Been a while since I’ve posted anything. Not that I haven’t been meaning to. Lots of things to write about really, but just haven’t had much time.

So, lets start with some recaps from last year:

Surgery

The main thing about last year is that the final hoop for my gender affirming surgery was jumped through. And recently I got my scheduled date. May 14th. The same day that a dear friend is also getting her surgery. The chances of that were pretty astronomical, and I’m very very happy that I got this date. It makes the waiting very worth it.

Relationship

The other main thing is my relationship with Melissa is still going strong. I visited her in October for a long weekend, and while short, it was a very good and memorable visit. She is an amazing woman, and I am so happy to have found her.

Work / Validation

The other other main thing is work. School finished at the end of June, and I started work in the middle of July. As a complete surprise to me, work has become an actual place of validation. Going in to a heavily male dominated field, I expected to get misgendered a LOT. Turns out, the opposite is true.

The amount of daily validation I get at work is mind boggling to me. I understand that I am a very lucky woman to have this. I have coworkers that constantly gender me correctly when dealing with clients (the amount of misgendering has pretty much disappeared). I have clients that gender me correctly, use validating speech (eg. “Oh look, the angel has come to fix my network.”), and other women (or femme identified people) treat me as any other woman.

Work has actually become a safe space for me. I can be less guarded, and less stressed because of that. There’s still a few clients I have not interacted with yet, but even if there are a few bad apples, the rest more than makes up for that. And my boss has even said if I’m not comfortable with a certain client he can send someone else.

Work has also been validating in the sense that I am in the right field. There’s been a huge learning curve (and I’m still in that curve) but I’m getting to do things that most people right of school dream about. I’m working on live production servers, datacenter networks/routers/firewalls, internal network design and implementation, script writing and more. Plus, I still wind up doing help desk stuff (because we’re a small company). So, I’m doing almost every aspect of IT.

I’m a happy girl at work.

Living

2017 has seen a change in where I live as well. I’m further away from the big city. Which is good and bad. It’s a long commute when I go in to work (over an hour one-way) and a lot of friends are further away. Yet, the area I’m living in is nice, lots of places are easily within walking distance. I’ve been working on getting my bedroom finished – just have the closet to do. And I still don’t have my cat. *pout*

Car Accident

December 29, 2017 I was in my first ever car accident. I was driving Teresa’s car because mine had a flat tire. Conditions were bad that night, and I was in the right lane of 3. The middle lane had stopped ahead, and I slowed down expecting people to lane jump. I did not expect people to actually hit each other, and get pushed in front of me (no one was in front of me for miles). I hit the breaks, and the anti-lock kicked in (I hate anti-lock breaks) and while they slowed me down, they did not stop me in time for the left front of the car to hit the rear passenger quarter panel on the car that was all of a sudden in front of me.

Teresa’s car has been written off, and she bought a newer car that she loves.

Changes

Gaming

Another surprising source of womanly validation has come from my D&D gaming group. I’m playing with 4 cis males. 3 of which I went to school with last year, and the 4th, the DM, I’ve never met. In the last 4 months of playing, not once have I been misgendered. Which is amazing to me given we use voice chat. One of the guys is playing a female character, and when she gets misgendered, I take perverse pleasure in seeing a cis male deal with it.

Friendship

The train trip itself down to California, was pretty cool. I was seated next to Karen. A lovely woman from Eugene, Oregon. She was originally from Denmark, so I actually had quite a bit to talk to her about, as I had spent many hours around Danes. I did not need my mp3 player until she got off the train many hours later. I even got a hug.

Also of note, I was not the only transwoman on the train. There was one other (that I saw) and she commented on my purple/burgundy outfit, so that was nice. It looked like she was with 3 or 4 other people, so I didn’t wind up talking to her at all.

Dinner was interesting, as I had decided to partake of the dining car reservation. When I got to the table, there was already a gentleman seated ahead of me. It was quickly apparent that he was not very social. We exchanged names, and destinations. After a bit I tried to initiate conversation again, and we had a very stilted conversation about Vancouver.

Thankfully, a couple (man and woman) got seated with us pretty quick. They were much more chatty. They were from Oregon as well, and it seems I tend to get along really well with people from there. Must be a forest/coastal/ocean thing. Conversation went from Canada/US differences, to local govt infrastructure idiocy. Dinner was really good, but portions were smallish, and VERY expensive.

I managed to get a little bit of sleep on the train, and the rest of the trip was mostly me watching Monty Python on my Sony Walkman.

I arrived in Sacramento about half an hour before I was supposed to. Luckily Melissa is like me, and likes to arrive places half an hour ahead of time, otherwise we feel late. So, she actually showed up about 5 minutes after I got outside the station (as I was trying to find wifi to send her a message).

My face must have lit up when I saw her, but it was very cold, and I was so tired, so we only managed a hug before getting into the warm car. It was at this point that I knew this was going to work. Without ever having been around her before, it all just felt so comfortable. I slid my hand across to her thigh, as we drove to get some breakfast.

