Eredien's Journal

...and it is, in fact, happy.

Hanging out on the bed this morning with my fuzzybutt little cat Oolong, I took some time to reflect on my 2013 and 2014 so far, which have been truly astoundingly happy.

I've been writing again (yay, keeping resolutions in advance!). Some long-overdue correspondence to people I care about, some WWIA (the fey novel). It helped, I found, to change up the viewpoint characters and let someone else speak for Chapter 4. Not sure if I'm going to keep it or not--gods is Tam-tam disturbing, but then again he's out of his head--but definitely a good exercise. I feel healthy as a writer--reading things that inspire me, making lists of poems I definitely need to read more of. And, actually, y'know, writing regularly. For the first time in a long, long time.

Did some martial arts over New Year's, which just confirmed that's where it's at for me in terms of exercise and spirituality.

I've been traveling. Went to a lovely burning-man-inspired party for New Year's with A., successfully turned what could have been poly problems into poly opportunities, saw three of my favorite movies (documentary: "Rivers & Tides," anime: "Mindgame" and "Spring & Chaos"), learned some new things about myself, spent some good time with somebody new I like (T.). More traveling scheduled for summer, specifically July, of this year--can't decide if I am doing Firefly and Readercon, or Firefly and a friend's wedding in CO. Is anyone else going to BMC reunion? I honestly don't want to go if my friends won't be there.

My relationship with myself seems healthier than it's been in a long time. Had a dream a few weeks ago about resentment over a close friend's losing weight that really stuck with me, and am turning that resentment into resolve--I want to wear all my genderqueer shiny outfits. Got a new piercing (pic.twitter.com/eKzYGvoDVG)--feel like I am that much closer to looking like the person I am. Am super-comfortable with my body now, due in part to how I've been prioritizing self-care and due in part to some New Year's experiences, and how I'm presenting, even at work, which can be problematic at times. Modern medicine is a frigging miracle. I am not really suffering from SAD this winter for the first time in about a decade.

Work is good. I got a hug and thank you from my boss, and that was really great. I flower under praise, especially because I know I am doing praiseworthy work. Still looking for jobs in the greater Boston area...

....speaking of which, I have made it my goal to move back to MA in 2015. I may not move directly back to Boston proper, but if all works out as I hope it will, that will be because I might be moving in with B. near the Berkshires. A three-hour drive into Boston, and having to deal with the headaches of a car, are small problems if they mean that I only have to drive three hours to see all my chosen-family and friends--the people who matter most to me. I've been driving six or more. It honestly depends on where I get a job. 

A recap of my relationships, for those playing along at home: B. I've known them for over a decade, but our relationship feels both old and familiar and new and deep. They are so joyful and beautiful and playful and giving and just plain good for me that I've recently been contemplating co-parenting a kid with them. A., who continues to be a sexy brilliant mad scientist, hiking partner, and pet. He is my stalwart. Five years has been so deep, and so fast. E., who I am experiencing all kinds of NRE with even though she's on the other side of the country. She continues to wake me up to gender, to spirituality, and to being authentically unafraid to live a complex life. T., a Canadian man <insert Canadian partner joke here>, who I am looking forward to seeing again this summer...

Therapy & Mental Health: yesterday, my therapist and I both agreed that I am pretty much done with therapy for right now. I feel happier and way more confident in my life and have mechanisms in place to deal with the bad stuff. It doesn't seem like I was in therapy for more than three years, but it's a different kind of work than I was thinking it was when I went into it, so the time-dilation makes a little bit of sense to me. I am really proud. I still have problems (see below) but I can deal with them in a reasonable manner. I am still taking meds for PCOS and bipolar disorder, which seem to be working really, extraordinarily well.

Home life: my parents are transphobes, my mother explicitly told me that she wants me to settle down with a man or a 'real woman'. Going to have a talk about this with my mother. On other hand, mother does not have cancer again, so that's good.

Creativity: I have gone into my winter creativity phase, which mostly means writing poetry, reading long involved novels, drawing, and sewing (as opposed to my summer phase, which is writing longer works of fiction, reading short stories, gardening, and website design). I am really happy with where I am at in my sewing; it looks more professional every day. Also when I move back to the Boston area I am planning on trying to do my maskmaking/puppeteering internship again.

Fitness/body image: this is slowly progressing. I am going to a weekly meeting that is helping. I have decided that I would rather lose weight and see what that does to my breasts and shape than get top surgery; I don't think I want it anymore and I figure if I do later the procedure will still be there.

Work: I got promoted from intern to part-timer, which means more responsibility and not being paid under the table. Yay for daily structure.

