Settling Down

I'm now about 4 months on HRT. I've finished counselling and there's now 6 months between my appointments at the Sandyford.

So basically I'm settling into life, which I suppose has to happen. The rush of being prescribed hormones and being taken seriously can't last forever.

What is coming out of this is that I am happier. Mrs J and myself talked about this the other day. I asked what differences she sees in me and she replied that I seemed happier and I didn't get angry anywhere near as much. This reflects how I feel myself.

I think that's one of the reasons I wrote the previous post to this one. I'm getting back to the real me and stripping away the facade that I have presented for over 20 years.

Long day

Have you ever looked at a hole being dug in the road and there is one bloke digging and four watching? Well I've had a day a bit like that today.

Into a server room for 10am (Sunday!). There was a big systems update on servers to be done. Now I do databases and applications so the system level was being done by some other people. For the first 3 hours we all worked at our own things and it was fine. Then came the time to switch all the servers off, allowing one person access. For the next 4 hours I either paced the server room or watch a tiny laptop screen over someone else's shoulder, waiting for the servers to come back, letting me get on with my bit. The wonder of mobile phones, I'll admit that I did a fair bit of reading forums like Angels or catching up on blogs during this wait.

It really was the high tech version of 4 people watching 1 bloke dig.

I got my own back though. Once the servers came back, I spent the next 2 hours working on database and web servers while he waited around with nothing to do.

Anyway, finally finished at 11:30pm, although by that point I had actually come home and logged in remotely to finish the job off.

It's all in the bill - even the standing about.

Dads

"All I wanted was a kick-a-bout in the park,
For you to race me home when it was nearly getting dark."

Glasvegas - Daddy's Gone.

Personally, I think it's a great song and it keeps popping up on my play-lists.

These two lines in particular always get to me. So today, when my son turned up with a football he'd won at school and wanted to go out and play, I was only too happy to.

Now there's no chance of me being like the Dad in the song. I won't be going anywhere. But, because of transitioning, I am always conscious of maybe robbing a bit of my sons possible memories of his Dad. Because of this I promised myself and my wife that I will always be Dad to him. Whether or not it involves doing things that aren't the stereotypical trans thing to do. I'll still be his Dad.

Maybe what makes the lyrics hit home especially hard is that my own Dad left us when I was very young. I remember little bits about him but not much. We certainly never played football.

Years later, I was about 16 and attempting to come out to my Mum. In amongst all the things she threw at me to make sure I got back in the closet (it worked) was the fact that she had once walked in on my Dad and he was dressed in woman's clothes.

So that was something else she could blame my Dad for.

Acne and being transsexual. Thanks Dad.

I've actually managed to lose some weight!

Well after getting myself down about my weight recently, I weighed myself this morning and I have lost about 4lbs. Might not sound much but even though I have been exercising my weight hadn't budged for about a month.

I think it has helped that I have started a slightly different programme at the gym. This one is more geared up for the Glasgow to Edinburgh bike run I'm doing in September. It's about 51 miles and although the distance doesn't worry me too much, I still feel that it's sensible to prepare.

I think I had, to a certain extent, got used to the previous programme. Also, because of holidays etc I had missed a couple of visits recently and I think that all helped to slow down the weight loss.

I've increased the number of gym sessions from 2 to 3 times a week. On top of this, I'm just back from swimming this morning, which helped loosen up my leg muscles after last nights gym session.

Feeling a lot better but still a long way to go. Who knows, I might even publish my weight soon!

Presenting at Work

I'm debating with myself about when, how or if I will start to present as female at work full time.

Right now I very rarely dress in bob mode. DJ'ing the wedding a few weeks ago was the last time I was completely bob mode. Even the gig I did last week I presented as female (completelly different gig,which I might one day talk about).

At my day job I wear female clothing, albeit with very androgynous look. But my hair is long, worn either down or in a pony tail that's kinda doubled up (hard to describe but it kinda looks like a ponytail but brought back up and tied again - words won't work on this one). Also, clear nail varnish and studs in my ears complete the picture.

So, I might not be fully presenting as female at work but I don't look the typical shirt and tie bloke.

My breasts aren't massive but are getting obvious. Now I know that partly because of my weight (good news to follow) and partly because I had gynecomastia, the hormones have had a head start. But for whatever reason, they are showing a lot sooner than I expected.

Despite all of this, I haven't had a single comment about how I dress or look. I think it's a case that most of us have worked together for such a long time, no ones noticed the gradual change.

To a certain extent I am happy with this situation. I'm getting to be me, i.e. behave and dress as I want to. However, this is only one part of the picture. Although I can be appear how I want, the world of work neither knows nor cares about the real me. The world of work still sees me as bob and so still treats me as bob.

So the debate goes on in my head. Everything has gone well so far. Should I be happy with my lot and just keep things as they are (despite the developing boobs), or do I push the boundaries that bit further and come out at work.

There is a large chunk of me that is very happy. Since I started taking hormones a lot of the symptoms of the dysphoria have reduced to very manageable levels. But there is still a voice that I recognise, muttering away in the background. It's the voice that has pushed me out of my comfort zone so many times in my life. It's the voice that has convinced me to take risks and try to achieve things that scare me.

