Three years ago today I stopped living a lie.
Three years ago today I started becoming who I really am.
Three years ago today I started transitioning from male to female.

It was exciting to finally realize the cause of my misery. For decades I had seen therapists, psychiatrists, doctors; none of them ever even hinted at gender identity disorder. No one saw it, despite the fact it seems so obvious now looking back.

Once the initial excitement wore off it was replaced with fear. “Now what? How the hell am I gonna do this? Just get some female clothes and start going out? It can’t really be that simple, can it?”

“Oh my God how am I going to tell my family? And what will people think? Am I gonna have to live a life of constant public humiliation?” Those were the kind of thoughts that were constantly in my mind.

Despite all these fears it was only two weeks later that I bought female clothes for the first time and told my parents about my plans to transition. And only two weeks after that I went out in public for the first time; to go to my first therapy session.

A week after that everyone knew, both on and offline. And only a week after that, seven weeks after I started transition, I went full time. I was determined to make this happen. There was not a single doubt in my mind that I had to do this in order to survive. To finally be happy with myself.

Then came hell. Months of agony as I was put on the excruciatingly long waiting list at the hospital in order to be able to even start the first part of the entire process: diagnosis. Add in the fact that in the meantime I was also going through a messy divorce and my life was far from the bliss and happiness that I was aiming for.

Fifteen months had passed before I was finally able to start the diagnosis process. For people to tell me what I already knew. That I was born in the wrong body. This entire process took ten months to complete. And it wasn’t for another month until I was able to start hormone replacement therapy. Well over two years from when I first started transition.

I’ve been on hormones for almost ten months now and soon I’ll be put on yet another waiting list which will likely take another year. This time for surgery. Some call it sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), others call it gender confirming surgery (GCS), and there are many other acronyms for the exact same procedure but I just call it surgery. It is the only one I am truly planning on getting.

By the time I’ll be done with the entire process it will have been well over four years. Still I am not one that considers surgery to be the ‘be all end all’ of my transition. In fact, in my opinion I already completed my transition well over a year ago. I have already been living the life of a girl, of my new self, for all this time and surgery will not change how I view myself.

I have a wonderful boyfriend, accepting parents, good friends, life is pretty damn good right now and it only seems to be getting better and better each day. :)

When I told my mom my plans to transition from male to female she was of course very scared. Scared that this would turn out to be a ‘phase’, for one, but also scared that I would be bullied, beaten up, or worse. While I’m lucky to live in a country that’s pretty tolerant about these things it’s not like it doesn’t happen at all so I could understand her concerns.

I also could not have done this at a worse time for her. She had only recently lost her other son, my older brother, and now she was to lose the last one she still had. That was not an easy thing for her to come to terms with.

Once the initial shock wore off it slowly started getting better, although she still had a lot of trouble with using the proper pronouns and calling me by my new name. Over time that got a lot better. She now calls me Julie and refers to me as her daughter which makes me very, very happy! :)

Then when I started to date a lot she was also scared a bit. Considering I tend to hook up with guys really fast I can understand her fear of me potentially meeting the wrong guy and it go horrible wrong, or even violent. Hell, the last guy I met up with I had only talked to for a few hours the night before. So I can definitely understand it but it’s how I choose to do things.

Doing that had the nice bonus of finding my boyfriend though, along with meeting some nice friends along the way. :) Of course I went non-monogamous with my boyfriend after a while which is something my mom didn’t quite understand at first. If I loved him so much, why would I want to see other people? But that’s just how I prefer to live my life and while it is nothing she could ever do herself, she doesn’t judge or condemn me for it.

When someone criticizes me, she defends me. When I need her help, she stands by me. When I need to talk, she is there for me. She has always stood by me even when things were rough, she didn’t disown me, she never stopped loving me.

Thank you, mom. You’re the best and I love you. :)

Last Friday was my mom’s birthday. She didn’t celebrate it this time, so it was just a coffee & dinner thing along with my dad ‘n stuff. I didn’t have a gift for her and I should feel bad. I simply didn’t have the money for it right now though, August hit me harder than I had initially planned, but I’ll make it up to her soon.

We did go to the casino in the evening, even though I was already kinda tired. I didn’t play with my money though, I had none to begin with, heh, but we all had a few nice ‘big wins’ a few times.

Yesterday my uncle Ben held a high tea in a nearby Restaurant/Event Center celebrating his 65th (well, his 66th but he was too ill last year), which was fun. :) A lot of people showed up from both sides of the family and in the end there were about 50 people in total. As a gift from the family he got a scrap book with photos and notes from several family members recalling events they’ve shared with him.

I ate quite a bit; little cakes, strawberry pie, apple pie, a salmon sandwich (and I absolutely cannot stand fish but I wanted to eat it anyway), assorted chocolates and crepes.

My ex called me last Tuesday night to tell me that Sol got hit by a car. He’s one of the older cats I gave to her a few months ago. He’s a very sweet cat but also a hunter and scavenger. He likes to roam pretty far away from home and he had been spotted before crossing roads near the industrial area.

