly focused on environmental stuff; first the breeze blowing through my window and later in the day some classical lute music I have. No complementing the empty nature of reality for me today.

I'm still having a very hard time figuring out who I am. When I look at myself in male mode I see myself as a man, but then I take a picture of myself and I'm disgusted by my appearance. I'm still not who I used to be. It's like how I used to be in female mode. Everything is wrong with my face and I refuse to look like that any more. I was in guy mode most of the day but I still wasn’t happy with my body. It wasn’t until I presented as female at around 1800 that I finally felt like myself.

It's weird; all my muscles relax and I feel loose and comfortable when I'm like this. I might still be shy, but I actually feel like I'm comfortable in my skin where normally I'm super awkward and clumsy. Normally I'm in another body that I'm trying to control, screaming instructions desperately while it flails about.

When I'm in female mode and I can present as such, everything feels right. And, when the dysphoria isn’t to bad, I feel happy. I mean, REALLY happy. But of course, I've never even been out of the house nor has anyone other than my wife seen me present on female mode. Maybe this is all a delusion and I'm just in denial that I'll never be accepted by anyone as a woman.

Can I be happy if I transition to female and still accept the male side of me? Will they blend together? I spent all last night and this morning being unhappy with my appearance. As soon as I presented as female everything was OK.

I'm afraid that eventually I'm going to have to pick between one or the other lest I go insane. If it comes to that, I know which one I'll pick and it scares the hell out of me.

Uh, on a happy note I actually wore pretty stuff today and if I might say so myself; I looked damn good in it. Most of my outfits are just like guy mode – black shirt and jeans, except that in female mode I wear a large Jr. tee-shirt and size seven flared pants. After I put my face on and got dressed I was so happy with my presentation, but I felt sad as it's not like anyone would ever see me. I think that I need some social validation so that I can start living part time in female mode.

This is why overcoming my social anxiety is my top priority in life. I NEED to be able to go out as a female and live my own life. If I'm always worried about other people judging me then I’ll never be able to grow into my own person.

So that's my cryptic post for the evening.

TLDR – I'm a woman and I just want to live the rest of my life as one. Uh, I think. Check with me tomorrow. =(   I just want it to stop and I want to be a woman.  Or a man.

Paige

TLDR – I'm a woman and I just want to live the rest of my life as one. Uh, I think. Check with me tomorrow. =( I just want it to stop.

Paige Abendroth

Just another status update

Hi blog. I'm supper fucking exhausted right now so hopefully this post isn’t too incoherent. Seriously, I fell like I got hit by a truck. Not much to report since the last post. When I went to work on Thursday there was a card in a sealed envelope waiting for me. I opened it up and it was from my boss, saying to take care of myself and wishing me luck on my transition. My day couldn’t have started any better. I've said it before, but my boss really is the sweetest lady ever.

My wife and I are getting along good. She was at her parents house the last few days and I had it all to myself. We will be moving into our separate parts of the house in the next few days now which is going to be a bit of work. My upper body strength is NOT what it used to be so I'm wondering how moving all this furniture around is going to go.

We had a friend over today to look at the condo and to see if he wants to move in. Looks like he probably will which is awesome as quite frankly he's the only person who we'd let in here. That will allow me to save money, which is something I really need to do.  (And my wife and I both think it will be kind of fun.)

As he left he mentioned that he was worried about me. I'm worried about me too and I think I'm trying to go way to fast in regards to my transition. It's something my therapist has brought up a couple times as well. I really need to give myself time to get comfortable with myself and to work shit out. Also as I mentioned in my last post, I'm starting to worry about not being able to pass as male in guy mode. I have a long way to go in regards to that, but as I begin to look more androgynous and my chest growth becomes more prominent (seriously, those little things are perky) this is bothering me a lot.

Is there a middle ground? I'm really not sure and this is just one of the reasons I need to slow the fuck down before I make a decision that I'll regret later. It must be nice to wake up in the morning and not have to think about what gender you are. Anyway, before I make any kind of permanent alterations to my body outside of the effects of HRT I'm really going to have to learn to accept myself as a bigenderd person.

