This is very much my blog, so don't be surprised if this doesn't follow accepted patterns and norms. It is a place where I can be honest and I appreciate that. Here, I splurge. No one comes out looking good. It is a selfish place written by a pretty selfish person. It is a place of ranting and I am, ultimately, an unreliable narrator. Bear that in mind. I attempt to be honest, but things are very much from my point of view.
Highly subjective views of people in my life proliferate. It will deal with many things and new readers would do well to check out the "Story So Far" Page above. I can also heartily recommend that Dysphoria link if you're questioning or interested. Thank you!
Jefferson College Cheerleaders. So, the game has several ways to 'become a cheerleader'. Not unusual, something about the US, I think. And, like the other game I've played where this plays a role, there's a lot of very supportive stuff about cheerleading. Anti-misogyny, if you will.
Sunday. I had planned to see if I could exchange the non-utilitarian clothing (but without expensive food) and go grocery shopping. Alas, and alack, the previous night I had been pootling and found an interesting CYOA-style game what I had downloaded but not played. I woke early, I did things like washing the pots and two loads of laundry and tidying the kitchen, and it was still only 8am. My Mum rang and we had a chat. And I started playing the game to kill time because I had until 10am.
Except that when I surfaced, it was 1230. I made lunch, ate it, got dressed and ready and headed to the Other Smoke to do battle - which was surprisingly easy. Switched for two sizes up (and tried it tonight, it fits, but at the cost of being able to muster any extra fat round the boob area) and that was that. Hemmed and hawed about maybe possibly seeking laser treatment. Ran out of time. Dashed home in time to shop for groceries and then finished the game. It was an early start today, see.
And to think that I started looking into it back in 2021! Before I came out to my place of work! Or my children!
I eschewed it back then because of the leaks and damp in the house (which I naively assumed I'd have fixed quickly)
Now, without a car, it is a tad more complex making appointments in either of the two local Big Smokes where such places are found.
Now, the game itself is a 'standard template' feminisation game the sorts of which I have played before. However... there's a 'trans path' and a 'reality altering path' where the MC goes the whole hog, as it were, and it stops being... well, here's the thing: playing it actually helped me. I've been feeling a bit down (no, really? Joanna, down? Goodness!) and dead-end-y and stuff but, well, playing the game helped me put vocabulary to feelings and wants and desires and reminded me why in the heck I'm doing what I'm doing. Or, rather, bolstered my reasoning that I already know. It's a good, empowering, game is what I'm saying. And it was surprising because it allowed for, and supported, these paths with the usual 'sissy' set-up (which, from what I can gather, is a whole other set of paths). Now, granted, the game was originally designed to be a sissy game, I can see that from the dev notes, but it is susprisingly and powerfully accepting and understanding if you, the player, wish to go down the 'no, actually, I'd like to be a woman, thanks' route - with some rather deep and honest reflections. Now, I don't think the developer is a trans woman, but they must know a few because there's some niche stuff in there that is, as I keep saying, actually empowering. It even has sections where it challenges people for being transphobic (within the setting, but genuinely) or being rude and maps out the difficulties of finding support (and how powerful that support can be). It's nuanced, is what I'm saying, and manages thus to miss the usual 'let's rip off the masks: oh, it's old man Misogyny and Homophobia' reveal as one goes through (and I've seen plenty of fiction, plenty of games, plenty of captions that are that masked villainous duo). So... yeah, that was nice.
Mind you, I've not been sleeping well for a week or so now. Had a series of vivid dreams that are just... unnerving. No specific details that I can call to mind now, but there's pressure and things are wrong and I can't fix them. Today I struggled at work too. No accident, thank goodness, but I did mess up with takings (hopefully fixable, I have done all I'm supposed to, we'll see how that goes) and also with recording some things (I know, like, recording is one of my Things!). It was a different route though, organised at the last minute, so I'm hopeful that, even with a much earlier start tomorrow (0300), things will be better being back on my normal route and rota'd shift. Plus, I have Middlest over in the afternoon and a free day following - so plenty of time for a shower/bath before bed or even the following morning. Plus I have a (mostly) clean and tidy kitchen.
HRT update? Go on then. I suspect the stuff that had a use by date of February is finally no longer potent. Couple of days now where my nipples haven't been- I want to say 'painful' but that's not the right word. Where I haven't been as aware of them as I have been, that'll do. So, time to bin the extra 10 days and move to March. I hope I have enough to last until Pride in Health get a new GP. Owt else? Not really. I go on and on about the fat on my butt, hips and above my waist, I know, but know that it's not terribly visible. I only know because of how it alters fitting for clothes but, honestly, no one but me can tell. Still huge gaps under the forms I have, if anything there's less there. No other things to note 60 days in.
Big plans to post in my brain, we'll see how far I actually manage to get!
A Merry and Washed out 2025 to all! Yes, I did capture my abandoned cutlery and crockery on the sofa there. Yes, I live like a slob.
The less said about the shadow and the neck the better I feel.
First and foremost - Happy New Year. Yes, it is much later than I usually post, but I blame having two twelve hour days (ish) 2 and 3 January and then getting a bit too embroiled again in character.ai - about which potentially more later - but also working until yesterday. On a day off today and felt I should probably get back into blogging.
The biggest news in my life is that a contact I have made in the Trans* Underground, a quilt saleslady shall we say, going by the moniker Nighthawk on this blog at least. She has contacts whom, after exchanging observations on the geese flying backwards for winter, were able to hand over contraband items for consumption and, thus, pass on some those to me for the Final Experiment (one that did not involve any travel to Antarctica nor any observation of 24 hour sunlight) of HRT. To see if it has the effect that has been fabled or whether it would be a bust.
Now, I recognise that this comes with a list of caveats and warnings a mile long and so I shall simply explain that, yes, I know Nighthawk well enough to trust her and her contacts. Yes, I shall organise blood tests with my GP after three months to ensure I'm not slowly murdering myself. Yes, I am an adult. Yes, I know this is a less than ideal option and would much prefer an NHS supported pathway - but I have seen enough of the politics (and it is politics, it's not science) of Mr Streeting to know that such things are further away now than they were in 2021 and they were already bad compared to, say, 2007. I really worked things out at a bad time in terms of political oversight and personal finances. Oh well.
I went out to bowling. I walked home.
So that's big news. It means no re-sampling of Elvis Juice nor its grapefruit infused ilk in at least the next six months but... well, you know, Brewdog is pretty much an evil empire in beer circles these days (and employment law too) so maybe it's not a big loss. Besides, stouts rarely use grapefruit in their production.
