But Wait.... The Doom!

So the universe actually listened, I've spent a few weeks being cuddled by my gorgeous friend, girlfriend now actually. 

I've also been sick with the longest flu I've ever had, but she's been taking care of me and I've been trying to take care of her.  Which has been so nice, I'm used to struggling on my own. 

Theres definitely still part of me that's waiting for some inevitable doom, like when and how will this niceness be taken from me... 

Will she panic and run away, will our varying traumas and mental health issues drive us apart, will her parents kidnap her and throw her in conversion therapy.... She has a tendency to catastrophize a bit, but what she doesn't realise is I do too.  I am just quieter about it and hope for the best.

We are planning on moving in together soon, but in the mean time we are trapped in this weird limbo where she's living out of suitcases and between my bedroom and our friends house. 

I know it wears on her a lot, and I wish I could fix it all for us. 

So anyway, that's the update, I'm simultaneously over the moon and kinda stressed.   So hey universe, for your second miracle can you find a way to get us our own little nest. 

Love, 

Abigail 

The Happiness Rebound

Let's talk about some specifics to the trans experience that you might not realise or have considered.

This one's gonna be graphic, specific, and mention sex and genitalia so don't keep reading if you don't want to know. 

Taking spironolactone (testosterone blocker), estrogen, and progesterone will eventually modify your genitals.... There's shrinkage of the whole area, erections are a little less erect, it's a bit of an experience really... And it can cause quite a bit of sexual anxiety if you're still using it for that.

But... The other changes affect arousal and orgasm, you feel things in a more whole bodied way, the orgasms are more intense and last longer, and the delay between one orgasm and the next gets much shorter. 

It's a very different style of sex, if you can find the right partners that don't make you feel embarrassed about your changed genitals it can be really special.

Lately I've been so hurt, the inevitable panic and rejection by people I get close to that seems to happen every time I try, the state of the world becoming more openly hostile to trans people, the reduced opportunities, the self doubt and loneliness.... It's all so fucking much.  And then personal loss and tragedy one after the other this year too.  It's a miracle I'm still here. 

So there's been all these thoughts of detransition, should I do it, could I go back to living a male existence and improve my situation.  Dating would be easier, my health would improve, my job opportunities would be better. 

And just to confuse things I had some truly fucking euphoric sex with someone I wish could be mine.

And it was only as good as it was because I'm on hormones, as a boy I never once had the kind of sex where I felt like I died, floated outside time and space for ten minutes and resurrected into my body unable to think. 

Or where I felt so connected to the person I was with.  Or where it was so easy to do it again immediately after. 

I wish I could have it all, and that the universe could just let me win, and the world was a lot more kind.   But it's not. 

Instead I'm going to disassociate and let myself cry. 

The Follow On

I guess it does actually all catch up, snippets of human affection from people who you can't be with actually aren't enough.  Sometimes its just safer to stop hoping and hurting yourself waiting for it to last more than a night at a time.

And I know I deserve better than that kind of thing, but its been well over a decade, and nobody has put their hand up for that particular task.  The loneliness is real, the anxiety is also real.

My last real relationship was in 2010, and it was a nice simplistic hetero situation, I have no idea how to find whatever I need to find now.  I am basically looking for that pan/bi/lesbian needle in the haystack that will love me for me, and I am trying to find it in some of the smallest most narrow minded places in New Zealand... it's actually really hard when all my friends are telling me I deserve better, or I will one day find the most amazing person to be with.  I am 43... being real there are not that many awesome years left to enjoy the early parts of dating people, traveling, adventuring.  At what point does it actually get too late to start over.

I cry at night sometimes, for the girl I wish I could be with, for the girl I wish I was, but mostly I cry because I want to matter enough to somebody again that I am where they want to be.

How To Be Attracted to Everyone

Happy New Year everyone! 

I really hope that you have had a most amazing festive season, and that you haven't found yourself in the numerous highly strange situations that I have.

So lets go back, to just a little before Christmas time, I'm just a feisty lady living the best life I can manage, and have somehow found myself in love with one of my closest friends, the same friend I've loved for years.  

It's just a crazy situation, and realistically can only end a few different ways, most of them not great.

But you know me... I am an optimist, Queen of the Longshot, and I like to believe that love is always worth having.

However, you also know that this is my blog... where things are never quite as simple as they should be.

Much as I really thought it might end up happening someday, and various pieces of evidence had hinted that I wasn't completely insane to think so, I finally had "the talk" about it with her.

