The Kingdom of Thorns

[knightofcups]

This is the third day of just being in pain, and it's really not my favorite thing. I did something to my knee and it's killing me. There is no position that doesn't hurt. No meds are helping, including drugs and topical creams. Ice sometimes helps a little. Heat sometimes feels ok.

It is very hard to exist right now.

[knightofcups]

I am frustrated by everything and everyone right now.

Most of this is pain, and winter, and the fact that I need to eat. But it's probably for the best I cocoon for the evening.

I am angry about a lot of stuff.

What I /should/ do is do all the stuff I've been learning in therapy but I am also so incredibly tired.

So I'm going to go make dinner, then watch a show about ghosts, and poke at writing... something. Dunno what yet. Maybe poetry. It's been a while.

[knightofcups]

I have forced myself fully awake after some of the worst, vivid torture dreams I’ve had in ages. Worse, torture dreams with brief interludes of being violent, but good, sex dreams.

I’ve made myself be awake for a half hour and am going to try to let myself sleep again and hope the dream doesn’t come back. It later through several real, and many false awakenings but hopefully I’ve been up long enough it’a stopped for good.

[knightofcups]

Absolutely exhausted. Fingers swollen and sore. But I don’t have arthritis.

On the plus side, though, my knee feels somewhat better, and I got to go watch a neat play with the Monarch, which was really fun.

Plan is to sleep now, do house maintenance tomorrow, get my fingers tattooed Friday. The wrist is good enough to be in a thinner wrap for a while, and I figure if my hands are already in pain, may as well get all the hurting done at once.

I’m excited about it.

[knightofcups]

Knee is feeling better. Left knee is trying to go, but I’m keeping an eye on it. Surgery wrist was unhappy when I woke up, so I took it easy on it. Surgery hand fingers are sore but I think it’s more from the brace than anything so just taking it easy. Left fingers and thumb feel ok.

Got almost 10 hours of sleep yesterday which helped a lot. Some annoying dreams, but not real nightmares which was a nice change.

Am current on projects, reasonably caught up on chores.

Feeling physically not amazing and mentally pretty irritable off and on, but by and large food.

Getting my hands tattooed next week which I am ridiculously excited about.

Need to get new hair dye and redo my hair when my hands will let me.

Sleep now

[knightofcups]

Brain is angry in a slightly frustrating way.

Logging out of this space as write and reader both for the foreseeable future.

[knightofcups]

Alright. I think I’m ready to start journaling again.

I stopped for one set of reasons, stayed stopped for another, and l have wanted to start again for a while but was kept from it by a third set of reasons. That last set was physical-health related, and I seem to be on the mend, so I think I have the energy again.

But, you know, tomorrow. After sleep.

[knightofcups]

Meant to journal properly today, but work got busy.

So here, have some brain dumping about SRS.

Talk about body parts and my thoughts on and relationship with them, but minimally tmi.

Ok, semi tmi, but in a biological, bit titillating way.

I got and am currently filling out my packet of stuff for bottom surgery, and it’s made a lot of stuff feel very real, and intense. It’s good, but it’s very much an “oh, shit, yeah, that’s like. Transsexual trans.”

And it’s… I don’t know. Really good, but also just so… like I feel like maybe I should be conflicted? Or have to think and agonize about this? But I just… don’t need to? Since I saw results of the type of surgery I want, and read about how it works, it was just “oh. Yeah. Ok. That’s what I would like to do.” And that’s a very weird, if good, feeling.

I think getting the paperwork just made me very aware that yeah, shit, this is like. A sex change. The kind people joke about. Or, you know, did a lot more when I was younger.

Not entirely sure why too surgery didn’t feel like A Sex Change, but probably because my particular breasts weren’t really a sex organ, so to speak. at the best of times, didn’t feel like a part of my body.

My various external reproductive parts… I don’t know. I don’t feel that rejection of them as a part of my body in the same way. There isn’t any particular affinity either. More just straight up apathy. And I mean, yeah, the idea of having a more typical penis is appealing! And were there a way to just make that happen, I’d do it in a second. There’s a similar desire to get rid of things, if not nearly as intense. The thing I’m seeking most out of surgery is to stop having the actual vagina parts, as opposed to the vulva parts.

I think some of this is that I’m just doing it. A lot of the trans people I know have, for a huge range of reasons, opted not to do surgeries, or not to do them yet, and I pretty much was on this track from day 1, even if I didn’t admit it to myself.

Thinking about it, this stuff around gender has been an incredibly powerful force jn trusting my own perceptions of self, and surgery is a tangible symbol of that. I know this stuff about myself. It’s true and real. Im proving to myself that I can know absolute truths about my own thoughts and desires for my gender and body. And that means I can maybe trust my thoughts and desires around other thing.

Also, holy fuck but it’s interesting to think what people who knew me in high school would think of me now. I haven’t half-assed anything. I’m an entirely new person who is so much better at being me.

I’m really, really proud of Samantha for getting us here.

It’s also so strange how that person, that name, just isn’t me. I wasn’t sure it would ever stop being, but I can’t really get my brain around she and I as the same being. But god. She worked really hard to get us here, and I’m proud and grateful.

[knightofcups]

Talking about food bullshit.

My body is frustrating me right now. I'm struggling with food, but not in the disordered eating way, for once. But, if I don't eat enough I get a headache. If I eat too MUCH I get a headache.

Also, I am not able to eat to actually FULL right now. I eat a little, and then I just am not physically able to eat more till the hungry headache comes back and I'm not sure what to do about that.

Today I had a good-sized breakfast, and two small snacks. For lunch, I got myself a sandwich. The sandwich came with a roll on the side. I ate the bread with butter, and then... was full. Couldn't eat more. And got a headache. Now I'm hungry again, so I'm trying to eat, but I have a headache so it's hard.

So much of eating just feels /gross/.

This sandwich was good! But now it's cold. And not. I'm wrapping it up in the hopes that I can toast it to eat tomorrow.

Pretty much all I want to eat right now is lettuce and apples. Which. Could be worse I guess?

I would like to have energy to self-reflect. Or, really, to do anything.

But instead, I have a headache.

I DID do grown up stuff though. I emailed my neurologist, and am going back on one of the meds. And last week I found a new dentist and went to an appointment AND contact the gender clinic as previously mentioned.

Today, however, I cancelled therapist AND PT tomorrow.

Just very tired.

[knightofcups]

Tonight was nice.

I still have a headache, and couldn’t eat proper dinner, but the Monarch and I hung out, finished a video on analog horror web series that was really interesting and inspiring, and then some funny videos, and then Jack Stauber videos, which made my brain feel… something, not sure if good, but something! And then another funny video.

Was nice. Am working on being more specifically present in the evenings.

I got up to finish getting ready for bed, and now meds are hit, so sleep and no more writing.