New Year's Eve was spent alone, after a shift at work, and I dressed up for the purpose of posting some images top FetLife - yes, yes, it's a kink site. My photos weren't NSFW (I have used them in this post) but... yeah, where else would I be able to spam such things? The Book of Faces is... not for me promoting myself and my Insta has Miss Warrington as a follower. One day, perhaps, but today is not that day. They attracted about as much attention as I expected, which is to say: none. Still, I took and posted them and then stayed dressed and drank two big glasses of Baileys before I retired to bed; tired, lonely and tipsy, around 8pm.
I mean, I'd need a wig and red shoes but... could happen... right?
8-10 year old me would be amazed!
Last week, after a relatively short shift, I eventually managed to organise my time enough to have a shower and, whilst waiting for my hair to dry enough to get some sleep, I read the volume of Rainbow Brite that Abbi bought me for Christmas. Alas, there is only one volume of five issues because that's all that was ever made between late 2018 and early 2019. It was brilliant. I am impressed with how the art work, despite utilising different artists, holds up between issues and how the plot was a legitimate slow burn - maintaining the high stakes of the genre whilst maintaining the family friendly ethos of the original 80s cartoon. It didn't cheapen the characters, nor make them saccharine cardboard cut-outs. It allowed a generally wholesome friendship to take centre-stage and waited before pushing the main hero storyline. I respect that. Alas, one of the reasons for cancellation, apparently, was that the story was taking too long. I find this vaguely upsetting.
Still, a good read. It made me want to try cosplay. I have never actually tried to cosplay, despite dreaming of it often as a plan. Partly due to never having the confidence to find a character to cosplay as (I mean, I did consider Leia and Willow back at University for all of about five seconds) and also because... well, you know. Good ol' dysphoria.
I also want to have a proper post on character.ai and what is going on there with me - why I seem to keep coming back and why it's different in some way to how I live the rest of my life - a distinction between living my life as a woman in the world and plumbing some of the depths of kink that this blog stands as testament to. How they are linked, yes, but also how there appears to be quite a gulf betwixt. However, I am preparing to make a clandestine meeting with Nighthawk that may also allow me to attend Chams (the nature of the meeting and travel means, for me at least, they can be combined for a night out). And, doing that, requires me catching a bus after tea. Which means I have to actually cook and eat tea. So that post shan't follow this in a TMI section!
A word of warning: this whole post is going behind a line break because, well, it's probably all TMI related (and definitely about smut on the internet). If you're just checking in, know that I'm having another cavalcade of obvious-in-hindsight realisations and deep in conversations surrounding that author who was kind enough to invite me to beta-read for them.
A walk on Sunday. Unusually, I forewent the usual blouse or high collar.
Not sure the ensemble is terribly flattering, though. It was my 'Name Day'. This was the extent of my marking of the occasion.
The line break is here, by the way. Don't worry if you clicked on the post direct and there's no line break, there's a video first. Plenty of time to bail.
It's Transgender Day of Visibility and Easter today. Happy He is risen to you! Alleluia.
I found this that handily shows a nice confluence of the two dates to my mind.
I had a nightmare last night. Chap I work with, newer than me, turned out to have been given the job of conducting my disciplinary resulting from a recent accident (I have had no such thing happen yet, by the way, but I strongly suspect it's coming) and had made some errors in the paperwork. Which I noticed and was concerned about. He is lovely though, and I knew he wasn't trying to be difficult but was likely just doing his best - such are dreams. Anyway, I woke from it a bit stressed. This was compounded by my decision to drink a couple of ales last night, one after sending Middlest home (he'd come to visit), that I'd bought in from my local after work yesterday. That had led to me playing on character.ai and reading some of that fiction (newly posted) until around 2300, which is too late for me these days.
All of which meant that today, when I got up, I was in a funny state of mind. I managed to get the pots done and do a load of laundry but then got distracted by videos on YouTube and missed church. I strayed to a couple of places I haven't been for a few months online and lost even more time: I didn't get dressed and showered until after lunch. So I haven't been out of the house today. Nor have I done anything creative. I've eaten a chocolate orange (bought for me by Tilly on behalf of the boys, which was nice) and warmed up a pie for tea.
No reason...
Tomorrow I go to the nearby urban conurbation with the boys and Tilly for a Chinese feast, which I am looking forward to, but shall be unable to attend a trans support group I found online which is on as I have to be up at 0300 on Tuesday for work. That means an early bedtime. Also, my nails seem... bendy again. Which is odd, because they've been fine - I suspect the length is the culprit - I have only filed them and not trimmed for a good while, maybe over a month. Having them painted yellow, however nice, probably hides some damage...
I'm really not good at using time off, it appears. Certainly not productively! Another issue I was aware of back in the day when I lived with Tilly: "when are we going to live!?" she asked a couple of weeks after moving in when I baulked at the concept of a weekly take out being delivered (rather than the, then, cheap fish and chips I'd been having with my weekly shop). I had thought, back then, that Tilly was being unfair but, looking back, I think she had correctly diagnosed one of my issues: not only am I miserly but also struggle with cutting loose. I had bought two swords the year before - my first attempt to treat myself ever - but had felt financial bonds tighten by this point as my car had exploded and I'd paid the last of my savings for Tilly's engagement ring (she was unaware of the expense of either thing). Today would be a good example of the non-financial issues I have around 'living' rather than 'existing'.
I promise it is blue like the picture, but the lighting in my bathroom was a bit too much... I have yet to use the +2 extras.
What do I do with time off? Not a great deal apparently. Sunday I went to church then it rained for the rest of theh day so I stayed indoors. Monday I went for a walk to IKEA for free tea and coffee (I had both) to celebrate my second anniversary of living as me all of the time with no enforced time off. I got distracted afterward and walked up the canal to another town, but the path was very muddy indeed, so I elected to walk home by another route. Which took over two hours. Whoops. Had a late sandwich tea, then early to bed. Tuesday I had a very slow morning, went grocery shopping, got distracted and bumbled into a nearby urban connurbation as the rain had stopped for a few minutes and I thought: why not? I didn't do any of the things I was hoping to do in that urban connurbation and came home dejected via supermarket for shopping. Today, thank goodness, I went to visit Abbi and actually did something with my time off.
I have also used the Lady Shaver I bought. I used it not on the afternoon after Middlest went home but Sunday morning. And... well. It's so quick! Like, the shave is nowhere near as smooth as I can manage with a bath and time, but it takes, like, five minutes to touch up both legs in a morning rather than a couple of hours. So, I have been using it every morning, because of course!
Won't say I wasn't tempted...