Relationships & Friendships: Long distance relationships with my friends and partners still suck, but I have kind of gotten used to it. I try to see people when I can, which also involves being able to say 'I can't see this person right now' when I can't. My life is much better for the way I now manage relationships that are important to me instead of letting my relationships manage my moods. I had a fantastic minivacation where I got to see A., B., and E. this past weekend and managed to break through some of my remaining psychosexual fears in a big way, which was incredibly rewarding. Things with R and R' are slowly, slowly coming back to a level of friendship I haven't felt from them in years, which is also fantastic. The support of I. through all this has been steadfast not to mention hilarious. I feel really amazed and grateful to have such incredible people in my life.

Food: the biggest change in my life this year has been my deciding two things: I can be veg* at home if I'm not vocal about it--no one will miss me eating cheese or meat if I don't make a big deal out of it--and that I want to start fishing. I went fishing this summer and really found it incredibly relaxing, though I caught close to nothing. I've decided that I will eat what I catch if I can, which is consistent with my overall food philosophy of taking personal responsibility for the things I eat and trying to grow or kill as much of it myself as possible. Next possible food project: keeping rescue chickens?

Moving plans: progressing apace with my bank account (did I mention I'm grateful for my job)? I may move to Boston and commute to Western MA to see B., I may move to Western MA with B. and commute to the semi-Boston area to see A. Still looking for Boston jobs, especially in editing or writing. Really where I live depends on what kind of job I get and what my plans with B. solidify into. We are thinking of getting some kind of cohousing--a shared duplex, or possibly nearby apartments.

Travel: Belgium in 2015 with A. I also actually have a price on my dream trip to Russia/Mongolia/China/Japan and am saving up for that.

Religion/God: I am impressed with the new pope even though I currently consider myself agnostic. I went to Jewish services for the first time last week and really enjoyed all the singing and debate of theology even though I don't believe in the efficacy of prayer as such. Chi work both with and without my partners is going well. Saving up for martial arts again even though my mother considers them unwomanly (another thing to talk with her about).

I can't really think about this at length yet.

2011 was kind of a wash for me. There were some good things--making new friends, seeing old ones, achieving the goal I'd had (and had been stymied in by doctors and moving for 2+ years) of actually getting on depression medication, helping my boyfriend figure out what he needs from himself in a relationship with me and his other SO, starting the process of recognizing the good decisions I made in 2010 and forgiving myself for the bad ones. There were some bad things--sharing an apartment with an alcoholic who "forgot" to pay the internet and fix the heat, moving into a second apartment where one roommate constantly promised to move but didn't and the landlord preferred evictions over conversations; having my phone die; having both laptops die; and generally running short of cash from too many moves with too little preparation in too little time.

