Spring?! Shit, I was just getting ready to hibernate for the winter!

Ramblings - I have been tuning out lately, letting the buzz and noise of others pass me by while I calmly stick my head in the sand. Are we there yet? Heck, were we going some place? I just feel overwhelmed. I saw a shrink the other day, got a note saying I can have hormones, and now get to see another doctor for some more hoop jumping and then I get what I want (I hope). I have learned through this process that I am NOT a good hoop jumper. I am tired. Looking to the brighter side, I think I am almost done. I am headed off to another conference - the whole staff is going! We are closing the library while the 6 of us go down to Pueblo. I am presenting both gaming and open source. It should be fun. The 2 yr. old that I live with has started to correct both her mom's pronoun errors. Not that L & D make many errors, but Emma correcting them is quite a hoot! I have almost caught up on all the cataloging that has piled up since the library automated! Moved a whole full cart out this week!

Questions, assumptions and blank paper

The doctor said I has to see a therapist because if I wanted to transition because of a past trauma that was bad, but if I really felt 'that way' then it was ok. I have been thinking about that sentence for weeks now. It totally reminds me of this guy Brad and a conversation I had with him years and years ago about being adopted. Both he and I were adopted, and he had found this sheet of paper stating ten personality traits adopted people have. Being funny was one of them, funny, outgoing, insecure, sexually aggressive, trust issues, ... honestly I don't remember all ten, but they were all along those lines. They gave him comfort, a sense that it was ok to be who he was somehow. They pissed me off. The one about being funny just really pissed me off. I just kept thinking 'no, I am funny because I am funny, not because I was adopted.' I mean, shit, I have met some very not humorous adopted people. I just hate those generalizations. Plus it removes some of who I am and gives it to a situation, a situation that wasn't really my choices or decisions. Then again there is that line from that poem "Stick upon stick has weathered me drift wood. I am as much weathered as I am wood." I can relate to that, I mean sure experiences change a person for better or worse. Wouldn't be much fun if we didn't learn and grow. So am I who I am, am I a collection of experiences on a blank paper, or am I who someone else decides I am or am not? See this is all way too existential. What if I stop being funny, will that mean I am not adopted?

The Process

Yesterday I talked to a medical doctor about hormone replacement therapy for the first time. Big day. The doctor experience I liken to a road trip. I was packed, the car gassed up. I am ready for the open road. And instead, I hit bumper to bumper rush hour traffic going through the downtown of a large city. Yeah, SLOW. In my head I guess I was on, like step four, and the doctor was on step one. I mean, hey I have been thinking about this and dealing with this my whole life... guess other people don't know that and don't want me to rush. And I am thinking, "Rush? It took me YEARS to get here." So I am getting a referral to an endocrinologist and a therapist. It's all good, and probably smart to carefully step through every hoop between here and there, it's just sort of disappointing. I just want to be done already, not just starting. And therapy? Dang I want out of my head and in to my body. I have been in my head for years, I decided I wasn't crazy, or traumatized and now I have to let a stranger in to walk through my emotional landscape to smell the flowers and judge me . Judge me mentally ill. There's something to look forward to Gender Identity Disorder. Personally I think of it more as a birth defect. Ahh well. So begins the outward journey. Now I am off to the caucus.