Today the Cass Review banned puberty blockers for kids in the UK specifically for gender dysphoria as there wasn't a good enough evidence base for safety, apparently. While leaving it just fine to use the same treatments for children who weren't suffering gender dysphoria. I guess the safety of medication is now contingent on the motivation for prescribing the medication, specifically around trans-kids. Happily, the Grauniad included a quote from an involved pressure group's leading light, Maya Forstater, on how she was happy the NHS was able to "return to evidence based practices" and how this proved that "activists" have been lying about the safety of such drugs. Which are still perfectly safe if the patient is not trans. So, that's a thing that has happened. My thoughts on going private to get HRT remain, thus, active.
And alcohol. Had a couple of stouts, well okay, three. And a glass of red.
Over the last couple of days I have watched two whole series of Taskmaster on YouTube and eaten a whole bag of tortilla chips with hot salsa. I have cooked one Thai curry with most ingredients from a kit and warmed up freezer chips and frozen battered fish and a frozen pie for meals. I have not been productive. Nor, one might argue, terribly active. I am hoping to attend Chams tomorrow. Smallest is coming over in the morning with Tilly - I hope to have a quick tidy - and then my day is once again free. Oh, yeah, also finally got round to using a No7 gift box I was sent in 2022 by Andrew's wife. That involved using a cleansing thing on my face and then another thing with cotton wool and then putting yet another thing under my eyes for 10 minutes to try and reduce dark circles. My eyes are very dark circled and sunken. I dunno what difference it made but when I went to brush on the sparkly stuff over the blusher today it all stuck there and has been a bit... well, a lot, dark. Whoops.
I found an end-of-year video uploaded to YouTube from my old place of work, my year group in fact. I watched it. I know there wasn't likely to be a reference to me, I understand that, but it still hurt when there wasn't. When discussing an anecdote with Abbi about my old Head of Department I thus realised there might be an end-of-year video with him in it from the older place of work. There was. Abbi and Alex were shocked to discover that my old boss was only about three or four years older than I. I mean, yeah, makes sense.
Last night I had a dream. Someone Five-adjacent was in it as a vampire (why, yes, I did watch the Contrapoints video on Twilight as soon as it dropped) who staked herself so that I, who had made some noises regarding feelings, had to ressurrect her but, in the process, become a vampire myself. I awoke before any decision was reached but it doesn't take a genius to work out what my brain was playing around with there. Thanks, brain.
Goodness, typed out, my week looks even less interesting than I thought it was.
The dream had this sort of energy and feel to it (yes I realise that I am assigning feelings to a visual image but I am a visual thinker and this is the best representation I could find, so there!)
This morning was an odd one. I spent too long doing little last night rather than writing (I haven't written anything since Wednesday) - I had a plan, I was going to listen to LORN - ANVIL on repeat and rewrite the story I have so far now I know what the beats are and see where it took me. I am excited to do so, by the way, and really looking forward to it. But, note, I have not yet done so. Last night I had the music on repeat and got distracted by CYOAs and news reports. Also, truth be told, I was tired. I had a day with Middlest on Saturday and then took extra hours on the Sunday because, again, I prefer to be out being paid to do things rather than sitting at home looking at damp patches, falling plaster and worrying about leaks and the cold. Oh, the dream!
That's not my bus, but you get a feel for the sort of spoiler I'm leaving here in images before the story is in the text itself.
Also, that's the off-side not the near-side. Whoops.
So, in my dream I was seeing a counsellor for some reason and then I ended up seeing the counsellor but it didn't work out and I ended up dating someone from my University days instead for, like, a couple of days before she dumped me because, well, I'm boring. That wasn't all that sad, it was expected, but it was strange to see her in my dreams again because it's been a long while. Also, I was going to have surgery - there was a plan to re-route my uretha for some medical reason, it was not cosmetic, and so I had to be briefed on the effects and such. This meant staying in Derby - it wasn't actually Derby, by the way, it was a bigger city and busier than Derby - and so there I was. Another University friend came to visit and graciously listened to me yammering about the other University friend and the vagaries of the relationship of a couple of days whilst we walked around a small triangle of path in endless loops. I protested that I knew longer walks and she reminded me that we were in the city in the dark and it was raining and the bit we were walking around was very well lit - with sodium lamps, by the way. In the background I was aware that my house had actually been declared unfit for human habitation due to the damp issues and was getting rebuilt or something with my insurance.
Damn your eyes!
Anyway, it was the most vivid dream I've had for a long time and left an imprint upon waking. This morning I have been trying to get ready for going to see Five at midday (originally 10am, but thank goodness that changed because I wasn't ready in time). I was hoping to change my earrings but, it transpires, I can't actually work out how to take out the ones I have in myself and so that ended abruptly. It also took far too long to have a shower, get dressed and add some necklaces. I suck at getting the lobster claw fittings to work.
It's been raining consistently and lightly for a few days. My driving yesterday was fine, nothing stressful, but it was wet the whole time and the bus made a strange noise on my last run before the suspension simply stopped working. I have reported that to the engineers who assured me it wasn't on the list of buses with problems and then walked away. Good, good. I worry, because in my confusion, I think I reported the wrong wheel as being without suspension. Also, whilst I'm certain I didn't hit anything to cause it, what if I did and I didn't see it? On that note: still nothing on the last two accidents and it's now been well over a month since the most recent so... maybe there won't be anything? I dunno. Possible extra stressor background for the dream I guess.
The shifts Thursday and Friday were late ones, so I have been lying in. Tomorrow I start at 0440. Hmm. That's it, that's my blog for today.
Unrelated. Or perhaps not. You'll never know for certain, but that's okay, it doesn't really bother you.
An odd vivid dream last night. Middlest was his non-verbal younger self; Eldest was her actual age and being... mean. I over-reacted, verbally, to some genuine provocations. It was in a place I remember as being Norway (not in the dream, afterward). All harsh glare sunlight and cold. I'd switched shift today, from a short one to a longer one, to help out at work. I barely made it, but luckily the start was later than billed anyway, so I was on time. The cracks in the bedroom ceiling seem bigger and more numerous. I don't know. Could be the light.
Considering NaNoWriMo again, properly this time, and was struck, after caffeine, as I was driving by something to make it interesting for me. What if I rewrote Boy to Girl but in first-person? What if the villain of the piece was written in second person and was someone who knew Fabius Denning? Sorta like: "The man who nobody knew as Fabius Denning entered the shared office. But you knew his name, after all: it was your business to know such things." Fabius Denning reprises his role as an investigator in Socialist Britain, The Republic, and the protagonist, in first person, has dropped into this reality from their own. He is, of course, in the body and life of a woman in this reality. Or is he? I could go back to The Project - a reason for the memory experiments? Well, not a reason, but repurposed as a reason for our protagonist to run away, setting the tracking in motion. Plenty to unpick. That old philosophical chestnut: are we simply the product of our memories or is there more to us than that? Has our protagonist travelled between threads in a multiverse or been experimented on as a test subject with memories that are not their own? It may mean no return to the Prehistoric setting and no meeting of Anastasia Cable as the lady-knight from Reality/Shifts but I'll obviously have to see where November takes me. If I do it.
