Huh. Well. I don’t often y’know, actually write stuff here because I’m too flipping busy. I’ve got so much social stuff going on and so little time to actually think about things that aren’t that, and work, and y’know being a lady of leisure. I mean, that and—and I’ve said this before in a bunch of spaces and probably here—but having actually *worked on myself* and *worked on social stuff* and generally been a human trying to fix things about my life that I wasn’t happy with (even if I sometimes didn’t twig that I wasn’t happy with them) I’m in this weird position where the world is horribly on fire, but I’m with this amazing woman (still! Like it’s been nearly two decades of being with an awesome woman!) and I’ve got this friend group locally that’s cool, and this mostly trans group of friends spread across the whole damn world, and they’re awesome and lovely.
And yes, I need to make more effort to talk to some of my older friends (Hey Emma, Peter, Lauren, Chrissy, John, Brian, James, Pari (and everyone else!) if you’re reading this!) and I also found and messaged the guy who saved my life (hey to you too, I dunno if you got my e-mail since I’m basically blind sending shit to your domain and I’m not always great at noticing stuff that comes to my non-personal e-mail addresses here).
But I’ve had a bunch of thoughts while I was on vacation and a today I’ve had more, so I thought I’d try and make some time to get them out.
I mean, I could just chat with my therapist about them, but hey, why not whine at rando folks on the internet. It’s been my modus operandi for a long time anyway. (Actually I do have some notes about some of this stuff to talk to her about and some stuff that I’m not going to share here).
What I think’s finally tipped me over into actually writing is that I’ve spent the day working on the small press (we have a bsky account! We have a website! We have meetings set up with other bookstores and printing presses!). This is the small press that I’ve thought about setting up for what, 2 decades plus/minus? That press that I’m finally trying to set up (because the economy’s just so gosh-darned good for setting up a queer business right now). Well, it’s kind of pushed a whole lot of ‘people see me as way more competent than I feel’ in my direction. Like they share some comment or something they’re hoping to do with me and the press and I’m like “fuck, what makes you think I’m going to manage to be that good?” (which also leads me to knowing that I’m going to have to be that good).
There’s this whole character thing in LUU which is hinted at now and then about one character’s competence and the other people’s perception of themselves, and that never the twain shall meet, I guess. Which it turns out is probably me doing write what you know unintentionally.
It’s a background thing, which is I guess how it is in my life. It’s taken me a long damn time to like myself. It’s taken me a long damn time to consider myself sexy or pretty or even, sometimes, beautiful. But considering myself as “good” at anything in particular? That’s something I still really struggle with. And y’know, for at least a decade and a half it’s been clear that other people think I’m good nurse. As in a “won’t you please apply for this more senior job” and “please be in charge” and things like that. But I have always been quite…circumspect about my abilities.
But like, I was doing a training yesterday and it had options for “I know it” “I think I know it” “I’m not sure” and “I don’t know” and I vacillated between the middle two because that is, frankly, how I roll. I very rarely have faith in my decisions. (Also this training was a nightmare because unless you were very clear about “I know this” it was interminably long). Which is weird because if you put me in a situation where something actually serious is going on then I’m full-on this is what needs to happen and now. I’m pretty much super confident and very in-charge. Or at least, that’s the mask I put on.
I actually had a doctor not just thank me on the day, but when I saw him again weeks later he thanked me a second time for just being chill and getting shit done in a critical care situation. Which y’know. I absolutely didn’t know what to do with that compliment. But it was nice.
If you put me in a situation where I need to advocate for someone else, or I need to do it for a business then I absolutely will be the bitch. I argued us into a bunch of places when we’d do CES—pushing for us to be present above much bigger outlets—presenting us as the team you needed to have.
I can do that.
…but doing it for me? Not a skill I’m good at. And I really, really need to work on it. Because I am (one) really fucking honest about what I think are my shortcomings—especially with friends—and (two) I’ve got an absolute shit-ton to do, and there’s so much more that I haven’t even thought of yet, I’m sure. And all of that requires advocating for the business I’m trying to set up. But it’s *my* business and so we’re at this weird intersection of “other people see me as super competent” (which honestly, is probably the more accurate reflection) and I see myself as a wet fish (which is probably not terribly accurate).
Well, that’s not wholly true. But I have trauma around running a business and I also am shit at self promotion (again, to be clear, good at promoting others, shit at self promotion) and yeah. Stuff for me to work on.
Anyhow so that’s kinda what kicked me into doing a post. It’s not like there’s going to be an immediate resolution – but just like switching from being self deprecating to making jokes about how I’m actually awesome seems to have rewired my brain, I think this is a “I need to do some affirmations and be reinforce different pathways about how I think about myself networking and socialising and generally doing business related tasks” task.
Anyhow, there’s this other thing that’s totally unrelated that I kinda wanna ramble on. So look, I got FFS a bit over a year ago and I don’t want to be like poster child for surgery, because not everyone wants/needs/should get FFS (not as in gatekeeping, just some folks need to do some mental health work before they get it). And I, to be quite blunt, really fucking like the end result. My face feels like my face in a way that it never did before.
And I mean I’ve *also* put a shit ton of work into losing weight.
Just a more healthy diet, a shit ton of exercise. I feel better now than I have for at least a decade, probably for nearly two. And yes, yes, ridiculous unachievable western standards of beauty, and yes, patriarchal bullshit, and yes whatever. But I’m happier with how I look. I’m more comfortable with my weight. And to some extent I’m just also *really fucking pleased to be kinda fit*.
When I was in NY I did an insane amount of exercise.
That’s a mixture of 2 miles a day elliptical, and then walking everywhere. That’s apparently what I’m like if I’m a lady of leisure in a city now.
And so there’s this really interesting dichotomy of: I feel fantastic about the way I look, I’ve got much more comfortable with my style, I’ve got much more confident with makeup, and just y’know, I *feel* good in myself.
…but at the same time that’s come at the cost of not being so easily identified as part of the in-group of trans people. And partly, yes, that was the point of FFS. But it also makes me a little sad when I clock a trans girl and before there was often that mutual recognition of “oh yes, we both know, and we’re both okay with this. Hi.”; that’s gone now. I appear – seemingly – to read as cis to both trans and cis people (unless they know me) and that community recognition is…a complicated thing for me to process. Also I come across as weirdly just smiling at trans women for no apparent reason now. Eh.
And ongoing thing for me to process.
And yes, I’m fully aware of my privilege in this; thank you.