So, for the moment I am happy with the status quo. The voice, however, has quite a track record at getting me to eventually do things I'd only previously dreamt about.

Tiredness returns

The really bad tiredness has returned. I know I had a frantic weekend but I took Monday off and worked from home yesterday. I even went to bed earlier than normal. Yet I'm sitting in the office falling asleep.

It's either the 'mones, which some people have told me can happen, or I'm just too old for frantic weekends :-(

If I'm not careful though, the tiredness allows my guard to slip and I'll eat everything that's bad for me and lots of it. Yes, it's my fault and I could just try harder to resist. But when you're this tired it's hard to argue with anything. Especially yourself.

(Updated just to correct the spelling and add all of the words I missed through half shut eyes.)

Quite a Weekend

I think that was the weekend. I'm not too sure as I'm pretty sure that at some point during a weekend you're supposed to sleep or at the very least have a bit of a rest.

I remember Friday. A bit tired and still happy from the ladies comment from Thursday (see previous post) plus I was also asked if I'd like to try some perfume when I was in Boots on Friday. I still think I look very male but I think there are little bits starting to be noticed or picked up on - don't know.

Anyway, I ended up staying up late Friday night. I occasionally DJ and on Saturday I'd been asked to do my first wedding. Nerves were getting the better of me. Mess a normal party up and people just hate you. Mess a wedding up and not only do they hate you but you'll have ruined their day and they'll remember it for the rest of their lives.

No Pressure there then.

So, it was a late night/early morning finish of 3:30am, as I busied myself preparing play lists and notes to help cope with the nerves. Copious notes of the names, parents, dances, music to include, music to avoid, a full 6 hour play list that I could drop into in case fear stole my ability to select music was all copied onto 2 laptops (I took a spare just in case). I even copied the notes to my iPhone just in case. It was only lack of time that stopped me copying the music to the iPhone as well.

Back up at 7:30am and off swimming with the family. Now this might sound daft but as I've mentioned elsewhere I wasn't expecting boobs to grow much by now and I've kinda been caught

out as I still only have swimming trunks. Need to find something more suitable soon.

First real job of the day. I took the PA over to the venue. I was using 4 active speakers, one of which I set up with a microphone for the speeches. Then off to drop our son of with a friend who he would be staying the night with as Mrs J was coming with me to lend moral support.

Then back to the house for some food, a shower and the rest of the kit. I don't like to leave things like lights and laptops at a venue in case they walk. Speakers are a bit too heavy for the opportunist thief (I haven't decided if this is more theory or calculated risk).

By the time we got back to the venue to start the evening the adrenalin was pumping. Got set up and once the first dances were over I settled into the night. It was a really nice crowd who were up for a party so the dance floor was rarely empty and by the end of the night some were even dancing on the furniture.

I did the gig completely in bob mode. This event wasn't about me. It was about the new married couple and so I didn't want to divert attention away from them with comments about the strange DJ. One thing that did hit home was how blokey it all was. The men at the event were very friendly but to not stand out I felt I had to put on an act that I now realise isn't me and I didn't realise, until Saturday night, how far I have moved on from this act.

Gig over and we broke down the kit double quick and headed back home. Apart from breaking hard to avoid hitting a deer, which at one point was running alongside the car in a panic, we got home quick enough. Unloaded the car straight away as we were to be up early for the next stage of our weekend adventure. As an aside, the kit is about 150Kg and it was hard work unloading it as quickly as possible so we could get to bed.

Anyway, by 2:30am we were fast asleep.

Sunday. 8:30am. Up and out to collect my son. Sunday, we were transporting a cat to Yorkshire. Now we live a bit south of Glasgow but we first had to head to the other side of Glasgow before we even started to collect my son. A 60 mile round trip later and we're almost back where we started, collecting the cat.

Now why we were doing this is a very long and not for here story. However, we actually had a very nice journey down, dropped off the cat in Yorkshire and then headed back across to Lancashire to drop in on the in-laws. Might as well since we were in the area.

Just as well as the car developed a bit of a fault during the journey and my brother in law managed to fix it. It was a guard under the car that had come loose. We think it might have been caused when I had to avoid the deer.

After a rest we headed back up north. Again a good drive and we finally got home about 8:30pm (Mrs J was driving and isn't known for taking it slowly).

Son in bed, settled down and got caught up in a film. We were about to go to bed at about 12:30am when we heard our son get up. Now like all parents, we're used to the odd bit of sick but this was bad enough that we called NHS 24 and they advise that we took him to the local hospital.

Back we went out but by the time we were seen he had been sick a few times and was starting to feel better. Don't get me wrong, it was a good service. It was just the way things happened.

Got back home about 3:00am. I decided that it was too late to make it into work in the morning so I checked a few of the important systems and emailed the office to say what was happening and that everything was up and running.

Finally got to bed at 4:30am. Might have been earlier but I fell asleep typing the email.

So quite a weekend. 1 wedding, 600 miles of traveling, a late night hospital visit and about 10 hours of sleep.

I need another weekend to recover.