Don't Worry, Still Alive

Class and other various responsibilities has been kicking my ass for the past, fuck I don't know, pretty much since I last posted almost a month ago. Add onto that I haven't had a computer for over a month because the pins on my cpu were bent because the cpu fan got jostled so I needed to buy a new cpu and install it and you've got a fun combination leading to a lack of posting.

Anyway, not a whole ton of this is actually trans* related, it's just sort of a stream of consciousness bitchfest about my life, so take it with a grain of salt.

My classes are fun, and pretty interesting. I feel like I'm actually delving into real engineering more so than I have in the past, although in many ways it's not quite there. I'm looking at a million different engineering related projects I want to do, but I can't see how I'll ever have time for. Like put together a team, get a grant and build a reprap with grant funding from the college of engineering, and maybe design a wireless communication system for it. Or making and selling vaporizers to the local stores in town to get some extra money. learning matlab scripting, autocad, and muiltisim in more meaningful ways than the bullshit we do in my freshman level class. Or working on the million bio-medical engineering ideas I have. I could probably patent quite a few ideas, but I have no idea how the fuck that process works, or criteria for what fulfills a patent. Actually doing design.

But I also have a million social justice things going on to. I'm the co-representative of a trans* advocacy group that growing and become more mature with every meeting. We're doing things like cataloging all the gender neutral bathrooms on campus. We're putting together educational flyers, figuring out printing, and trying to put information out there, all trying to advocate for trans* people on campus. This is a shitton of work.

I also have class obligations for grades and am currently in the application process for a job that will keep me financially stable for the next 3 years, and the grades and certification I get from my classes which is usually seen as "the reason" people go to college, so they can get a mediocre mind-numbing office job that pay decently so they can get a nice white picket fence, pop out children for a while and then die at 80 of a heart attack are a distraction from what I want to do.

I want to actually do things, and maybe children in the long term might not be a bad idea, but I don't want that to be the sole contribution I make to the world. This sounds lame as fuck, but it's true: but I want to work towards fundamentally changing the world in positive and progressive ways whether that's through social advocacy and change, or through helping the world by developing useful technologies, or through a combination of the two, or something else entirely. I could give two shits about money, outside of not starving, and being able to afford the things and tools I need in order to continue what I want to do. I don't care about my grades, outside of having them good enough to get past gate-keeping mechanisms, like getting into grad school and whatnot. I care about learning useful information from my classes that will let me do what I want to do, and accomplish what I want accomplish. Grades, certification, and money are a means to end, not the end itself, and I feel like a lot of people my age simply do not grasp that.

I've got a million responsibilities, and sometimes I feel super-overwhelmed. Getting organized has helped me a lot. I've got a little planner that is filled to the brim each week with all the shit I have to get done. I have little 30 mg tablets of vyvnase, an ADD drug, which helps keep me focused. I've got strategies for studying and learning, and philosophies for processing and incorporating new knowledge, but I get so much on my plate. I don't want to narrow myself in anyway because as Richard Heinlein once said "

The "Wrong" Body

There's a common narrative in many trans* stories about being born "in the wrong body", or a being a woman in man's body, or vis versa. This has been exacerbated, and in some part perpetuated, by medical gate-keeping communities. (A shrink might say "Oh your story doesn't quite match up with everyone elses? No hormones for you." so what does the trans* person trying to get on hormones say? Exactly what the shrink wants hear.)
That's not to say that's the "wrong" trans* narrative. If that fits for you, then by all means use that to make sense of your identity.

But it's never really fit for me personally.

So I'm a pretty narcissistic person (understatement of the century).

I love mirrors as well as pictures of myself, but probably not for the reasons that one would expect.

I use these to gauge myself. To see how much of the person looking back at me is "me"

Usually it's not a lot. If I tilt my head a certain way, put on the right make-up, wear the right clothes and stand in specific ways, and the lighting is right, and planets are aligned, then I can almost begin to seethe person looking back at me as "me".
Pictures of me "in the wild" almost never are actually of me.

They're someone else. I remember getting the pictures taken, and I saw through the eyes of the person that was in that picture, but that was never me.

It was a puppet. I moved the strings, but the puppet was never me. Certainly mine, but never me.

This idea of ownership as well as identification I think is at the heart of dysphoria for myself.

When I look at a picture like this

Anybody who knows me would tell me that is me. But it doesn't feel that way for me. I mean technically, yes, It's me. But it feels like a puppet. A costume.

It's not a matter of poor body image. I dare say I was a pretty attractive person as a guy. I was fairly built, and didn't have any problem gaining muscle. I have a pretty good complexion and personally I think my eyes are pretty. (I told you I was narcissistic.) From the point of view of someone whose attracted to all sexes, dissociating myself from the fact that was a picture of my body, I think the guy in that picture is pretty attractive, and probably more so than I am now, presenting as a girl.

But that picture isn't me. I don't see that and see myself. That's not my body. That's not who I am. That's could just as well be some dude. But when I see that my brain has to mentally grapple with the fact that IS me.

And that's dysphoria for me.

It's not the wrong body. It's certainly mine. But it's not an indescribable "me". I don't see myself. I see a puppet.

Transitioning has and continues to make a huge difference. I can look in the mirror and seeing myself looking back at me rather than some puppet isn't a fleeting experience any longer.

It still requires some illusion, If I'm not wearing make-up or somewhat girly clothes the costume looks like it's back.

But I see photos like this that were taken as recently as this week:

 

And I see myself.

It's not perfect. I'm still transitioning. But that's an infinitely better representation of me than the last picture. Those photos are spaced at most seven or so months apart.

A lot can change in seven or so, and I'm curious about the next seven or so months.

And I'm hungry for more pictures. More pictures of me. 

I want to get know me better.

But also I want to show me to other people. I want my parents, my classmates and my sisters, my friends, and acquaintances, my lover, to all see me, and recognize me, not as some costume or puppet

But as me. 

As Natalie.

Because it makes a world of difference.