a goodbye and a little advice

hello, if your still reading this you've probably noticed that this blog hasn't been active in a very very long time, and so I've come to the conclusion that it's time to officially retire this blog. I have no intention of deleting it, my blog will stay here for as long as Google will let it stay, but I feel I've reached the limit of the personal growth this blog allowed, and similarly I feel I've almost hit the limit in the sort of help I can offer by running a blog of this kind.  so I felt it was time to end it, and for my final post and going to do my best to pass on some important advice for other trans girls who may find this.

 but first if you want to contact me, I still spend a lot of time online so you can probably find me on venatus.tumblr.com and from there you can also ask me for my steam ID or my skype ID (I don't do voice or video I just use it's chat feature). I'm always open to chat or to do my best to answer questions so please feel free to drop by, even just to say hi.

1. the most important piece of advice I can give is to find a community, whether you have to find online ones like I do or if you can find one near you, find a community.  unfortunately this one also comes with the biggest warnings, avoid any community that thinks gate keeping of peoples gender identities is acceptable. it doesn't matter if you don't have dysphoria or if your unsure if your trans or if you don't fit into either male or female, your still valid there's nothing wrong with you and you deserve a space to explore and express yourself.  communities that cater to non trans people are also something to be cautious of, I won't say their inherently bad cause I don't believe they are, but in my experience as they grow in size they will cater more to non trans people even when that involves hurting or belittling trans people.  even when that's not the case I feel there's a limit to how much someone can grow in their identity when those places are your primary source of community and expression.

for me I started off in a community that focused on the sexual aspect, and I've met some lovely friends their that I really cherish, but now I'm mostly using tumblr, and I feel that change has helped me grow significantly and has gone a long way in helping me accept myself.

2. find a way to express yourself, and do so regularly. I've gone through several, at first I used a role playing section in a forum, eventually I made this blog, and now I mostly use my tumblr blog.  whatever you choose try to use it regularly, even if it doesn't feel like you have much to add or say.  that's part of the reason why I tried to keep a schedule on this blog for a while.  trying to write something down even when I didn't feel like I had a lot to say really did help me open up to myself and I doubt I would have grown half as much if I just left this a "when I feel like it" update schedule. now using it often won't always require an arbitrary schedule but it is something you should keep in mind, the best medium for expression won't help much if you never actually use it.

3. try not to get attached to specific terminology or language it evolves fast in trans communities and I've seen a lot of people turned off by this fact, but finding a language that describes us while not demeaning or diminishing us is a challenge and one that is worth while. also note I'm talking about the words used to describe ourselves, not your identity.  language may change but don't feel ashamed to be proud and advertise who you are

and with that I bid this blog a fond goodbye, to all my readers past, present and future I would like to say thank you for showing interest in what this girl had to say and I hope to hear from all of you again someday.

the hormones so far

ok just thought I'd give everyone an update on my treatment so far.  it's still really early in the process so obviously there's not much.  but there have been some pretty positive changes.  one negative is that I'm getting pimples more frequently.  but on the good side, it's lessen my depression I'm still dealing with it, but even a few weeks on hormones as made this a lot easier.  there's also some tenderness in my chest and my nipples are definitely more sensitive.

I'll try to keep everyone updated on what's going on with the hormones, just keep in mind it is a slow process.

and the hormones are in

so from this point it's all about keeping them secret and trying to keep a steady supply of them

big step

earlier today I took a big step, and ordered some hormones online.  I'm still financially dependent on people who would freak if they found out, but even my best weeks were just when I could get through a week without contemplating suicide, and most weeks I just turn into a big ball of stress trying to figure out how much homework I can do without breaking down.

I have no idea how this choice will turn out, but I just can't keep going on with transition being something for "when I'm in a better position" I need to start taking real tangible solid steps now. this is something that's hard to explain, but basically I'm reaching some sort of breaking point,  and something has to happen, and has bad as this may be in the long run, it's the only path I can see that may lead to something positive.

Birthday

ok so my birthday is this Tuesday (the 21st).  like most people I think an upcoming birthday kinda makes me reflective, but since I feel like talking about positive things that have been running through my head, that's what I'm going to write about.  fair warning this might make me seem a more materalistic then normal but when I want to think about the positive of the last few years getting back in school and the materialistic.

an early birthday present I got was remember me, a game for the xbox 360 I've been looking forward to playing it.  game play wise it has platforming like assassins creed but more linear, and a really interesting combo system for combat that I don't think I could describe easily.  but what I really love is the story, I wont spoil it but it deals heavily with memories the impact they have on who we are and their impact on our own identity.  one of the things that sets nilin apart is her ability to "remix" memories, that is view someone elses memories and make a series of small changes that end up having drastic results on how the memory plays out.

and there's been a lot of black widow stuff going on this month.  at the start of the month Marvel gave her her own book again, and it's off to a great start (my firs time buying a comic issue by issue instead of waiting for the collected trade paperback) and they've decided to release the second issue early and so I'll be reading that the day after my birthday,  so I'm pretty excited for it. 

and I decided to get myself a little birthday present.

I got it from this etsy shop.  I've been looking for a necklace off and on for a while now,  something I can wear under my clothes.  I know this may not make sense but I know from high school that keeping a little personal symbol on me can help calm me down (in high school I kept a wiccan symbol on me, especially when my mom took me to church.  for the most part I've been looking for necklaces that mean thinks like woman, girl, or feminine. everything I found would either be a big tell to people who happen see it, or were so unrecognizable that they didn't have any meaning to me.  but when I found this I knew I had found something perfect,  people know I'm a black widow fan so if they see me wearing this it shouldn't be suspicious. and it has personal meaning to me because the entire reason I fell in love with the black widow is because she had to fight her history and the people around her for the right to define her own identity and live as the person she is, and not the person she was told to be.

so my life sucks

so a brief overview of whats been going on in my life.

the financial aid problems I've been having at school this semester have balloned into "we won't let you register till you can magic up several thousand dollars that we should be giving you but were not"
I have a strange red boil on my stomach that has a purple spot and was getting bigger till a few days ago.
every class I'm taking had a major test in the time span of about a week.
and to cap things off on the free way some asshole smashed into my car and then ran off, so I have to somehow  come up with a new car or drive around with most of the rear half of my car severly damaged or missing.

so that's been my month how about yours? 

a favor.

OK so one of my friends is going through a rough time, you can find her short post about it here http://lifeofalexia.blogspot.com/2013/10/numb.html .  I haven't heard from her since we had a very brief conversation the same night she made that post.  now it's not uncommon for us to go long periods of time without talking to each other, so don't be too alarmed.  that being said I would really appreciate it if everyone would pop over to her blog and try to leave a few words of encouragment for her.

thank you.