I’m not content with being content anymore.

I feel like at 26 I am supposed to have my shit together. Or at least, to have a plan about where I want my life to go and what I want to do with it. Being past 25, the age limit that I had put myself a long time ago is making me both very proud and very disappointed in myself.

At the same time, I understand that my life progression is not exactly a straight line. I spent most of my teenage years depressed, and then most of my early twenties in a frantic search for ways to exist in myself in a way that felt comfortable. And then I spent the rest transitioning, introducing a new identity to the world, and trying to put out the fires that this created in all the areas of my life.

From a certain point and after, I abandoned any aspiration of being happy for the sake of being “content”. I understood that happiness is not something that you can achieve if you can’t first be content with the situation you are in. Being content is a very low bar in measuring life satisfaction because it’s a very passive way of being, but it’s a good enough point of measure for letting go of things. And that’s what I did, and for a while it worked pretty well. It gave me stability and a peace of mind that I desperately needed.

It’s just that right now I don’t think that being content is enough for me. I want more from my life. I want more from myself. I generally, want more.

And I feel that it’s too late for me to want those things, because I spent all this time building my life around being content, without having worked out what being happy could mean for me or where I should put my work and efforts in order to make this a reality.

I feel like I spent so much time trying to be comfortable, that I forgot how to be happy.

And I have no idea what to do to bridge that gap, or even, if it’s possible to do so.

So you think you’re done with your transition?

There is this tendency when you reach a few octaves low and get the first facial hair, and finally yeet the teets to think that you’re “done” with your transition. Many people stop recording their changes, stop making youtube videos, and start living their stealth lives, as one would do. COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE, I did that too.

And then I reached one and a half years on testosterone, and I changed the way I take it. And my voice started breaking again while I was two months in a new job – awkwaaard. And my face started getting round again, and I once again lost my perfectly sharp jawline and got a chubby cheeks fifteen year old’s face.

And my acne came back.

Is it the lockdown? Is it my diet? Is it the shots? Who knows?

All I know is that everything annoys me, I have infinite breakouts, my voice sounds like a squirrel, and I sweat like a mother fucker while having the sex drive of a kid that just discovered their genitals, while at the same time my back hurts and I find white hair on my eyebrows.

I AM IN CONFUSION.

Will this ever be really over?

“Normal people’s” problems

The other day I got to meet with my godmother, who came to the city I live for some conference or something. We chatted and had a nice time together, and I was filling her up with how my life is going: not-very-successfully searching for a job, worries about money, a small existential crisis about the fact that I just turned 26 and I don’t really know what I’m doing with my life career-wise, relationships, and all the rest.

I have a pretty good relationship with my godmother, which is why I confidently shared a lot of the stuff that is going on my mind lately, and how I feel, particularly about career situation.

At some point she looked at me, and said something that took me off guard. She said “I think you’re not doing very well”, as in “I worry about you, because I think you’re sad”.

I looked at her, and I laughed. And then I told her that I am doing exceptionally well, and to be honest, I’m doing better than most other times in my life. I am not depressed, I am happy with who I am, I live in a stable house with a person I love and the stressors of my life are not as big as they used to be (especially during the past couple of years), and all I have to deal with right now is “normal people’s problems”.

I can finally sit down and think about jobs. LOL.
My future as a professional, what do I want to do with, you know, my life.

It’s funny because at some point in the past, not that long ago, I didn’t even believe that I would have reached this point. There was a point in my life that I legit didn’t believe that I will live let alone work past 25.

So, here we are, having to deal with unemployment and job search and all this shit, which is far, far away from fun and fine, but I find myself rolling my eyes at the face of adversity (or wasn’t that the quote), and not feeling as burdened about it.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but all I know is that I’ve grown enormously the past few years, and my whole life leading to now has given me a very different perspective on things.

I pass, therefore, I am not?

It’s funny, how the start of one’s transition can seem like an endless race to “passing”, your manners, looks, and outfits desperately trying to shout your transness out and justify your face. You are a man, but you’re also, a trans man. For a while. Because there is no other way for you to be; with your baby face and lack of razor scruff, your tiny arms and size 4 feet – your clothes from the kids section, your high pitched voice. The way people know you must change, in order to know you for real.

And then, within a year or so, all that changes.

People call you “sir” even on the phone, where they can’t see your patchy beard and broadened shoulders, your leg hair or your bushy eyebrows. No one stares at you in bathrooms, and you’re finally able to just be. A free man.

But are you really? Yes, you are a man, but you’re also a trans man, like you could be a tall man, or a black man. Now there is no reason for you to state your transness, now there is no reason for people to know, and your dysphoria is less and less prevalent as you swerve into the world – a public secret.

Your past is surrounded by fog, you exist only – from a point and after -.

Unless you don’t.

And then the race rewinds. And for people to know you, you must unpass.

And the race goes on.