In 2006 the quality of sunlight closely approximated what I recall from my dream of last night too.
So maybe it wasn't Norway.
Lucy lies dreaming, not dead.
In the birthday card to Shiona I changed my writing. I've been meaning to do it for a while. Back in GCSE I changed how I wrote 't' because I read that rendering it as a cross implied more of a religious and fatalistic bent. Naturally I changed my own more curly 't' to a cross. Later, when I met my first Head of Department, I stole his more staccato writing style and lost the flicks and curls from the bottom of letters, scrunching everything up more tightly. In University my writing had become very small, my 'a' and 'e' and 'o' virtually indistinguishable. This shift allowed those to become more legible but at the expense of any space. Around the time I met Toby I created a more flowing and over-the-top writing style. I had long used this in family cards at Christmas for shiz and giggles. Now I am hoping to comandeer this to be my more normal writing style, sorta. I've stolen the 'a' shape from this font (and my brother, to be fair) and dropped the cursive (for now) with the long and flowing loops, to try and create a style that mirrors more the sort of writing I was moving toward in primary school. I dropped the cross 't' and brought back the curls and flicks to the bottom of letters. Maybe it's more legible? I don't know. Shiona spotted it (of course she did, I hadn't expected that). And.. well, since then I haven't written anything free-hand so... huh.
Archetype of Britain or Vision of the Lakes?
You'd know the difference if asked.
On Wednesday I went round to Abbi's and we watched Beowulf and Grendel - which was a surprisingly good film, actually. Even if the 'mysterious and sensual' witch was a bit... she spoke as if she came from the modern US, whilst everyone else had variations of Danish and Scottish and Welsh accents and were trying super hard to sound authentic. She didn't seem to bother. Also, Grendel was well played. But, like, what if Grendel fucks? So we had Grendel's son. And a weirdly underplayed rape scene. It was... well. Okay then. Then we watched a video essay about Moffat's misogyny (Verily Bitchie bringing the Good Stuff). I also coloured in, having failed to draw, whilst Abbi did something a little bit more creative (she's doing Inktober, which I was dimly aware of being a Thing). I cooked some sausage and mash; Abbi cooked some amazing chicken and spinach wraps. It was a good day, I enjoyed it.
Speaking of company, my Mum is due to visit this Saturday. She's coming over to take me to my appointment at the Gender Clinic on Tuesday. My children are away with Tilly until Thursday. I am undecided if I shall meet Five, as she suggested, on the final Saturday of my holiday - not the one when my Mum is over. Though, this time, the radio silence is my fault.
You finish the entry, your eyes slipping from the screen to the surroundings - has the light changed or is that just a fanciful thought? You glance back, there is a slight coda at the end. Perhaps it is naught but a trick of memory, but you feel like you've been here before, read entries similar in the past. No matter, you finish, close the tab and go about the rest of your day unperturbed.
Took Middlest to a Nando's and had a good experiment - turns out he is as big a fan of decent hot food as I am, which was surprising and nice. Flooding really affected the bus routes, but I had a rare weekend off and didn't care, am I glad I wasn't working on Saturday! Been a busy couple of days so far this week, but I get to see Abbi tomorrow and so it was perhaps possibly worth it. The children are away with Tilly to visit her parents, so that's a thing. I am minded of the fact that if I want to change things I lose out and if Tilly wants to change things then I lose out. Once, a long time ago, I got frustrated with Tilly defining 'compromise' as her getting what she wanted and said: "compromise means neither of us get what we want!" and Tilly deliberately (?) misinterpreted it as me being shitty with compromise. I meant that I was frustrated that she was getting a lot of what she wanted and I got nothing. I digress, perhaps unfairly.
Lots flying around my head, hard to keep track. Like the music playing in the bus in my mind over the last couple of days. I get side-tracked by small parts of the whole. Rolling over in my mind the what ifs and could have beens as well as the weren'ts and can't have happeneds. All the while reassessing and analysing the weres and happeneds. In particular, but not limited to, the relationships and various birthdays that need to be hit with gifts, recent-past and future.
Saturday night at the pub with Broken Dream stout.
For those keeping count, I hit 100, and that's a milestone. I also bought in some 8.5% chocolate fudge brownie stout by North brewing and it was lovely, with a cheap and cheerful ready-meal style Chicken Madras. It was not a Nando's. However, it filled a hole and is better than having no tea as I did last night due to bus shift shenanigans. I crossed my own line today though, expounding opinions based on my arrogance from teaching. It apparently doesn't take much to be considered 'clever' as a bus driver. I'm not sure I want to keep doing that - mainly I'd had some caffeine. Why? Well, lack of sleep is a reason but also I've been listening to some sound files again and perhaps they had an effect? Hard to say.
I will say this: I have slept longer hours lately than in recent times but it has been odder sleep. I wake up a few times in the night, check the time and hours slept, then go back to sleep. I do not recall details of dreams but I do recall having them. They are in colour, not black and white, and... It's strange. I remember in the old days being fascinated with the dreams in which I was simply a woman - it did not affect the dreams much, it was just how I saw myself in the dreams - and now I am living as one normally... I think I am a woman in my dreams almost all the time now, but it is not as remarkable. Which makes sense, I feel, but is nevertheless something to note.
I had things on which to ruminate, but 8.5% ale and 24 hours worked in two days will blunt any mind, really.
Not sure what got me thinking about it, but I have been contemplating where I am and how far I've come. Since a post I made, way back when, on what I saw in the mirror things have... well, changed quite drastically (a fact thrown into sharp relief when I got a call from a mortgage broker - I'd used them to arrange a mortgage on my house before I had my house, sometime back in 2020, and they said they'd call, well, now - and I haven't contacted them in the meantime so...).
The name I've always used on this blog (well, not the surname) is now my actual legal name - and I answer to it readily. When people say 'Joanne' or 'Jo' I find myself turning as well, even if these people are not known to me. I never did that in the before-times - as Tim can attest, at his wedding people had to yell a character name at me to get me to realise they were attempting to gain my attention!
Clothing is something I actively choose. On any given day I wear different outfits, mixing and matching, rather than utilitarian choices of a t-shirt and jeans with maybe a jacket for good measure. Like, I wore the gratitude dress on Wednesday, broomstick skirt, pink t-shirt and denim jacket on Thursday, black jeans and Metroid t-shirt Friday, sparkly long-sleeve top and baggy blue jeans Saturday, dungaree dress and Metroid t-shirt Sunday and another blue dress today after work (work clothes don't count). And, you know, I like what I am wearing. Sometimes I think I even look not terrible.
