I’m going to need a bigger bra soon. This isn’t gonna be viable forever. When I measured back in September, my bust was just under 40 inches. It’s now at just about exactly 42. which would in stupid American sizing make me, what, 36DDD. (In UK sizing, 36E.) Which is to say, that estimate of about a cup size a month still holds. For how long, until we reach stasis?

I’d been sort of wondering what was up with them. Again I’ve no sense of proportion, and they haven’t been actively sore for a while—and also I keep having these distressing detransition dreams, which leave me in a weird state on waking, wondering if everything is still as it should be. As it turns out: yes.

Beyond the breasts, I’m starting to gain a little shape in general. Still early, but it’s a real start. Since I did those measurements, my hips have gone from 40 to 42 inches. Which is… not insignificant, for two months of growth.

I need to get a better mirror, and a camera lens that doesn’t flatten everything out, and lighting that replaces some impression of the depth lost to two dimensions. But, yeah. Once I’ve got the concrete numbers in front of me, I can see it.

So it’s finally happening. We’re really doing this. The boobs are great of course—really, really good, as it turns out—but what we’re really here for is the hips. The hips and the butt, and the thighs, and the face. As for that—well. It’s harder to measure for sure, but it’s becoming clear to me that we’ve got some major changes there too. Beyond appearances, even. When I press my tongue into my cheek, the flesh is easily twice as thick and resistant as it used to be. I’ve noticed some difference since way back, but lately, it’s unquantifiable but so obvious.

And having absolute data for everything else—the breasts, hips, thighs (which, oh yeah, are a little bigger too)—sure does help support that idea, even if i can’t easily check it. What are the chances that this one thing that’s supposed to change at roughly the same time as that other stuff, and looks like it is, actually isn’t?

I mean, look at this. I did not use to look like this:

No makeup or anything. Fresh out of the shower. (Though, after my first-ever go with a hairdryer!) I feel like that moderate asymmetry from over-engagement of the jaw muscles on one side is starting to smooth out, the more hollow side filling in and the other slimming down. Just a bit. The lips, the eyes. Just all this subtle stuff I can’t put my finger on.

With all the empirical changes, the verbs are also starting to click. All these facets of posture have fallen into place for me, basically at once. In the past, I’d always considered posture to be this stifling concept—holding one’s self rigid to this expected form, for the benefit of other people. A masking behavior, to present a false image that matches what people expect to see.

But there’s another side of that, that’s about not performance but self-affirmation, self-care, holding one’s self together; asking yourself who you are, and trying to back that up so that you feel good and that the physicality supports and reflects the mentality of it all. Creating this physio-psycho feedback loop.

It’s also interesting just how many elements there can be to posture. It’s not just standing or sitting up straight, right. It’s about engaging your body toward certain kinds of desired readiness, removing stress where you don’t want it. And the dimensions to that are everywhere! I’m noting and working out posture issues in my lower back and my hips; my upper back and shoulders; my neck; my jaw, throat, and tongue; my eyes, my lips; my legs, my arms. I’m just actively holding so many things differently, consciously reshaping my form so that I can carry myself the way that I want to. And for all that, despite my ADHD and lack of of executive function, it’s not as much juggling as you’d think.

And again, this habituation, it’s not for anyone else’s benefit, or to match some kind of a social code. I’m not performing; I’m conducting system checks. There’s all this information that goes back and forth, as I settle into the person I know I am and whom I want to be, and as I existentially embrace her.

This is a lot happening at once, as things have tended to be since maybe August, but it’s good. I feel like this body language business is some basic shit I’ve been lacking my whole life; the art how to Be.

So much of my transition, so much of my adjustment to what’s actually right for me, seems to be a matter not of taking things on and forcing issues but of just letting go. The posture business, it’s less about manipulation than about learning to let go of tension—allowing myself to snap back into a natural and comfortable and healthy form, as compared to how trauma had taught me to hold myself. It’s exactly the opposite of holding stiffly in some some uncomfortable position. Hell, my changes in posture allow me to move in ways I never knew I could. who knew that hips were hinged like that?

There is an ongoing sort of monitoring, at least until the habits form and I can free that space to think of something else—guiding one’s muscles and parts and even more existential mental moving parts. But that stiffness and discomfort, that’s not what we want at all. This is more like a brace, to help heal from injury.