He was found I assume not too long after the accident and because he is chipped they called my ex right away. From what she was told and then afterward told me it didn’t look very good. He got hit on his hind legs and it was protrayed as pretty much a lost cause told that his back was probably broken but without an x-ray it was impossible to tell just what the damage was.

So over the course of the next few days my ex got photos taken from his back and taken him to see the veterinary surgeon who said it is possible to fix him up with an operation but that is of course not without its cost. The estimation was a couple hundred, much less than initially presumed but still a lot of money.

Sol broke part of his pelvic bone so he cannot stand or walk right now. I believe it was the right side that was broken and had shifted a bit. Apart from that he also has some minor and hairline fractures, but seemed in relatively good shape. His back isn’t broken, his tail is fine, and the main pelvic bone is intact as well so there’s a good chance he’ll recover from this but a much better result if he can get the surgery of course.

I saw him today and while it is very sad to see him locked up inside a cage it is not too small and he seems to be looked after pretty good. He’s not allowed to put weight on his back legs right now. He seems to be eating well from what I could tell and actually looked kinda happy. He loved getting attention from me and still purred a lot and bashed his head against my hands like he always used to.

Family and friends keep asking me if I notice anything yet from taking the hormones. Well, while it’s not always easy to tell I can say that in general I feel much happier. Though truthfully that is probably in large part due to the fact I no longer am in ‘purgatory’. The extremely long wait on getting approved was grueling and it feels good to have finally haven gotten through that process.

What I did notice is that I can be quite bitchy at times, and that I don’t really care that I am either. Also, while getting ready for my shower this morning I noticed that my nipples were painful to the touch.

I have also been working very hard on my eating and sleeping schedule, which you may remember has been hell since the day I was born. Well it is going much better. Again, the fact that I no longer have to stress out about my diagnosis probably helped a lot for my sleeping. While I don’t have exact times set yet I do try to go to bed between midnight and no later than 2am and get up between 6 and 8am.

Eating is actually going better too. I have set up fixed times for this. I have to eat breakfast in the morning at 8am, lunch at 1pm, and dinner at 6pm. I try to add a ‘snack’ between meals as well around 10:30am and 3:30pm. So that makes for 5 times a day. Which for me is like 4 times more than my usual from a few months ago. I take my hormones at breakfast and dinnertime.

I skipped lunch today because I was visiting my ex and checking up on Sol and I was really feeling that when I got home as I was all weak ‘n kinda shaky. I guess my body is starting to get used to eating at regular intervals. That’s good, right?

The holidays tend to be hard on me, emotionally. And since my brother passed on and is no longer a part of these family events they only got harder. I have a tendency to be very negative and bitchy in the weeks preceding these holidays. I try to be happy, though. I try to be happy.

Anyway, my mom buys a lot of food for these occasions. We do a thing called ‘gourmetten’ though I guess it is basically just steel plate grilling. Whatever you wanna call it, it is very tasty and I tend to eat quite a bit. Especially for me!

After dinner it is also tradition to play some Trivial Pursuit. My dad is really good at that because he knows a lot of things about a big range of topics. Me on the other hand only know a lot about certain topics and practically nothing about topics such as sport and politics. Amazingly enough though, I won! :D

A few other family members were there too, all of which I hadn’t seen since I started my transition, including my grandmother. Not much was said about it, but I didn’t expect that anyway. They’re not really that kind of people.

One of my aunts showed me pictures of the kids and their kids. It’s odd. I don’t really see this part of the family much so there are huge lapses in age and lives. Makes me feel kinda old too.

So it was gonna be this huge social event with tons of people and I admit I was quite nervous about that. There’d be a whole lot of people who had never seen me after I started my transition so I had no idea what to expect.

Well, when the day came near I of course had to figure out what I was gonna wear. Luckily a few days earlier when I was out with my mom and my aunt, who just flew in from Ireland to attend this family event, I found and bought some neat clothes. One piece I was pretty sure I was gonna wear. I bought two hooded long sleeve sweaters. They’re short and cute. I got one in pink and another one in black.

At home I still had a cute tight pink top that I thought would look great with it and together with my black pants and bright pink studded belt I thought it would make an awesome look, which it did. My mom had some nice jewelry to go with it so I was wearing none in the pictures I took.

The party itself was great fun. Though a bit awkward too. One of the things I found out the past few months is that it is far easier to be myself among people who don’t know me from before my transition. I guess with people who do, namely family, I’m a bit too aware of the “but wait… he… I mean she.. was never like that!” thoughts they will have. I know I shouldn’t care about that but it’s still tough. It is easier with certain people than with others because I know they won’t judge me as quickly.

The place was decorated in a French bistro type setting and there was even an accordionist playing in the first hour while most guests were still arriving. Nice, and he was good, but we were glad he wasn’t gonna play for the entire night! There were spots to get food, even hot food, but I didn’t eat much really.

Later on the DJ started to do his thing and played lots of music to cater the crowd. Most of that wasn’t really my thing though. While not necessarily bad music it wasn’t the type I generally listen to. No Britney, no Gaga, no Avril, so not really my thing, lol. I did attempt to dance somewhat later in the evening but truthfully, I sucked at it. Feeling socially awkward didn’t help matters of course.

