it doesn’t feel real.

in fourty-eight hours i’ll be in bangkok. in six days i’ll be undergoing surgery in hospital. in seven days i’ll be awake, drugged up, and i’ll have a vagina. in, what, twelve days i’ll be dilating. in three and a half weeks i’ll be flying back to london, starting hormones, and settling in for the heal. there is so much to think about, so much to feel, and even though it’s incredibly imminent it just doesn’t feel like it’s actually going to happen. i’ve got no frame of reference at all. and because it’s such a big thing, and i can’t understand it myself, i just feel like it’s unreal. emotionally challenging, but no more than a scene in a movie. the fact that it’s my body, my nerves, my mind that is going to be going through such a procedure hardly registers.

i have had some doubts over this, but only fleeting ones. a lot of my doubts have revolved around whether i should have taken out a £8,000 loan to finance the operation so soon after having issues with NHS funding for it in this country. that, in itself, is a long story and not one i think i need to go into right now. but, my immediate decisions have left me wondering if i was too hasty. i’ve also had doubts due to my recent reactions. i’m scared, i’m feeling a little self-destructive, i’m not exactly overjoyed about what i’m about to do. if i thought i could i’d pull the plug on it all right now. honest to god, deep down i’m dreading going through this. but, every time i think about that i just wonder how i’d feel if i wasn’t doing this. i just remember my current relationship to my body and….. well. i don’t want to feel so incongrouous forever, you know?

over the last couple of years a lot has been coming together though. a lot of other things have been in a state of flux, oftentimes without me even realising it. this time last year i was finally convinced that, yep, i’m straight, which was a realisation that actually kicked this blog of in the first place as i was getting used to being heterosexual. sure, that sounds weird, but for somebody who didn’t really have a sexuality beforehand it’s, i figure, all part of the learning curve. now, though, i’ve realised that, yep, i am actually quite bisexual thank you very much and, in honesty, i can’t be bothered analysing it anymore. especially as i’ve discovered that you have no say over who you find attractive or fall in love with, or how intense that becomes, so arguing about it is completely fruitless.

it is still incredibly frustrating, though, that any self-actualising gains in perception can feel so knocked back from having a bad patch. it’s like crawling out of a slippery pit, getting closer and closer to the top and then, whee, sliding back down a few feet. you may not slide all the way back down, but the small loss of progress is terribly disheartening, no matter how far your net gain is at all.

i try not to be a pessimist, but to be a realist. sometimes the lines are very blurred. and then when you’re being an optimist people just think you’re naive. which is a pessimistic way of putting things. sometimes, though, healing just hurts.

there is the fact that this operation is only going to heal one part of me. there is more that will require additional care. my anxiety, self-deprecation, worry, feelings of uglyness in my body and in my mind…. most often unwarranted, and sometimes in the case of the latter leading to a self-fullfilling prophecy. this isn’t going to wholly fix me. i’m not going to wake up instantly happy and together. in fact, in the short term it’s going to give me more issues than i’d like. but i’m hoping, i’m honestly wishing that it gives me a little more space to move on. i really do hope, through not having this one ache, that there is more room to breathe and relax and get on with y life. i’m just hoping that becomes real.

love xx