Climbing up from the bottom

It has been a very long time since I have blogged, I've tried a few times but it always felt like so much had happen and gone by that documenting it all was just too daunting... I won't try. I really just need the cathartic release of getting my feelings written out and organized again, hopefully some things will resonate with others. 

I am now finally coming out of a long span of perhaps the most severe depression of my life. At the worst of it I found myself contemplating driving into oncoming traffic, or simply stepping out from the sidewalk in front of a truck. Death terrifies me, and is my greatest fear... it also doesn't solve problems, I'm glad that deep down this truth never left me. Most days the worst of it was only a constant drain of motivation to do even the simplest of things and the painful irony of putting on a good show of normalcy for the rest of the world. 

A long time ago, at the beginning of my first steps into exploring what being trans means, and how that effects my life in a real way, I told myself that I needed to figure things out before I somehow found everything crash down around me. Reading that painful story retold by so many time and time again, broke my heart... I can't let that be me, I said... but teetering on the edge, here I am. 

I took all the classic steps that we all know so well and see each new "graduating class" of transwomen undertaking. From therapy, to shopping spree... letters to come out, to a letter for hormones... lessons in beautiful makeup, to lessons in tearful introspection... all of it left me sometimes happier, but always still feeling hollow inside. Every step further was both a blessing and a reminder of all the things out of my grasp. So I let everything go, stripped back the tangle of self examination and preordain paths and asked myself perhaps the purest of questions..."What makes me happy?" because in truth, I had forgotten. My mind stumbled through many clumsy ideas of activities, material objects, and forms of expression, but I found none were the deep routed epiphany I needed. Each were, however, a small step on the ladder out of the pit of depression. I started to climb back up on these initial ideas. Anything was better than the bottom.

Weeks later it happened and as with any truth worth finding it was when I was not looking for it. I was out to brunch with a good female friend of mine whom I came out to about a year ago. Our friendship had been bolstered over the last year through many a heartfelt conversation of the struggles both of us were facing in our lives, but this particular morning things were light-hearted and simple. It was at some point during the meal I realized that our interactions were different somehow, our relationship ever so slightly had evolved its dynamic. I found myself warmed by the ease and genuine natural manner in which it happened. To her, subconsciously I'm sure, she now comfortably conversed as though blind to my gender (I was, as usual, presenting as male) and I, without my usual methodical planning, simply was me. Though the superficialities of the conversation were all normal "girl talk", the authenticity made that elusive happiness shine through like the sun melting through cloud cover. At that point she had never even seen the female presenting side of me, and it didn't seem to matter. For an hour or so I felt like I was being perceived by another the way I saw myself.

Being far to much of a realist, I cannot end my story on that note, inspiring as it is. I still am struggling with depression everyday, though it is manageable now. After many delays, I start hormones in january... and I have come a long way to believing that it is the right direction for me. I have since spent time with my friend as a woman, and it was almost frustratingly anti-climatic at first. After a 10 second "once over", she merely commented, "You look good" and then we went on about our evening as if nothing had ever been different. That is where I want my life to be.