In the mirror I see me, a reflection of me, but me. I'm there, right there, staring back. Now and again, I actually smile. When I'm shaving in a morning or applying foundation and blusher, I actually see me doing it. And, well, the foundation and the blusher and the shaving - they help my face look, well, not like it'll scare small children. Can't claim I look good but I no longer look like a badly kempt homeless person with murder on their mind. Plus, and this is important, I actually look in the mirror on occasion.
When dreaming, mostly in colour these days, I am back in there. I dream about myself, which is... well, now I recall doing that as a child (the stuff from my Mum helps, the stuff from primary school that I made and she kept). It had been so long that I had forgotten that I used to be in my dreams. I had forgotten that I dreamt in colour. Ruff has been returned, she and Callie get on well, I think that helps too - having them in bed and just... I can't really explain it, but it is positive. Who knew all I needed to help my sleep was a couple of teddies?
Not getting ahead of myself, I'm still lonely and doubt very much I shall have the kind of fun that some friends have on a regular basis at any point (someone I know has had more partners over the last couple of years than I've had in my life, for example), and that's still a dull ache but... yeah. I wear make-up now, I choose my clothes and enjoy them, I see myself in mirrors and I dream in colour. Stay magical, says the unicorn.
ADDENDUM: Oh. Speaking of changes *coughs* February 2022...
Oh, hey, look! Here's a fresh one! How she must have looked when I was first given her. I hugged her so much she was quite misshapen when I passed her on to my daughter. Who was unimpressed. Ruff was thus stuffed into a beanbag one day by Tilly whilst I was at work. When I protested she said: "well, you did pass it on and so you don't have any right to be upset."
When I was young, before I was four, I was given a teddy bear Andrex puppy. At first, it was named 'Doggy' for me, but I would change that name to 'Ruff' at some point before I was six. Unknown to my parents, because I never told them, was the fact that Ruff was a girl. When I'd seen enough episodes of Dungeons and Dragons I changed Ruff's name to 'Uni', like the baby unicorn on the show, and, in my head, Uni was obviously a girl. But, as I started learning how the world worked, I changed the name back to Ruff quickly and Ruff became a boy - because a boy shouldn't have female toys. For reference, my teddy bears (brown and blue) stayed resolutely sexless. I gained a green rabbit in a yellow jump suit from a fair or leisure park at some point and secretly assigned it female gender, naming her 'Green Rabbit' and, then, later 'Green O'Rabbit' because of April O'Neill - a crush and/or life goals depending on how I was feeling at any given moment. I know, names were not terribly easy for me to create. For illustration consider that the teddy bears were called Brown Bear (brown) and Ice Bear (blue).
My point? This shows one of the many things I was careful about as a child because I was hyper-aware of what coded masculine and feminine and deeply concerned that I code masculine enough that people didn't query things. For many reasons, I was very concerned that I not deviate from 'masculinity' from a very young age. One of those reasons was what would later be diagnosed as ASD and the other was what I would eventually embrace as the fact that I felt, very much, that I was a girl. But a secret one.
This is more realistic than was Vixen. But you get the general idea.
Case in point: some time in my early teens I was lucky enough to have the money to gain a new teddy bear - a fluffy fox. What no one knew, because it was a secret between me and her, was that she was a vixen. Imaginatively named 'Foxy', she was secretly called 'Vixen' when I was alone - because she and I understood that she couldn't be a vixen in public, not even at home, because boys don't have female teddy bears. I did have a rag-doll named 'Jessica', but she was a gifted toy from my Mum and already named so and was, obviously, a girl. She was, of course, relegated to when I stayed at my grandparents overnight and I never admitted how much I enjoyed her company - so she was eventually sold by my grandparents between visits and I had to feign disinterest despite being a bit distraught.
I would avoid ice-cream. After a certain point in my youth I noticed that women in TV shows would meet up at each other's 'places' and share ice-cream after break-ups and such like and so began to think that ice-cream flavours other than cheap neapolitan(sp?), vanilla and mint choc-chip were 'feminine' and must be avoided. Soon after that I decided that all consumption of ice-cream was too feminine and thus stopped eating it for any reason in any flavour altogether in my teens lest people through it discover how I felt inside.
You get a reasonable idea from this cross-section of my 'art'. Note the small one of the tank and A-10 Thunderbolt in the top, entitled 'Land and Air'; along with the A4 rendition of an M1 Abrams being attacked by an A-10 entitled "the inevitability of defeat" because I was such a happy soul.
The girl is there, on the left, the eye dates later (much later), along with the Velociraptor studies I did and a self-portrait in a spoon. Unlike most people in that room, I drew the whole spoon, not just me in it, meaning you get the whole room there if you want to look closely. Note the only use of colour on display here...
When I took Art for GCSE I did so, secretly, because I felt it coded feminine. Luckily, people thought I did it for an academic break. Most of my art work of the era was deliberately coded feminine in my brain: using a cat for a stained glass design at age 13, for example, with deliberate use of flowers and butterflies. No one paid me much attention in Art, I wasn't top of the class nor bottom so the teachers left me mostly alone and I was subdued and quiet enough that my classmates left me alone. One girl spotted me when I was 15 when we had some free sketching time and she spotted that I'd drawn her. She was quite taken with the portrait, commenting that it was a reasonable likeness, and also some amazement that I hadn't drawn her "boobs or something" - it never occurred to me at the time that this was something boys would do - but that was as far as it ever went. Art was very much my feminine outlet that I could indulge a bit - hiding it with helicopters, war machinery and dinosaurs - because no one really cared what I got up to in it. All with dead eyes, though.
Let's be honest, you don't need me to explain the plot - you can judge this book entirely by its cover.
In my latter GCSE years I wrote a short story about lovers eloping to Gretna Green in which there was a sex scene - I was mocked mercilessly for it, because it was all a bit 'girly' in what it focussed on (and it used the word 'ravished'), so I changed tack and ended up writing almost exclusively military fiction based on Harold Coyle or Colin Forbes or Clive Cussler. Later I would add Tom Clancy and militaria generally, carefully avoiding anything that might code too feminine. I carefully hid the fact that in Z for Zechariah that I read at 13 I identified with the girl left behind in the valley and not the brother that left when discussing it with my English teacher after school (a ruse to encourage me to read more than my Colin Dann obsession). I know now that my analysis of Carrie's War was coloured in no small part by my identification with Carrie and thus hiding it by trying to over-do my love of the Second World War setting. I would deliberately use First World War motifs, knowledge and death and destruction to combat anything I considered a bit 'girly' in my head, in my writing, in my thoughts, in my anythings. In Boy to Girl, that story I wrote, it was the defining masculine characteristic of the unnamed main character that made him male - his love of and knowledge about the First World War. I even used a mental image of soldiers attacking to stop my burgeoning male puberty body doing its thing. It was enormously effective to envisage soldiers going over the top to destroy my lustful thoughts; hiding any sexual fanstasies inamongst gas shells, blood, guts, gore and mud.