The 13 days went by so fast, but I feel we got a lot out of them. We saw Star Wars Rogue One in IMAX 3D, saw Cirque Du Soleil: Luzia in San Fransisco, had ostrich burgers at Fudruckers, walked a bit around the San Fran waterfront, ate a lot of amazing home cooked meals (Melissa is a wonderful cook), gamed together, slept together, showered together, but more important than any of that, is we got to touch.

We are so completely compatible. We are so incomprehensibly similar, and yet any differences we have are perfectly synergistic. It’s like we were made for each other. Even after dating for a few months now, we both marvel at how good we are for each other.

I cried a lot on the last day. I didn’t want to leave. Maybe it was a good thing the train coming home was so horrendously late, and that I didn’t sleep well on it. I was over tired, and the tears seemed to stop. The last few nights have been tearful though. I figured this would happen after finally being with her. I’m prepared for it, and I’ll continue to cry, because it’s how I deal with it. I have amazing friends that will distract me from missing her as much as I do. And of course, we talk every day.

Neither of us knows what our future is. Nothing can be figured out until we’ve both had our surgeries. Until then, since we both identify as non-monogamous, we’ll try and find other partners that are close for now, probably just casual things. That being said, we will be together sooner than later. Where? Who knows at this point. I’m willing to move to her. She’s willing to move to me. Whichever makes more sense when the time comes.

Many of you already know, but I think most do not. Teresa and I are no longer a romantic/sexual couple.

There are a myriad of reasons for this, and I’m not going to go into the details publicly at this point (if ever).

It is not because I’m a woman. I’m the one who has lost the romantic spark, not Teresa. Teresa did everything right (for the most part) to keep us together during my transition. Transition did play a role, but not in the way most relationships fail during transition.

This actually happened many many months ago, and I/we tried to work on it.

We still love each other, and support each other. We’ve both committed to helping the other change careers. Our dynamic is different now though. More like sisters or best friends. We don’t fight nearly as much, and we don’t hurt each other as much either. This is a good thing.

We sleep in our separate rooms more often than not lately. We’re not against sleeping together, but with my school schedule, it makes sleeping in the same room difficult. Our finances are separate now as well for the most part. It’s like having a roommate again.

I have a fair amount of guilt over this. Logically, I don’t believe either of us are to blame. It’s something that happened, and not on purpose. But, as I’m the one that was not able to rekindle certain feelings, emotionally, I feel to blame.

The guilt is lessened by the fact Teresa is in a great relationship with someone. I would feel a lot worse if she were feeling alone during this. I still have that protector mentality, and when I hurt someone, it shakes me to my core because it’s the antithesis of what I’m about.

That is sometimes, why I make the mistake of not being honest with someone when I need to. Because I don’t want to hurt them, I try too hard not to, and then it all blows up in my face. I’m getting better at this, but I still fuck it up from time to time. Quite recently in fact.

So, anyway, we don’t know exactly what the future holds for us. For now, we’re still married and not legally separated or anything. It’s likely that will change, especially as our own personal relationships change, though we will always be in each others lives.

“Just want to clear something up for those who have asked and for those who are wondering. Just because my husband now identifies as a woman… this doesn’t magically make me a lesbian. It makes me a committed partner who still loves and will always love the ‘person’ I married. In this process I still need to be true to who I am and I am a heterosexual woman. I do understand that from the outside we will appear to be a loving lesbian couple, and I’m okay with that. I have pride in the love I share with Jessica, but I have no desire to take away the pride gay people have in their identity. I feel that would be untrue to myself and disprespectful to them.” – Teresa

For myself, I have long thought I was attracted to women only. To the point of actually being afraid of being perceived as being attracted to males. Since accepting myself though, I’ve realized I’m open to the idea of finding males attractive. That doesn’t necessarily mean I will, but the change in how I think of myself has opened this door. I do find myself looking now, and I really really liked it when that one guy smiled at me at the mall. And just because I might find a male attractive at some point, does not mean I forsake my monogamy. It just means I can fantasize about something different every now and then. lol.

The questions about sexual orientation, or sexuality, don’t bother me at all. They do, however, bother Teresa. It’s a by-product of what we’re going through, and an unfortunate one. Ask yourself how many times a day you get asked about your sexual orientation. I’m guessing not that much. How would you feel if you were asked once, twice, or several times a day? It’s a personal thing. And is it really that important to know? Does an answer one way or the other change how you think about Teresa or me?

I also will not going into any detail about our sexuality. Suffice to say, we are still intimate, and happy being so.

Everyone should be well aware that Teresa and I love each other. If we didn’t, we would not be committed to each other through my (and our) transition. Why does there have to be a label for it? Maybe Teresa is just a ‘Jessica-sexual’.

– Jess