I think the new game plan will consist of doing electrolysis over the next several months and then after I've saved up another 4 grand I'll do another round of laser resurfacing. I figure this will give me over a year to mull things over and to get well mentally with therapy and all that. (Well, I'll probably always be in therapy but I mean that I'll hopefully be in a better place.)

That's about it for the moment. Now I'm going to go play stupid video games until I feel like going to bed.  Weeeeeee.

Oh, NPR might want to interview me. Another day in the life.

Paige

So stuff is like, happening. Also – Things!!! (And more!)

I've been waiting a while to post because I wanted to have stuff to write about and now I wonder if I will have enough time to say everything that I want too. So is life. Things have been pretty eventful as of late. In mostly a good way.

I have locked in a date for my laser resurfacing – March 30^th at 0800. I am sooo excited and nervous at the same time. This is the next milestone for me in my transition and it also addresses a very personal self-image issue that I've had since I was in my early teens when my body betrayed me.

In retrospect I think that something went wrong in utero and I was really supposed to be born female. Testosterone has done nothing but wreck havoc on my body. Since I got on estrogen and spiro my acne has gone away, I feel better about everything, I'm not nearly as depressed as I used to be, (not counting the gender dysphoria, which is as bad as ever) and I feel more grounded and centered than I ever have been in the past.

I am trying to have low expeditions so that I'm not disappointed with the outcome of my surgery, (it's not going to make me look like I have always had flawless skin) but at the same time it's soooo important to me that I can't help to imagine what I will look like when I have fully recovered. This is a huge goal post in my transition plan. After I am healed I start electro and save for my up for first round of FFS. If I decide to go the FFS route, then it will mean that I've committed to a full transition.

Which reminds me of another issue that I'm dealing with at the moment. My gender therapist is shocked at how different I look after three months on a relatively low dose of hormones. Quite frankly when I look in the mirror I am too. I suspected that I would take well to estrogen well but not THIS well. On one hand I am super happy. On the other I'm scared.

I am bigender. While the gender equivalent of my magnetic poles has shifted, I still have times when I identify as a man and I'm worried that I'm going to reach a point (soon) where it will be hard to present as one. Then will come the questions and the mis-gendering, and it will force me out before long.

Now I LOVE my evening walk. It's the bestest part of my day. It centers my entire being, and I get some of my best thinking, and non-thinking, done then. Today when I took my stroll I felt extremely uncomfortable the entire time. Cars full of people would pass and I felt eyes staring at me. My hair, my face, the configuration of my body are loosing/have lost strong male identifiers. I am approaching that awkward point when people are having a hard time assigning a gender to me. Uh, it probably didn’t help that even in a large male shirt I was. . . uh. . . pointy. Yeah, I'm taking well to estrogen.

My therapist recommended that I take up a more “female”exercise routine and I thought the idea was brilliant. As a male I was used to going anywhere I wanted at any time. As a transgender person I am not only in danger for being targeted for assault because I'm female, but I am at extra high risk of being targeted because I don't conform to cisgender stereotypes. Basically there are people out there looking to catch me alone so they can kill me.

Sooo tomorrow I start yoga! At first I was sad to give up walking but now I'm very excited. I've wanted to do it for a while and regarding my spirituality; it's very much in line with where I'm at in this moment of my life. It seems like a perfect fit.

On Tuesday I saw a Dr. regarding my HRT. She said that I should take my E every 10 days instead of every 14 as I've been experiencing some pretty strong mood swings. Then again, I'm basically going through a second puberty right now so I suppose that's to be expected.

<< Random thought's on HRT -

As a man when I got pissed about something I would stew over it for hours and it was really hard to let that anger go. As a woman I get pissed, then I quickly get over it and move on. This has actually had a big impact on my life and it's neat! OK, back to the show>>

Tonight I saw my gender therapist which brings us up to speed I suppose. I'm amazed at how she always manages to steer the conversation in a direction that ultimately results in me recognizing some profound truth about my self which subsequently has a dramatic, life changing effect on me. Yeah, he's that good.

