Hey if there is anything I'm consistent about, it's being inconsistent. I'm not sure anyone really reads this blog anyway, it's partly a journal for my own purposes, but if somebody else is reading this and gets anything useful out of it will you let me know? Drop a comment just so I know I'm not talking into the void.
A lot has happened. There was a global pandemic and I stopped cutting my hair. My mother-in-law passed away (after three rounds with lung cancer, it was late stage emphysema that took her life, but she never caught Covid which may speak to our many precautions). We did lose a good friend to Covid. Our president finally changed, although depressingly dangerous political movements remain. I got burned out after nearly nine years at the vet clinic and fled, eventually landing at the county library in circulation, thus following in my father's footsteps. What I loved about being a vet assistant was the sense that my job helped people, and made the world a better place. Working at the library helps make the world a better place, too, and I've learned about myself that is something I need to feel fulfilled in my work.
Some things are the same; B is still my wife and we remain very much in love, although she is now experimenting with she/they pronouns. Her sense of gender fluidity is a revelation that makes as much sense as my own transition, and I'd love her even if she decided she wanted to transition herself (although this seems unlikely). My parents remain awkward about my being a man, although my father uses my correct name. We're still in the same house, with the same cats. I'm still on testosterone, for about 7 years now.
Some things have changed very, very recently.
At the beginning of last month, I finally had top surgery. I'm still recovering, through my 45th birthday, and that recovery is kind of rough. One of my nipple grafts is struggling along a little, and my arm mobility is still limited. I can't lift a whole lot, and I'm still in a surgical compression vest, with some daily bandaging changes. In the evenings though, I take the vest and bandages off to do hot compresses, and each time I get more used to my own bare chest. The incisions themselves have healed so well I've been told to move on to scar cream on them. I'm optimistic that at my next visit I may be done with the vest. Most of all, when I'm dressed and I look down or look in the mirror, what I see there is right.
There's no little shock or jolt over the change, instead what I've noticed is a lack of the little jolt of dysphoria that was so familiar every time I looked down or in the mirror before. There's no adjustment, no need to mentally reconfigure my self image, just a peaceful contentment that what I see matches what was in my head all along. I knew that I was dysphoric before, but I never realized to what extent until now that it's gone.
Half a lifetime ago, when I was in High School and College, I drew characters that were more or less my masculine ideal. They were tall, with long hair and a full beard and mustache. Tall I am not, and will never be. But it has struck me that what I see in the mirror now matches that ideal I held before I allowed myself to really acknowledge as a personal yearning. The man I have become is the very man I wanted to be, decades ago. I know not everyone gets the same results with T, that there's no way to predict or control it. I also know that at this point I have probably seen most of the changes I will ever see, as a result of T. My voice is a solid baritone, my beard has filled in, anything from here on out is largely the changes of aging. I'm not afraid of getting older, because I will simply continue to grow as the man I always wanted to be. I have been so lucky, so blessed, and I feel so grateful for the man I have become.
