That all being said I did want to get a topic up for December and with it being the last day of the year I'm out of time to do so. I had several other topics in various states of completion, but considering it is the last day of the year I thought I'd say goodbye to what has been a year of (mostly) ups and (some) downs. Since I like to end on a high note lets start with some downs.
The Downs
- My health... My weight has been pretty much stable all year, which if it were what it was about 18 months ago would be good; but it's not. It's about where it was a couple of years ago when I set out to lose weight. There are lots of reasons, the easy excuse is that I'm still not really close to SRS. We've elected to prioritize J's MBA as for the long term it's the right thing to do. I had held out hope that 2016 would be the year that her insurance would cover my surgery, but in late October we found out that it would not. Perhaps 2017 will be the year. If not, then I suspect we'll be in the position late in that year or early 2018 for us to simply pay for it ourselves. We could probably do it sooner, but the reality is that we do have other priorities now (such as her MBA) that are simply more important than this. Unfortunately with the weight being what it is my blood work has suffered. Things have been better the last few weeks as I've been making more of an effort to exercise and work on my diet, but it's going to be a long hard journey.
- My transition... As I've said for a long time now (over a year), I consider my transition complete. Yes I'm still working on hair removal on my face and pelvic area - the former having moved to electrolysis to get the last few dark hairs and the myriad of white hairs on my face; the latter being in preparation for eventual SRS. In regards to that I'm hopeful to eventually visit a surgeon who won't require hair removal down there, but in the event that this is not the case I wanted a head start on the area so I've had multiple laser sessions on the area. It's not going as well as I'd like, but there is definite progress down there. Unfortunately with me currently having electrolysis weekly it's hard to get out fully done up. I need at least a couple of days of facial hair for the process and with the hairs being mostly white and hard to see I tend to give her 3 or 4 days of growth. That coupled with the usual day or two recovery from the process puts me on a constant cycle of not being able to really do my makeup the way I'd like. I still go out plenty, but it's usually sans makeup (at least no foundation or CC cream) and as such usually no wig. I'll probably start wearing the hair out even without the makeup as considering the rest of my appearance I usually get correctly gendered even without the hair and makeup - and yes I realize that in at least *some* of those occurrences it's simply out of politeness, but it's not always simply that as there have been times when I've let me voice slip after getting a "ladies" or a "ma'am" and you can see their look visibly change if my voice slips so it wasn't simply them being polite.
- The weather... This past week has been really bad. The flooding has been horrible in our area and it's made things hard for J to get to work and caused some issues in the house due to a failed sump pump. Not to mention all of the displaced people and the nearly two dozen deaths in our area. The frustrating thing about those deaths is that nearly all of them were from people driving through water on roads - and most/all were likely preventable. That's sad.
- My job... Nothing much has changed. I'm no more happy with it that I have been since I broached my transition with them. It's a shame as there was a point where I really loved the job and now it's simply something to pay the bills. I miss the days when I had a job that I was proud of and that I loved.
I'm sure I could come up with other things, but the truth is that for the most part the year was at least average and mostly good so I don't want to dwell on little things. So without further ado let me move onto "The Ups".
The Ups
- My health... While my health isn't what it should be or needs to be, overall it was better than it was in 2014 as I didn't end up in the hospital and I am lucky enough to have a wonderful Doctor to help me monitor things.
- My transition... While this was my longest entry above, it was mostly me talking about my hair removal and venting some frustration to not being able to get out as "done up" as I'd like. However, all in all things are great. I've had virtually nothing but great experiences when out and about and they've consistently gotten better especially the last few months. I've gotten better with my makeup application, my tastes in clothing have improved to the point where I'm 100% comfortable shopping for my clothes alone without feeling like I need "approval" from J or M, and for that matter I've gotten far more confident about being out and about alone.
- J... We have our less than stellar moments - in fact more that I would have liked. However, even with those moments factored in it's been the best year of our marriage and that's saying a lot. Sometimes it's a challenge between her job, my job, her family, and her working on her MBA, but we've made it work and are happier than we've ever been.
- J's job... She's been in her current position a touch over two years and been far more successful than I ever could have expected. I'd say I'm proud of her, but that would not do it justice. I'm in awe of the job she's done. She's now in a position to be promoted. It could be in the next few weeks or the next few months, but it appears that it's going to happen and I'm incredibly happy for her. Yeah it'll be good for us for obvious reasons, but that's secondary. She's the kind of person that makes a great manager/leader and there aren't nearly enough of those people in the world.
- Our cats... I lost my Emily in 2014, but this year all of the cats have done well. You can tell they are aging but they have all been healthy and happy and that makes me happy.
- My life as a whole... While I'm sure things could *always* be better - I mean I could win the lottery or something - my life on the whole was good this past year and for that I'm grateful. Very grateful.
As with the "downs" - I could prattle on for a long time about good things, but this was getting long and I wanted to cut it short as J will be heading home soon and I need to make her dinner. So goodbye 2015, and hopefully 2016 will be at least as good if not better.
-M
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