I made one big mistake near the end of the evening. While I had been drinking whine throughout the evening later on I was offered a drink by one of my cousins and dumb me asked for a cola-vieux. This wouldn’t be so bad if it was earlier but it was near the end, and when everyone was getting ready to leave I slammed the remaining part of my drink. It didn’t ‘hit’ until after we all left but long story short: I fell asleep on my mom’s couch and woke up a few hours later and walked home.

Yesterday started with me trying to figure out what to wear. Black of course, because it’s a funeral, but there were going to be a few hundred people there, many of which still hadn’t seen me as Julie so I had to choose wisely. I did not want to attract too much attention as this was the day we should all be focusing on my uncle and how much he meant to us. So while I really wanted to wear a specific black skirt I decided against that and wore my black pants instead along with a stylish black top.

The service itself was intense and emotional but also very beautiful. The eulogies, the music, the flowers, everything was as it should be. He would have been proud. I sat next to one of my cousins who, like me, lost a brother and has a tough time dealing with these events. All the memories and emotions surface and the pain you felt back then becomes tangible again. It hurts. A lot. She stood next to me when I did my eulogy on my brother’s service and now I was there for her. She really should’ve brought more tissues though; I had to give her mine.

Once the first part of the service was over the casket was carried outside while several people were holding flowers, guiding it as it were to the hearse. It drove slowly at walking speed with only one car behind it that held his immediate family. Everyone else, the hundreds of family members, friends and guests, walked behind them toward his final resting place; a local cemetery where more than a few of our family has been laid to rest.

When everyone arrived he was then carried to his spot, a beautiful spot that even has a nearby bench. All the flowers were placed near it and they had set up 2 big vases and a bucket of sand. This because he loved going to the beach and now everyone could grab a handful of sand and add it to one of the vases so he’d always have a little piece of the beach with him. A unique but very nice ritual.

A few more words were spoken and then it was time to walk back to the place we came from where there would be time to pay our respects to everyone and have something to drink. My cousin however, wanted to see the grave of two of our other cousins that passed away many years ago in a very unfortunate accident. So I figured we could take the time to walk around and find the spot, I had been there relatively recently so I still had a basic idea of where it was.

As we started walking back from where we came from we talked about a variety of things, our odd eating habits, weight issues, and she noted that I didn’t seem to need much comforting throughout the service. I explained that it most certainly did hurt but that most of my emotions were already released the day he passed away. I also knew that the backlash would come later.

After the entire service was over, my mom, my dad, and myself went out to eat at a nearby restaurant to try and unwind a little from what was a very emotional day. I don’t actually recall what I ate but I’m sure it was good. After dinner I was dropped off at home and that’s when it started.

I tried my best to go about my normal routine but it just wouldn’t work. Eventually, the tears came and I knew I had to leave the house. I put my boots back on, grabbed my keys, and left. I wasn’t sure whereto yet but just being outside already helped a bit. As I walked around I decided to see if one of my aunts & uncles were home and just as I got there and rang the doorbell they arrived in their car. Odd timing that was. It was already very late at this point but it helped a great deal to be able to talk to someone and let my emotions out. Once I got home I was so tired I finally crashed and fell asleep.

We left early to avoid traffic problems, it starting at such an awkward time, so we ate something there and looked around a bit before heading to the hall we were all supposed to meet. I didn’t expect a lot of people to show up but I was mistaken. There were quite a few people there, both transgender and relatives.

There was coffee and tea for everyone and shortly someone came to usher us into an adjacent room which looked very much like a movie theater. Well, at least we were comfy. :) After a brief introduction the first guy started doing his slide ‘n speech thing. He spoke kinda softly so I don’t think my dad missed the bigger part of it, but the guy really only gave a general overview of the process in its entirety, from diagnosis to hormones to surgery.

The second guy was a lot easier to understand, it was an older man, bearded, that made the occasional joke. His main focus seemed to be around the hormones and how it would affect you. He also talked about the danger in acquiring hormones from the internet, and the poor quality thereof even if it is a valid drug.

When he was done we were told there was someone from TransVisie who wanted to say a few things. She was a transgender herself and I assume talked about how TransVisie is there to help both transgers and their relatives deal with issues or just find other people to talk to, beyond the more official places to go to. I say assume because she was so nervous about talking in front of people it was very hard to hear her and between every sentence there was this very awkward silence. It was a very sad display, she may have needed to practice this first.

Then it was breaktime and Lynda and I took this time to go back to the restaurant and find us something to drink besides tea. We decided on Dr Pepper and bought some chocolate too.

When it was time to go back there was one more person going to talk, which was a surgeon who, naturally, talked about the surgical procedures and everything surrounding that. They mentioned having been to Thailand recently and altering their technique somewhat. It was asked by someone if they also saw Dr. Suporn, one of the most well-known surgeons in this field but they said they haven’t been to his practice yet.

While I already knew most of the topics talked about it was still nice to hear it from the actual official source and it was of course also nice that both my parents now have a better idea and understanding of what to expect