Previously On This Transition
It's Pride month and I want to look back on the very personal side of 2020 so far.
2020-06-28
CN: dysphoria, medical transition, sex
It’s June 2020, technically Pride month, although certainly one of the more unusual ones this year. The optimistic post I wrote on the last day of 2019 definitely looks strange when I look back at it now. Still, in a very personal sense, the sentiment holds up.
I’m now looking forward to a time of settling in, calming down, and having time and energy for … just living my own life.
Settling in, that sure is happening. Like a lot of people I’m stuck at home and forced to come to terms with that. But I’m also settling in with myself and especially my body. It’s somewhat strange. Over the past few years I’ve almost gotten used to things changing all the time: legal processes, fighting with health insurance, major medical procedures. And during the second half of 2019, after recovering from surgery, every day was an amazing rush that I can’t even describe properly. Now, over a year later, it think I’ve arrived at the new normal. I’m honestly surprised that the initial excitement lasted for so long.
It’s still a difference like night and day. My severe body dysphoria is a thing of the past. Instead of sometimes waking up screaming, getting nauseous from just sitting or walking, and making sure I would only look at the wall when showering, I can simply exist in my body without thinking about it a lot. I can’t even really remember how it felt before. I remember the nausea, the disgust, and the despair. But what my actual body felt like? Very quickly after bottom surgery my brain started to forget that. I’m glad that I wrote about it before and I really don’t miss those memories.
I’m now at a strange point where I feel comfortable with my body and at the same time it’s like I’m 15 again and need to figure out everything about sexuality. Due to dysphoria I haven’t engaged in anything more than a cuddle in years. It’s as if I hit a big reset button and now have to start over. It’s exciting, scary, mysterious and full of insecurity. A lot of trans people talk about a “second puberty” but really, this feels so different than my actual teenage years, it might as well be the first. At least it matched much more closely what most people describe wehen talking about their teenage years.
I look at it with excitement though. I can do everything at my own pace and I certainly won’t let anything pressure me along the way. And even with 2020 putting a lot of things on halt, I can wait. I’m good where I am right now, I’m at peace with my body and calm and centered like never before.
I’ve always had only a distant realtionship with Pride celebrations. I didn’t really know what I was supposed to celebrate as I still felt miserable a lot of the time. This year, while it doesn’t feel like a time to celebrate, I can say that I am proud of making it this far and of who I’ve become.
I hope there’s going to be a time for celebrating that too.