2019

I haven’t written in almost a year. That’s disappointing but now, like most everyone else, I feel like I have more space and time. That’s not a great excuse because we make time for the things that matter; or rather, we should.

But, I digress.

2019 was interesting to say the least; I think I really started to become the me that’s going to settle in, and honestly, that’s been both good and bad. The good heavily outweighs the bad and the bad is more like where it used to take me like 47 seconds to want to go into a rage, now it’s at about 24 seconds. I think being on T has basically changed the way my aggression presents; it’s harder, more blunt, (imagining myself more blunt :/). Still me, but the me I am? Always was? Not sure. So it’s not bad but it is different for me. It’s situational too; it presents differently at work, with my family and with my team.

Another thing that’s started, when I get fed up, annoyed, angry, etc – I now only have one facial reaction. My face just turns into this rock hard death glare. I DO NOT MEAN TO DO IT. I know it’s happening. I can feel it. I’m working on it.

But I mean, we are all working on how we react to things. Right?

I’ve also been dealing with my feelings on the past; how I looked, what I did, who I was. For the most part I’m ok with it. Love that I played basketball at Michigan. It’s cool to watch old game footage but it’s also like a mixture of 1. watching someone else that I know really well and 2. watching myself as a kid. Love my teammates, my coaches, the whole experience but I’m not gonna lie, sometimes it feels weird. Not because of anything that’s happened, it’s me. For example, of course I want to go back to Alumni Weekends; of course I know it would be fun, no issues or problems but on the inside, I still have to deal with being different. I always imagine us being called out on the court and me being the guy with the women’s basketball team out on the court. It’s fine but it’s also like ugh… why – it’s a thing you don’t feel like doing or making a big deal of and then as a result, I’m disconnected from one of the things that matters to me, and that I loved the most. So, even though I’m happier than I’ve ever been with myself, proud to be me, it’s still hard. Situations are still hard; hard to look at, hard to face. Three years in. Confident me. Hard.

What I realize that I’ve started to do is skip/remove gaps of the time in my life between college and my transition. So it’s kind of like 2004 – 2012 didn’t exist; I mean that in regard to my personal life journey. I think it’s because it’s how I wish my transition had gone. I wish I had known then and experienced that span of my life becoming me. The people I met during that time are some of the greatest; they loved me for me and (most) still do. It is about who I was inside and outside when I look back at myself. I wasn’t in a great relationship, I had hard moments with family, and I had really bad body dysphoria. Really bad.

The good things are overwhelming. The main one is just: happy. To look in the mirror and feel normal. Like this is what it should’ve been. I’m not necessarily looking for physical changes anymore. And I did that A LOT the first two years; watching, waiting and wondering when things were going to happen. Seeing things that weren’t there. Not like hallucinating, but when I looked in the mirror in February of 2019, I thought wow, look at that beard coming in, look at your jaw line. Your chest and shoulders are looking different. Seeing a picture from then and looking at myself now it’s like LOOK AT THIS BEARD! In the mirror today, it’s like, oh, that’s actually happened.

My Physical Appearance Transition Equation:

If you are transitioning, be more patient than me. It will happen.

When you are transitioning and it’s right, your mind and your body come into focus. They finally work together; there’s a connection to what you should’ve been seeing all along and the things that bothered you, hurt you, disgusted you about your body before disappear – and it fits. It makes sense. That’s what it’s like for me anyway. That’s why I’m ok; that’s why I can walk happily walk around being and feeling like me. Because I am.

I think I just figured out how to answer the question: how do you know?

Here’s how 2019 went: