Looking back at my most recent series of posts I was little embarrassed at how I only seem to write about bad stuffs! I guess that’s correct, most of the time, because lately I’ve been using writing to work out emotions.
But it kinds gives a bad impression of me! I am not an unhappy person at all! In fact, things are actually going pretty well. 🙂
I am very quickly settling into my new life here on the West Coast. My budget is finally starting to recover. I’m not there yet, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, at least. It’s still going to be tight for the next 12-18 months or so, but after that, things should start getting better. I’m very happy about this.
Transition stuffs are going very well. I’m still not up to the full dose of HRT yet (my doctor starts you off slow and works you into it, to make it as easy on you as possible), but I think we’re getting close. Every four weeks I go into the office and she takes some blood work to see how I’m doing. My meds are adjusted based on the results of that blood work. It’s a lot more scientific than I thought it’d be, and that’s pretty cool. (And quite comforting! Yaaaaay for data driven decision making!) Even more of a surprise is that she does NOT monitor hormone levels directly – she uses my Prolactin levels instead. As of three weeks ago I had finally left the male range, but I’m still a ways away from the normal female range for a non-nursing female of my age. This stuff takes years, after all. 🙂
Today I wore a dress outside of my apartment for the first time in my life. I figured I’d just test the waters and try it when I went to make my breakfast run (there’s a bagel shop I go to so much they greet me by name when I walk in). I figured it was a really safe place to experiment with. Well, that went so well that I didn’t change clothes the rest of the day. It’s an amazing feeling to me! Both in how people react to me (I’m no different than any other lady in the place), and that I’m so comfortable with myself at this point. At lunch I accidentally spilled my drink and the manager at Taco Bell was all like “Oh, it’s okay Miss, we’ll clean it up! Here, let me get you a new drink!” It was a nice feeling!
Last Friday I wrote a skirt to work, again for the first time, and it also was a total non-issue. I even went on the Muni train to see my therapist and took the ferry to and from downtown San Francisco… looks like the thing that was holding me back was me… which is kinda normal for me, I think.
The emotional side of this is very different than I figured it would be. Both in the timeline and how strong it is. I’m already becoming a very different person. Here’s an example… last week I went to see a foot doctor about a constant pain I’ve had in my right foot for many years. (It was never a problem, really, until I moved here and started walking a lot.) I showed him the back of my shoes and how it’s all torn up inside and he was kinda shocked. After that he looked at my feet and quickly determined that I have Achilles Tendon Bursitis on my right foot. He mumbled something about “need to get a drop of steroid in there” and told me to flip over on my belly, which I did.
He then injected my foot with a cortisone shot. OMG did that hurt. Like, really, really, really hurt. I was hurting so bad that I just started crying right there in the office. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of “I need to cuddle something,” but I didn’t have a plushie with me, so I just cuddled with my purse. (It was the only thing I had with me. I didn’t know this was coming, or else I would have brought a friend with me.) The doctor could see I was hurting (duh), and was like “It’s okay sweetie. Take as much time as you need to recover. When you’re ready, get your shoes back on, and let me see you walk around the office a bit so I know you’re okay.” So I sat there in the doctor’s office, cuddling a purse and crying for a few minutes. It wouldn’t have gone down that way before… I would have just walked it off. Nor do I think it would have hurt so much, testosterone is good at covering up things like that.
I am _totally_ not complaining here! I like the new me! Very very much so. It’s just very different than before, and I know I’m roughly three months into a 24 to 36 month thing… so there’s still a lot more to come.
My new job is going great, too. We just wrapped up a really big project that’s pretty much been my whole world at this company. (It kicked off right as I was getting there.) I’m excited to see what comes next, as there’s a lot of things coming in the future, and all of it is going to need support from Ops in some way.
I talked with my team lead for a few minutes this morning. I said that when I knew how big of a project this was going to be (a few months into my employment), I decided to step back and focus on the things I’m good at, and then pick up other holes in my knowledge later. My goal was to take the day-to-day heat off the rest of the team so they could work on the project work. He then told me something that, to me at least, is a really big compliment. He said that one of the things they saw in me during the interview process is that I’m a really good Production Engineer. They knew they’d be able to drop me into the Production environment and thrive right away, which I have done. The holes in my knowledge are over project work – things that happen before something gets to production – but the actual part of running services in production is my thing.
I’d never really thought about it like that, but yeah, that’s exactly right. I do thrive in a production environment. I understand very well that my customers are the company’s customers, and that we want them to give us money… and they do so with the machines I’m running. I kinda find some project work to be really boring, while other people thrive in it. (And other people hate the pressure of working on the front lines!)
Needless to say, I know without a shadow of a doubt I’m in the right job and that I love what I do. It’s a small company, so who knows how long things are gonna last, but for right now, while the band is together, I’m really enjoying it. I’m doing my best to savor it while it lasts, because it may not last for forever!
I could go on and on here. 🙂
Lots of things are going very well. I’m sorry that the last few months of posts were completely negative… it’s not actually like that! I guess things are so good that when bad things come along they seem reeeealllllly bad and I turn to writing to work out my emotions.
Lop lop lop! 🙂 ❤
BunnyNet 