I am proud that:
- I have started beta-testing as a vendor at an online marketplace which I can't talk about yet but is going to be awesome.
- I have gotten on medication and it has made my life better. I am not scared of medication anymore: it makes me be the person I am at my best, instead of the person I am when I'm at my worst. I am still waiting for medicaid to come through, which is a paperwork bear (as opposed to a paper tiger), but knowing that my doctors won't write off my depression as something I am making up, or tell me that if I changed my body drastically in terms of weight I wouldn't be depressed anymore, is pretty awesome. Also, getting a 90-day refill from my therapists in MA without having to pay $120 out of pocket every three months is amazing. I wish that option had been available to me in October, but now that I am on meds again I am less angry about the fact that it wasn't, and less angry about the fact that I lost another place that had become home because of the fact that the medical establishment limited my access to necessary medication because my insurance wasn't any good there and I couldn't pay out of pocket. Both of these things are good.
- I have become more informed, and more self-informed, about race and the history of racism, both worldwide and in America.
- I have started watching movies and anime that I want to watch and reading books I want to read and reviewing them online when I feel like it. This seems like a very small thing, but when you have held off on having the experiences you wanted to have because you wanted not just the experience of doing the thing, but also the meta-experience of experiencing that experience with other people who care about you and the experience, and the other people want to share those experiences with you but don't set aside time to do so, eventually you get tired of waiting for the other people. It's not as much fun as experiencing these things alone, and I don't enjoy it as much as I would if I had a group of friends and loved ones with me. But it's better than being told, "I want to have this experience and I want to experience it with you, but I won't set a time to tell you when and won't let you set a time for me," and getting confused, hurt, and resentful at constantly having to hold back experiences I wanted to have yesterday, so that I can have them on someone else's constantly-unspecified timeframe, and then hurting the people I love when I express my hurt and resentment to them but present it to them, wrongly, as a personal character failure on their part.
- I have determined that it is necessary for me to find a long-term relationship with another person (probably a woman-type person) who makes it clear to me that I am a pleasure in their life and won't doubt my love for them, while also continuing my relationship with [Bad username or site: ab3nd" @ livejournal.com] for the foreseeable future. I am not ready to go find that relationship yet. I still hurt too much. But I think determining that it was necessary was a good thing.
- I have determined that to get this relationship, I need to make it clear to the other person that they are a pleasure in my life and I want to live with them and enjoy their company and love them, and I will do this by not pointing out the goodness of the good things in my life, instead of complaining about the few bad points of the good things in my life, which is basically how I lose a lot of loved ones and friendships. I was better at this in the past, and I can get better at it again.
- I started going back to the gym (actually, it's what I'm going to do after I finish writing this journal entry). I am going to the gym not even to get in shape because my doctors won't medicate me for sleep issues without weight loss on my part (which was largely the case in 2009-10) or because I think losing weight will make my partners want me more or less than they ever did, because I'm beautiful whether people can see it or not: I am going because an hour or so of physical activity a day gives me a specified time alone to get in touch with my body via physical meditative activity, as well as an opportunity to listen to new music, podcasts, and audiobooks which I wouldn't have time for otherwise. An hour or so of physical activity a day is a great way to set aside positive time for me having my need for time to make and consume art be interrupted by other people's demands of me.
- I have accepted the fact that my family will never approve of my relationships, whether those are friendships or loved ones, because they have a hard time approving of many of the things I do, because they have a hard time approving of themselves because they are resentful of the things they tell themselves they cannot do. Their lack of approval of my relationships is not my problem or my partners' problem. I will keep doing what I am doing in my romantic and sexual life and remind myself to have compassion for others who think poorly of me when I make choices that make me happy, and who think poorly of my friends and loved ones when they make choices that make them happy, and limit my association with such people.
- Finally, I am most proud of getting rid of almost all of my stuff except what I was actually using. I had too much of it, and too much of it was around because I wanted to be a person who had specific experiences (skiing, reading, making jam) but did not actually have those experiences, and so the stuff just sat there reminding me of all the things I wanted to experience but hadn't. If I want to do that stuff, I can: I can borrow someone else's jam making set, or rent skis, or buy more books (though I got a Kindle for Christmas, which is awesome because I will no longer need to move with boxes and boxes of physical books but will still be able to read to my heart's wallet's content. It also makes moving a lot easier for me, both physically and psychologically).

Resolutions for 2012:
- Finish and publish at least two things.
- Continue 365 Days of Art (which took a hiatus for the holidays and will be back today).
- Continue to make my relationships with loved ones deeper by complimenting the people I love instead of complaining about my or their shortcomings within a relationship, which makes them think that I don't love them or respect their choices or respect myself despite my shortcomings, makes me feel that they don't care about what bothers me, and gets me the opposite of what I actually want when I complain (which is respect for the fact that I am bothered by something, manifesting in a mutual discussion about how and why to resolve the problem).
- Keep on meds without a break.
- Sell model horses on ebay.
- Transfer old cassette tape music to MP3s. Sync all MP3 collections across devices.
- Setup KeePass to manage passwords safely between devices. Setup gmail with 2-step authentication again and this time print out everything.
- Catch them all in Pokemon SoulSilver or Diamond.
- Pay off credit card debt, personal debt, cellphone debt, and personal loans racked up in 2010-2011 through unexpected moving and continued medical expenses.
- Continue paying off education loan on a regular basis.
- Make sure multiple address change(s) have percolated through USPS system. easy!
- Sell awesome things on online store.
- Make professional-looking website/twitter.
- Keep going to the gym 3x week. Do not allow my mother to manipulate me into going to the gym more than I need or want to.
- Get a job, preferably with benefits. Continue to explore career options with hands-on internships related to N. Bennett St School degree tracks.
- Apply to N. Bennett St School this year.
- Travel to weddings of various friends. Enjoy myself there. Mission accomplished!
- Get in touch with gender activists at other womens' colleges and continue to work for the rights of MTF transgender women as women in traditionally bio-female-only spaces.
- Transfer LJ to Dreamwidth and set up cross-posting there.
- Get hormone balance tested by a doctor, with new results instead of old ones. Life without PMS is really, truly amazing.
- Get sleep tested by a doctor.
- Get allergy tested by a doctor.
- Make a financial plan for the next 5 years.
- Plan 2013 travel, with suggested places including DC, Boston, Toronto, California, and Belgium.
- Make plans to move back to Boston, including budgeting for a space without roommates and medical emergencies.
- Bike commute in spring, summer, and fall whenever possible.
- Optional bonus resolution: compose music.

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