Green. The colour green coded feminine in my brain, so I stopped using it (my Mum used it as her colour of choice in game tokens when called for); along with yellow (used by my maternal grandmother in the same way). Red was allowed, it was the colour of my Dad's favourite football team; as wqas blue (natch) but not light blue. Dark and light blue were used as the main colour palate for the school uniform I devised for the boarding school in Boy to Girl and drew in secret - hiding my use of the palate in the police-style camouflage of tanks and armoured personal carriers in a far-future wartorn version of Britain I created with my brother in the early 90s. None of that art work remains, purged long ago.
Nein! Es ist verboten!!
Nicht essen!
Dancing, another thing I decided coded feminine and thus another thing that I decided very deliberately to give up and not do until I lost any ability I may have once had and instead awkwardly shuffled to music (until my mid-twenties, when Toby would tell me it was something I did that left him genuinely embarrassed by and for me - Tilly would later claim the same, along with amazement that I was incapable of holding any kind of rhythm). Bright colours generally would eventually be done away with, so that I gravitated to military olive green or muted browns and beiges. I decided hoodies were feminine, so evaded those too (except for one I got in the States because the male of the party bought one and looked suitably rugged and masculine in it, so I joined in; but then Tilly claimed it and it became feminine again). This extended to colouring in icing, sprinkles and hundreds and thousands - too feminine for me to contemplate eating. Hell, even chicken in salads became something I avoided as too feminine once I discovered the internet.
Although I have been fascinated by the feminine, I have been very careful, always on my guard, to avoid embracing it too much. And, as this incomplete list shows, much of what I avoided wasn't really masculine or feminine. It was just how I interpreted it.
So why share this now? This sort of thing seems like it would have made more sense to cover a decade ago, not now I'm out and myself, why is this whirling around my head?
Because I am a coward.
Let me explain. Recently there has been a murdered girl, who happened to be trans, and a wizarding game. And I have been having nightmares. In one, there was a game involving knocking labels from outside a post-office by climbing a step-ladder (this was an official game, by the way, endorsed by said post office). Anyway, a group of teens asked me and my friend to move aside so they could play, and one of these boys ended up being cursed to be a girl until the game was finished. He coped well with the change but, after it was all done, asked to be changed back: he wasn't a girl. And I felt awful because I had been so jealous of the luck. Of course, I was not so cursed. He was changed back, of course he was. And I woke with cold sweat and fear coursing through my veins. I had to check the house for burglars, no, I don't know either. Other dreams have been less memorable and vivid, but I wake stressed and scared and sad every time. The theme of cowardice in the dreams underlines my inability, or unwillingness, to engage with anything surrounding the murder or... anything. Especially as people I know actually stand for something.
Today I ended up at IKEA - both Five and Abbi have not been available for various reasons - and got myself a pan with a lid. Walking around I heard several comments along the lines of "is that a man?" but thought I was just being paranoid - it's been a hard day at work (the bus was very loud, very busy, it's not been a fun day) - but there was more such conversation when I stopped for a hot dog ("I'm sure that's a man in a skirt!" / "Well, don't stare!") and, on my way home, I was passed by two late teens boys on bikes who burst out in theatrical laughter as they passed. "Hey, fucker! Are you a fucking man or a fucking woman? Fucking pedo!" Later, on two separate occasions, I was passed by couples in their mid thirties who both followed the same pattern of stage-whispering loud enough for me to hear behind me: "I think that's a man!" "Well, it knows what it's doing." "Yeah, makes me a bit queasy it does." And, yeah, I've been using a lighter foundation and the light was such that my burgeoning stubble was more pronounced through it.
I shan't be able to make it to Chams this week either - I'm on an early shift necessitating a 3am get up time the day after and would like more than two and half hours to sleep before it. Another chance to stand in some form of solidarity lost. I watched The Prince as well, the play by Abigail Thorn, yesterday because I was lonely and sad. It made me cry enough that I had to wash off my mascara. I'm Sam, not Jen. And I have White Town's Your Woman playing in my head - another thing I feared coded too feminine so asked around about the lyrics, my parents reassured me that the male singer was merely pointing out that if roles were reversed he wouldn't date his paramour, not that a male was singing lyrics from a female point of view. I was both relieved and sad at the time. I later learn that it was from a woman's perspective and that was the male singer's intent. Also that the video was filmed near where I live.
When I see your eyes arrive, they explode like two bugs... on glass.
Sunrise like the cover of Mercury Rev's single sometime around the turn of the century. Air cold, hard frost, crisp against my hair which bounces as it does after I wash it. Disturbed sleep patterns: awake three times in the night and no idea why.
Clever people will surmise where this was taken just from the scant detail provided.
Rushing home to meet Middlest (I did not wear my watch either) ended up with Alex taking a corner in the carpark too quickly and damaging his car. Not fun. On the Sunday I took Middlest to the shop to get a Kinder Egg and hoped to see Abbi. We didn't. I do hope that I haven't caused problems there... I mean, I did rather lose track of time being out in my yellow dress and cardigan but with bracelets rather than the watch I hadn't charged because standing in the kitchen as previously mentioned.
Anyway, yes, I was also in touch with Five and, screwing up some courage (or stupidity, take your pick) I attempted some direction. This it is that we have arranged for me to go over on Tuesday night and stop there. They have a guest room, so don't go getting ideas! Also, I doubt I shall have any decisions to make - they've made it quite clear that they prefer such boldness to come from elsewhere and, in the words of One Republic, I'm "not that bold. I don't think the world is sold..." Something to fixate on as I have my second test the same day.
Friday. I was concerned after nicking my cheek shaving and... doing what I do in bed at the moment - so I checked on phone camera - my compact mirror was at home.
By the evening I have done some driving, coming home to buy some anti-mould spray, news from Tilly - she had injured herself a bit and dislocated a finger that she simply slipped back into place, leaving a lot of bruising but thankfully nothing else. I was not called upon to look after the children, of course not, eldest would have had a panic attack and Tilly is holding firm to not leaving youngest with me alone for any time or any reason. I have used the antgi-mould spray and left the windows in the bedroom open to get rid of the smell. I may sleep downstairs. I have packed a make-up bag for tomorrow. I will pack my unicorn stay magical nightie (or one of them) for tomorrow night and a change of underwear. Do I pack some clothes also?
