self-image

Connective Tissue

  • Reading time:3 mins read

So, a curious thing. Now that I have tits, it makes me feel way less weird to look at tits. There are a few things going on here, with my recognition of my gender and my sexuality and all the physical, psychological, emotional changes that I’ve experienced in a fairly short time.

It used to be that naked forms would just make me deeply uncomfortable. I’d avert my eyes, try not to think about it. It felt lurid to engage, like some kind of a boundary issue. In the event that I did, I felt ashamed of myself, which just built up and kept getting weirder. Now that I better understand what’s going on inside me, that I have a better relationship with myself and trust my feelings and reasons, a lot of that has fallen away and it’s easier to appreciate form for what it is. Now that I can look clearly, I see beauty and commonality.

There’s a universality to us, right, for the brief period we’ve been around to record our experience and what we think about it. Now that I understand that I’m looking for connection, that’s what I’m finding—a common humanity, a common femininity. A piece of everyone in everyone else—but more significantly, me. I wasn’t part of the equation until now. I was outside. None of this was for me, about me. I had no right to it, just as I had no right to myself. Except of course I do, as much as anyone. (And I am the only one with a right to myself, goddamn.)

Now when faced with a nude female form, at least in representation, I don’t get much more than a residual embarrassment. I get the relationship now. And it’s a meaningful one, to at least some extent, that helps to shed light on my relationship to my own body.

Glibness aside it’s not really as easy as, hey I’ve got breasts; it’s no big deal, whaddayamean. There’s a lot more going on here. It’s more that I’m starting to understand what it is to be human. As I lose shame over my own body, so I lose shame over the concept of bodies. And as I lose that shame I’m afforded the room to connect and appreciate and embrace a beauty that kind of feeds a cycle. It’s an acceptance of my place, now that I know what that is. Now that I understand how I fit in with just… Everything. Everyone. In a way I never did.

A Visible Girl

  • Reading time:2 mins read

I know I can enjoy parts of my appearance now, but it always baffles me a moment when people say it to my face, as happened unprompted this evening. Somehow it’s always on the days where I feel like I’m struggling to hold myself together, which only makes it weirder in the moment.

That kind of timing, it doesn’t come as a pick-me-up. It’s more like, “Wait, what, what’s wrong with you?” combined with someone peeking over one’s shoulder in the middle of a sketch that isn’t working out. No, God, this isn’t the real drawing yet! Argh, don’t patronize me! I’m getting better at nodding and thanking and moving on, but there’s this moment of stun like I’ve been socked in the face with no warning.

I’ve spent my life, like, locked inside for weeks at a time because I was so ashamed to be seen—such bad skin, so deathly awkward. General insecurity about my frame, and limbs, and torso and face. There’s only so much I could hide, without hiding entirely.

I’m not saying they’re wrong in what they see. I’m not blind, and I’m not going to tear myself down unnecessarily. It’s just weird to hear from someone outside of me. There’s almost an element of, wait, you can actually see me? The hell? I thought it was just me.

I am so unused to existing.

I mean, I guess I never have been a real person until recently. That seems to bring a lot of adjustment.

Thrown for a Loop

  • Reading time:3 mins read

So I just learned that spinner rings are a thing that exists.

.

…

Uh-oh.

Look, I already commented on the stim value of bracelets. I figured that out like ten weeks ago. I had been wondering about rings, since really my only experience is with… one I will not be wearing again. Like, what their deal was; what was out there that fit my whole deal.

And, uh.

Yeah, okay. That seems… unexpectedly practical. Considering, you know. This autistic brain.

Well, it will be a while before I invest in anything else for myself, but after that experience a couple months back, jewelry is among the next things on my radar—to the extent that it makes sense for me personally. And, I guess this business will have to be one of the big things to explore when we get there. That, and—

…

I, like.

So.

Okay, I—I still feel pretty weird and anxious about this, but for a few months I’ve been throwing around the idea of getting my ears pierced. It’s not gonna be, like, tomorrow. There are a million other things I wanna do way before. But as a notion, it has become distinctly not-unthinkable.

Just putting words to it, even if not for the first time, is actively making me shake here. It’s so weird that I’m even arriving at this, considering how I did not understand, and was vaguely against, the whole idea until… about the time my boobs started to come in. Like, I never understood tattoos or piercings at all. But, I get taking ownership of one’s body now. And, this aspect… keeps entering my mind. I’m just still grappling with the whole concept. It somehow feels like a bigger leap than HRT for me personally. The hormones were a medical necessity. It was an important move, but an obviously healthy one. This kind of body modification is a new realm.

It’s so fucked-up that this seems to be a common trans experience, our not feeling like our bodies belong to us. For four decades I just… didn’t feel like I had a right to do anything but try to keep it intact—not for my own benefit, but for a nebulous someone else’s. It’s like my body was a rental.

Bodily autonomy has been making my brain fucking melt the last several months. I never knew what it was like; what I was missing; that this is a thing that other people feel all the time. It’s so confusing, and makes me feel so giddy, and so sad, and so angry all at the same time.

But, jewelry, right. I kind of feel like that—the notion of some eventual piercing situation—is some kind of a threshold that this all is building up toward. It’s like. once I’m better acquainted with the world of jewelry and the idea of wearing this stuff and how to decorate my body in a way that I enjoy… well. That is a potential major waypoint to the journey. If it’s going somewhere, that’s probably where it’s headed.

Again, though, I feel like that’s not gonna be on my radar until after I see about zapping my face bald. That and some other more essential medical and practical business are sort of the focus for this year. After that it’s just… crazy town, I guess. Just do whatever with myself. Be a person.

On the way there—spinner rings. bracelets. necklaces? Lots to explore.