Reflections

Basically every year around my birthday, I pause and think about all of the things I told myself that I would have achieved in that year, if I am being honest most years I am feeling really disappointed that I haven't achieved nearly as much as I had planned.

This year though...

I publicly "came out" as transgender, and my friends and family have all been really fantastic.
I quit the job that was eating away at my soul and returned to University to seek a degree in Psychology with a bunch of gender and philosophy papers along the way, and I passed my first semester of that.
I moved back to Dunedin to be around some of the most fantastic people I know, and away from Wellington and someone who had been my closest friend for years.
I have been working a contract job working on farms, waking up at 5:00am every day and finishing around 7pm, for seven days a week, its bordering on miraculous that I am actually still doing that given my normal work ethic.
And in December I go to the endocrinologist to hopefully get my approval to start hormones finally.

So it has been a gigantic year.

And next year is set to be every bit as big if not bigger, since I will be doing all of these huge things while sitting in the maelstrom of a second round of puberty.

I never seem to let myself have it easy for very long.

The shift to presenting feminine on a daily basis I am aiming for around March, and I am still incredibly nervous about that, I have gone to a few parties and things like that but only in a very cautiously dipping my toe kind of way.  I haven't had to deal with the day to day reality of people looking at me for being "different" and I still don't know how well I am going to take that.

But even though it scares me half to death, I am also super excited about it.

Do several things a day that scare you.

Happy 40th birthday to me for Monday, I will still be wading around in cow shit and not even able to really enjoy it, but the cow shit is helping me get to where i need to be going into next year, so hooray for the cow shit this one time.

Lots of love,
Abigail.