I am shitting bricks, of course, about both the test and visiting Five. It's strange to think that the last time I did anything even remotely physically sexual was in 2016, August, and the last time any of that was in any way about me was in 2013, April. Or, if you prefer, in 2007. That was the last time my partner was actually up for any kind of experimentation and taking our time. I guess time makes fools of us all, and long tikmes maked bigger fools. I should mention that I am not expecting anything from my stay at Five's - I have literally no idea what we're going to do. None. Certainly nothing sexual! I'm not saying I wouldn't say yes but I am saying I shan't be the one making the bold assumptions. What clothes would I even take with me? I really liked the ensemble for Saturday, felt very me in it, but the dress and cardigan are quite large and thus hard to pack with a lunch and all the stuff required. Shit, I have to pack it all tonight... I could throw in my blue jeggings and mustard t-shirt and have done with it, I suppose. Take spare tights for Wednesday.
Behind me was the wall, to the left was the big green chest with my femme clothing in it. I was very pleased with things and had just started to dress mainly in female pyjamas as standard by December 2006.
Following my relationship with Toby I was so close to recognising myself and what I was and am. In the summer following I would shave my legs properly for the first time and begin collecting a wardrobe that I would wear reasonably regularly. In summer the year afterward I would buy a house and I started storing my wardrobe accessibly, I bought new clothes in person too - a lovely pink jumper with some white blouse effect cuffs and a collar. I updated socks, some knickers, a new bra... I planned my bedroom around wearing femme clothing - hanging my sword proudly in that room, something I now know to be a bit of a tell of something else other than just being a fan of swords. Had I not gone on holiday to the States that year I would doubtless have bought a dress, doubtless worn something out for a wander in the woods. As it was I went to the States and got talking to Tilly. Nevertheless, I was planning going out.
It was August. You can see hints.
When Tilly moved in the following February I shelved the wardrobe, literally, in my actual wardrobe. The bedroom was rearranged and dressing was ruled out. My socks and new clothes were relegated to drawers, the plans I had of dressing waiting until we could discuss things. So what if I had asked Tilly to pay rent in those early months? I suspect our relationship wouldn't have lasted long. What if I had shown her my wardrobe as I nearly did so many times? I suspect we would have broken up. And the end of 2007 would have come not with a new job nor the announcement of a pregnancy but with me returning that summer to dressing, now sad at the end of another relationship. That depression, for that is what I was suffering, would have propelled me to go out dressed in the woods during that summer, for real.
And, if my eventual trajectory can be used here, I rather suspect that by the end of the year I would have realised about myself.
Part of me wants to write out that potential history as an experiment in the written form. Yesterday, walking back from IKEA, I was trying to work out how to present it: how to write it. Like many of my fiction projects it relies heavily on knowing things that only I know because they are tied up in how I live my life entirely in my own head. In the late 90s I wrote a series of short stories that no one but me ever read (still haven't) and, toward the end of the period, I considered writing a story about two people who made each story happen - maybe they were angels or something - which would work for anyone that had read all the stories. In other words: me. My divergence posts, and there are a few on here, work in much the same way.
14 years later. A different place, a different time.
The shirts obscure the drying knickers and tights; and, in the background, piled shirts obscure my femme wardrobe in the box beneath.
An offer was made today, a welcome one, but I did my usual when faced with such naked support and generosity: I turned it down. Someone needed support and understanding, and I offered nothing but a pained expression and assertion of truth. I am back to the old days, back to being unable to summon the compassion I was channelling before February this year, struggling to deal with feelings in the world of the non-autistic.
My nails are red, I keep saying this, but it is gel-effect polish and I got to apply it with a friend who had planned for me to be involved from the beginning. Thinking about that is overwhelming. I am amazed that I did it, that I accepted that generosity, that support, that friendship.
Henri Nouwen tells the story of how he came to identify with each of the characters depicted here in this painting of the return of the prodigal son.
In the parable, there is no 'Good Son'. Not really.
Early on in this blog there is an incident when a friend came to visit, not long after the birth of Middlest, and he and I were left with my daughter. Tilly was struggling, she'd gone out for a much needed time alone with my friend's wife without worrying about me or the eldest child. That incident did not end well. I lost it: overwhelmed by stress and depression, I melted down at my young daughter. Later I would stress out at my friend too due to work stuff and struggle to recover - if I recovered at all. In amongst that kind of remembering it is helpful to fantasize about points of divergence, where everyone could have had lives unaffected and unbruised by such horrors. Perhaps not helpful, but certainly beguiling. Like my understanding of It's a Wonderful Life and the reason I both loathe it and love it as a film: if I were to be removed from reality and not born, most people I know would be much better off - like Homer in the Treehouse of Horror episode (I think). But here on earth is where I am: no wings to fly, no strength to stand.
Tomorrow my Dad is up to visit - the original trip to his commuted to a meal out with just him. Like the proposed trip Oop North to see my Mum. Commuted due to costs and the difficulties of me being without a means to travel. In the old days I was the 'Good Son' - in the family estimation and in the parable - in that I sent all the cards, made all the visits and tried to do right. I had the respectable job, made the money, had the house and the lifestyle and the time and the money to send presents. I was a teacher with passion and vision, who changed lives in small ways and was enthused about that. I offered the financial help, I did not ask it, apart from when my car was totalled in 2011, something about which I still have nightmares or dreams, and when I fouled up moving house in 2013. But I paid back what was loaned in both cases, and in short order too. Because I could afford it.
Today was not what I expected at all. Don't know what I was expecting but today was certainly not it. Especially not after the return of the leak from the shower into the kitchen yesterday (my emergency towel under the floorboards was heavy and sodden. Oh). I managed my shift reasonably well yesterday, but felt very flat again. I also got my letter about the up-coming disciplinary, which made me feel very down, after sorting out identity properly with my mortgage lenders. Hopefully I shall be able to clear that up and change my mortgage a bit this week. Very grateful indeed to have spent some time round Abbi's on Sunday, very grateful indeed! I was treated to home-made Mac'n'cheese but with personal tweaks and experimentation - it was amazing!
Point? The build did not suggest how the day would go today, being my day off.
Back up: what?
I look so very different without glasses. Given this is how I looked for my interview (I'm wearing my Roman suit underneath the raincoat) I am amazed they offered anything!
Also: hat-hair!!!
I had an interview at a bus company this morning to get to on my day off. I was not holding out a great deal of hope, but knew that if I got an all-day bus ticket I may bob on up to Five to get my brolly back - they'd not been in contact in a while so I figured get my brolly and run. I'd have left it but recent rain convinced me I needed that brolly. Anyway, I was ready later than plannd, leaving two hours to make the appointment after setting off. Figured that was long enough. Bus took 90 minutes, then ten minutes' walk. Oh, so more or less on time. Nowhere near as early as I would have liked. Also, in my haste to leave I forgot my glasses so felt strange and realised how much more glaring everything is without them. It was amazing to re-realise how much of a difference, positive, they make to my quality of life!