And she told me that it couldn't ever happen for various reasons, it really hurt because she had decided all of these things without ever talking to me.  

I am a flexible lady, I adapt to the situation always, if I knew there were requirements I probably could have met them you know? 

But I hate the idea that I would need to convince anyone to date me, or talk them into it.

So as much as the no hurts... she is still one of the most precious people in my life, we talk about everything all the time, and I can't ever lose that.  

So I let myself be sad for a few days, and now I need to start thinking about dating again.

I had basically been emotionally unavailable to anyone else for quite a long time just because I had that tiny shred of hope that someday her and I would find a way to make it work.

And that brings us to New Years, I volunteered at a music festival and set off with a positive attitude about meeting new people.

It was all fantastic bonding time with my good friends, really good discussions with a lot of new people, and of course some peculiar shenanigans along the way that I am not quite ready to write about.

But what honestly surprised me the most, was the tail end... the after party, the bonding over food with the other volunteers, and the fact that I actually found one of those boys...

The ones I have talked about on Facebook whenever people have asked me about my sexual preferences, that only existed theoretically up until this point. 

The 0.0001% of boys I am attracted to.

He's just a gorgeous fun man to be around, and I found myself quite shocked to be so instantly smitten by him.

So we have spent a few days hanging out, and it has been really nice, I am just assuming at this point that we will be best friends forever.  

If you are my friend on Facebook you have probably seen my post about Alterous Attraction, where you could either love someone, date someone, fuck someone, or be their best friend just as easily, and whichever one happens you'll be totally happy.  That's basically where I am at with him.

And as if that wasn't enough, I installed Tinder just to see exactly how bad it would be in my town...

I matched with a girl, and we exchanged a few messages, but I really don't think my lifestyle and attitudes are going to match hers.  

I am quite open about the kinds of silliness I get up to, and I don't think she would approve at all.

But it IS nice to get the validation of someone wanting to talk to you, that you are theoretically considered a viable romantic interest.  And that made me feel pretty happy actually.

Where does that leave me.... honestly I have no clue, and I don't even care.

I'll just keep being me, and hopefully at some point somebody will just see me and think "That peculiar lady is fucking gorgeous and I want her"

If that person is you, be incredibly direct and just tell me, because apparently I can't read intentions.

So for now, that's it... its time to start getting organised for my study this year, to take my life a little more seriously, and basically switch into productive mode for awhile again.

My holidays have been crazy, but my year needs to be much more calm.

Love you all,

Abigail

Modern Relationships

I just wanted to write something about human contact, and the people who mean something to us, there are an awful lot of posts online about how technology is ruining our ability to be empathetic or our genuine human contact, and I really take offense at that.

In my lifetime I have met some of the most exceptional human beings, I have been really lucky in that regard both in real life and online.
And maybe its not like that for everyone, but from my perspective if you meet someone who you can be yourself with, and who see's your damaged imperfect soul and loves it anyway, it shouldn't matter what they look like, where they are in the world, whether you have ever physically interacted.

The therapy of those deep personal conversations with people applies no matter who they are, there is nothing more blissful in life than sharing your deepest heartfelt feelings and thoughts with someone who not only listens and understands but enthusiastically encourages them.

If we somehow decided that only face to face interactions like those counted, we would have far fewer of them.

In New Zealand where I am now, I can sit under the stars on a freezing southern night with a group of my friends discussing our place in the universe, and how we can be better people, and its beautiful and social and I bask in those blissful nights.

But I feel exactly the same way when I am talking to my girls in Kentucky who love me like a sister, when my gorgeous friend in LA tells me that I am a beautiful precious soul, my grumpy trans friend from the wilderness of Washington state, or when the friends I made in Europe are telling me they miss me. 

I feel amazing no matter how I interact with people, and lots of them I have never met, and I may never meet given my current legal predicament.

As far as intimate relationships online go, I have had a few, and emotionally they were probably more fulfilling than my real life relationships.  But they will never be the same as real life, you need physical intimacy and closeness for things to really progress.  But it's every bit as easy to be infatuated and fall deeply in love with someones soul online.  Dangerous as that is.

I do miss being loved and touched by people, I have been really lucky to have loved and been loved by some beautiful women in my life.  And I wish I'd tried harder to hold onto a few.
But by not holding on, I am able to be me now, so now I just need to get myself to a point that I feel like I can date again as me.  And hope I have that feeling again.

Ugh... so there we go... vent over.

I love my people, I guess is my point, so thank you for being a part of my life.