So here I am, alone, scared and androgynous. I feel a need to change, but how far do I take it, and what is the point of no return? Am I really prepared to lose everything to be the woman that I see myself as?

What if I don't want to come out at work but the changes on my body are so dramatic that I have to out myself due to pressure from my peers?

I'm going to take this as slow as possible. I know that in the not to distant future that I will have to spill the beans. I hope that I still have some time. I'm fucking terrified.

Page

A very special, sleepy update (Plus HRT!)

I am very sleepy, so this should make for an interesting status update, and by interesting I mean rambling and incoherent.  Yay!

The big news is that after all this time I finally started on hormones today! I got the injection-type as I wanted them to be as safe and quick acting as possible. My doc said he was going to prescribe me sprio but for some reason it wasn’t on the script, so I need to call the clinic tomorrow.

So far no breasts yet! I'll check and see if they've grown in by tomorrow. =P

But seriously, I think that my body will take to hrt well. That being said I am keeping my expatiation’s low. I am 32 after all, so the changes should be relatively minor. It will bring me closer to me goal of appearing androgynous in “neutral” mode, and by all accounts from the fine lady’s at bigender.net it should help with my dysphoria, which is going to be a huge deal for me. I am now official beginning phase two of my diabolical, master plan. My next step is to get the laser resurfacing treatment done to my face. More on that as the situation develops.

Speaking of my dysphoria, I've been handling it pretty well lately. Life in general has been pretty good, mood-wise. Every day I try to stay mindful as much as I can remember too, and it's making a huge difference in how much my social phobia effects me. (As in, I'm doing wonderful.) Like a manta I tell myself over and over again, “I will not judge myself and I will not judge anyone else.” I keep slipping up, like someone will annoy me for some silly reason, but then I am able to catch myself and I instead try to love that person as much as I can manage. I've also learned to finally except and love myself for who I am. Now that I can love myself it's so much easier to love other people. Just a month ago I never could have imagine that I would say something like that.

When I am awake I like to think that I am outside of myself, like my conscious is floating above my head like a little silver cloud. While the “small I” is walking around doing whatever, the part of me that is free observes the world and tries to see the true, empty nature of the world. That probably sounds weird. Maybe I shouldn’t try to write about the heavy stuff when I'm so tired.

Books! I finished Pilgrims to Openness: Direct Realization Tantra in Everyday Life which was good, although I didn’t like how the author kept introducing new terms without explaining them. What made it worse was that she would use a regular word of phrase and then assign some alternate meaning to it, and she left it up to the reader to figure out what she was getting at.

While I wait for my physical books to arrive in the mail I've begun reading Love, Freedom, and Aloneness: A New Vision of Relating by my man Osho on my kindle. That wonderful, bearded guru is amazing and so far I've loved everything I've read by him. (And I've learned so much.) The book is all about love, and thus far, he talks about how wrong we've got it. I'm to sleepy to give this topic justice so I'll save it for another time. It's really cool, life altering stuff though. (Huh, lot's of life altering stuff/revelations lately. Neat!)

Which (somehow) brings me to sleep, or lack thereof. (I knew this was going to be a rambling entry.) Why the fuck can't I sleep! I don't want to sleep but my mind and body is exhausted. Then when I am finally able to fall asleep I wake up at least an hour before I have to get up for work. I'm averaging four hours of “good” sleep per night and that shit's taking it's toll. My meditation book should be here in the next day or so and I'm reading that next. Maybe that will help.

That's enough for now. I'd say on a scale of 1-10, one being “I want to die” and 10 being a state of pure, uninterrupted bliss I'm at like a 4 ½, which is a far cry from where I was at when I started this little blog.

Cheers, and I hope you sleep sweet. (Godess knows I wish that I could.)

Pete and Page

A little comic I made today