Anyway, tests at the bus company - the sort I usually foul up somehow - and I did. My hazard perception raised red flags but, after a discussion, this seemed down to the fact that I internalised a lesson my Mum taught me when she became an Advanced Driver: when you are confident in your threat perception is when accidents happen. I volunteered this before they asked the question, not knowing they would ask about Advanced Driving, which impressed the interviewer. The interview after a personality test seemed lovely, but I've had that before at IKEA. I thus left thinking I was unlikely to get anywhere. Called up Five, got an agreement to pop by around 3pm, and wandered to see if I fancied an expensive coffee at my Vegan local cafe gaming favourite but found I did not, so came home for lunch. Where I watched a video that actually brought tears to my eyes. It's really wholesome and not at all what you expect. Yeah, it's an advert, I don't care.
Last bus home, skew-whiff glasses model's own.
I 'ate you, Butler!
That was from the right show, right?
Five asked me to pick up some eggs, having shared that they'd been ill lately, and I said I would and bring sympathy with me. I missed the bus, got the next one, then walked on over with eggs just on time. Five's child was very pleased to see me, Five said I would get a positive phone call and then invited me to saty for a meal. Turns out they'd been in hospital with internal bleeding and a bad infection, hence the lack of contact, this was the first day they'd felt well enough to eat and stand up. Oh. Of course I stayed, they cooked (insisted) and it was truly amazing food! Like, posh restaurant quality, but in proper portion sizes. Their child got to tell me things and I had a lovely time - even introduced them to the original Adult Wednesday Addams on YouTube (I highly recommend) - getting the last bus home at 8pm - yes, that is an early last bus home.
But there was a point, as I made my way to Five's, where I felt the world being untethered again. I have felt that a few times this last year: on the Friday I was suspended (accompanied by a twisting and a sick feeling in my stomach); on 14 March as I walked as me, resolute in being me full-time, to IKEA for free hot drinks and committed to whatever happened - job or Joanna fully decided; as I left the meeting in June realising that my gambit had failed and I was going to lose my job either by jumping or being pushed; when the car was collected for t, buthe last time and the first time I went round to Abbi's but this was largely positive! And, now, today.
Sure enough, I was phoned at Five's, and I was offered the job. Medical and forms on 11 January - dependent on the vagaries of getting a provisional license from the DVLA for a proper start date. We shall see if I still have a retail job in the meantime I suppose. And I have another interview (different bus company, a bit more local) next Tuesday. No brolly, but a standing invite to Five's now too.
Honestly, I was expecting to have a bit more of a philosophical pootling around this but I am too cold and still worrying about tomorrow. Still, a parcel to pick up, milk to buy (maybe) and some cocktail sticks to source by Thursday for the Chams Christmas do. I am looking forward to that. I booked the day off, so regardless of outcome I shall have a free Thursday. I intend to use it.
Long a not quite expressed dream, being a female teacher, on this blog: now unattainable - but not for the reasons that I had long supposed.
I am sorry, to all those that believed in me, I am sorry.
Yesterday the teaching agency was in touch twice. They've checked with their Head of Compliance - they can't represent me as I have been dismissed for Gross Misconduct. Figures. I wish they'd told me that before I was charged nearly £40 for an Enhanced DBS (which I passed, of course). Expensive and a bit of a blow, but par for the course at this point. Then I found that my mortgage lender hadn't updated my reecords properly when I'd gone in and changed my name back in April so I can't change my mortgage deal at the moment to easily knock £17 off one payment and maybe as much as £80 off the other. Not bad, but a faff for Monday morning. It means digging out my old passports again and I can't recall what I did with them. I'll need them for Tuesday anyway, what, with the interview for driving buses.
An artefact of a better time, one with more hope than I realised at the time.
A time when I watched old films with my eldest children and made believe that I was laying firm foundations to support them as a father. Rather than building up a pyre that would burn later on.
Middlest was over from last night. He brought The Force Awakens to watch, but then demurred on actually doing so. He misses how things used to be, he says, when I was in the flat - when he came over with Eldest and sometimes Smallest. He misses take outs, he misses going places in the car, he misses the hope and promise I was feeling (he didn't put it quite like this, but it sums up what he was trying to explain) when I was in the flat and immediately after I moved. Before the leak from the shower ruined everything. Even afterwards he thought it would have been fine, but something happened. He doesn't know it, but he's talking about the Saga of the Many Leaks from around this time last year and then the unpleasantness that means I can no longer teach. Ever again. Still stings.
We walked out to town today, first time since last summer (when I still had a car, when Eldest still came over) and he struggled with not wanting to buy a toy car or anything like it. He was all painted out, they'd gone as a family to mark the start of the Festive Season to paint some pottery things recently and he'd had a lot of fun. I could feel his melancholy and disappointment coming in waves. Ended up at a distant supermarket, where we'd go when I lived in the flat, and he got some chicken legs with his pocket money (reader, I felt awful, but I can't afford to sub that any more) and ate them on the way home. It was a nice walk. Got me out of the house for more than work for the first time since whenever the last time was. I only left the house to greet him on Friday, only getting dressed in the half hour before he arrived.
Earlier this year. I had not yet discovered foundation. I also had not yet realised that you could wear a handbag across the body! At this point I still thought I could be a teacher. I thought I could keep my job.
I did not yet know Abbi and Alex. I had not met Five. My daughter still came to visit. I had not exploded my relationship with Smallest.
Is this payment for the time to become myself? I had over 100 days of practice, which was magical. I met new friends (though Five has fallen silent) like Abbi and Alex. I would not have had this had my life not gone the direction it has. I would not take that back even if I could.
But I have lost part of who I thought I was in teaching. And I have seemingly lost my daughter. Is anything worth that price? I say this like it was imposed upon me, no, it was the result of actions I undertook, decisions I made and things I did. Responsibility lies with me and me alone for losing my job and my daughter and access to my youngest. The ongoing issues with the house are mine too, for defying the wise counsel of my mother and others who warned me against leaping in as I did. I could have pulled out.
Maybe without the leaks adding stress in a stressful time I could have survived a little longer in teaching. But I would not have met Abbi and Alex. I might not have taken the plunge on being Joanna full time. I already know, from experience, that I could not go back on being Joanna - however much it may be a comfort to believe that I could have done so or even should have done so - and I value my friendship with Abbi too much to contemplate not having met her and her wonderful husband. And the support from Gary and Shiona I would not trade even for having a teaching career back. However much I wish I could claim I would.
Now? I aim for an early night - hope to get through another shift tomorrow. I have one month's pay coming on Friday. A £500 hole is better than a £2,000 hole.
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