Life in general can take a toll on you as you progress through any year. By about T giving, everyone is about ready for the year to be over if not sooner. I try to remember the balance daily and as a whole in life between the positive and negative. I have been blessed with the ability to start my hair removal and hormone replacement therapy, I suppose is balanced by the two auto thefts I have gone through this year. I am blessed in the way that the community I live in is mostly accepting of who I am. And this is balanced out by obscene comments I receive like, "Oh my f***ing god" or "oh shit thats a ..." At the end of year I look where I started and where I ended up. Naturally trying in some way to allow myself praise. But this year has been a year of such mixed activities. I have been spending so much time focusing on my trans related issues, that I have not seen much of an improvement on scale of life. In fact I feel like I have gone the opposite way. I never supposed single parenting was easy or affordable for that matter. I knew I would have a financial struggle, I just did not think that I would be a single trans woman single parent with no college degree. Fortunately I have or should I say had strength and will power and a fearless attitude to allow me to excel in construction up until the latter part of this year. The hormones are diminishing my upper body strength quickly and for that matter changing my over all attitude about construction in general. It also took a lot less mental will power prior to the banning of testosterone from my body. I just don't feel the desire to create in that fashion any longer. I still have the innate ability and that leads me to the fork I have been stuck at for the last three months of the year.
How to handle transitioning in construction or transitioning my life to suit my significant change, my gender.
I have gone back and forth all year but mostly in the last quarter on this issue. I allowed for the beginning of the year quite a bit of fear in my heart. I was afraid of failure, and self ridicule. So I have finally made the decision to go back to school and get my AA is psychology. Now wouldn't it be funny if the statement was made, "So, you have waited until now because of fear". Yes, that statement was made to be within the first five min of a phone call I had with a counselor at an online college. My reply was of course not. I have never failed at anything. Now I am not sure that that is completely true. But for the most part it is. Succeeding on the first attempt has not always been the outcome. But I still complete my original goal before giving up. So, as much as I would love to jump right into a college hear in SF, it is just another drive in the car I don't have time for. I chose to do this online because I don't want my daughter to be home alone all day and night. I am a self motivated person, so I assume I can get it together enough to do this on my own. I hope to have this completed in the next two years. This coincides with my transition in a lot ways. I want end all to do trans psychology and therapy at an affordable rate to those in need. I want to be able to do online therapy sessions for those not in the bay area. Many people I know live in areas with no gender specific therapists or psychologists even within one hour of their home. This makes therapy terribly unaffordable and out of reach. I have always felt that education was very important for my daughter, Especially because fair or not the job market for males and females and scale of pay is still not as comparative as I would like. So with the self care plan I have imposed on myself, I believe that retraining myself for a field in which I have interest in and enjoy would be the best idea. Much like playing a musical instrument. Practice everyday has made me realize that commitment to playing the guitar is life long. In that realization is what I compare school to. I love to learn, to feel intelligent and well versed in my field and in general for that matter. I have not exactly led a scholarly path in my life, but if I can change my gender I suppose that this couldn't be nearly as difficult. Another reason I say that this recent decision is transition related is, because as a woman I feel the need to care and nurture in a clean and comfortable environment. Now you might wonder why exactly, would as a person whom was transgender since I can remember, would have got into the construction field in the first place. Well, truth be told I don't remember having much a choice. As a troubled teen full of misunderstood feelings and up against a wall no one would help me climb. I made a choice to succeed and help my family at the same time. It never occurred to me I had a choice. I always assumed that what was in front of me was meant to be and there was room for change. Not until recently at 32 years old, 5 years of therapy, 3 years of anti depressants, two therapists, one psychologist, and 2 gender therapists later was it that I said, I can do whatever I want and there is no reason that I cant retrain myself and stay finically afloat and afford this transition all at once. Now the plates getting pretty full over here. But I love a full plate.
Since I recently have had some extra time off I have really been enjoyed making home cooked meals for my daughter and I. I have never been much of a chef, although I definitely know the difference between frying and baking chicken. I have found it very therapeutic to start cooking it up in the kitchen. I quit smoking recently and that was leading me to eat. I figured that I could save some money and calories if I was to cook the meal myself. What I like the most about cooking for myself is, I am creating the very energy I am going to use to accomplish ideas that are my own as well. I just feel that maybe if I cook a meal, ingest it and in turn gain energy from it, that the entire process is a little more pure. When I studied different facets of holistic energy work, I found that in most cultures food is blessed before being consumed. Food, also may be prepared of given as a gift or offering as well. But, either way it's definitely raw energy that travels through us physically and in my opinion spiritually too. If you have ever had a magic mushroom you definitely understand the extreme side of that statement. lol But truthfully I feel a lot cleaner and more self connected the more I have been preparing my own meals.
hmmmmm lots going on but never enough time!!!
Love you all and Happy Holidays!!!
BE PEACE AND LOVE
Jezzabella Paige
