Storm Clouds

Take cover!  Metaphor coming!

My meeting a couple Saturdays ago pulled me out of my funk very nicely, if temporarily.  I felt pretty normal for the better part of a week, and I got plaudits for my handling of Mother's Day activities.  But now it's sneaking back in around the edges.

During hurricane season, storms form along the west coast of Africa.  They travel slowly across the Atlantic, building strength, taking shape.  Some never become much of anything, losing steam, veering off into the North Atlantic to die.  Others, though, thrive in the warm waters, soaking up water and thermal energy, and then slam into nice towns like Wilmington, North Carolina, or Fort Pierce, Florida.  They wreak havoc.  The whole east coast watches the weather updates obsessively, knowing this could be the one that takes out their town.

This is my hurricane season.  I get periodic inklings, I track their progress, I hope this one will pass.  I see the ocean swells and tidal surges, and wonder if this is the one that makes landfall.  The storm a couple weeks ago came close, but only skirted the coast.  I feel another one coming now, and I am on high alert.

When I started writing this blog, gender thoughts were a constant companion.  I thought of little else, and I had to write to release the pressure.  That pressure has been absent for a couple years, and I really believed that it might be over.  Nope, I can feel it building in me again.  This post is a relative rarity now, one that I felt I needed to get out.

Honestly, I don't want to be in this situation again.  The first time around, it nearly killed me.  The unrelenting urge to change, the dysphoria, the terrible drive to take risks, all that stuff made me miserable, largely because I felt powerless to follow through fully and in a healthy way.

I want a waist.  I want curves. 
I want the pink fog to dissipate.
I want bare skin, from my cheekbones to my toes.   
I want a life that I could celebrate.

I want to write passionately about something
Without it being a complaint.

The Great Pretender

Feeling a bit lost at the moment.  No idea what I want to write, or how to organize the thoughts, but I will try to make some sense, for myself and for you, dear reader.

I'm not in a terrible way, but I do feel it building in me.  There's a melancholy prevailing that has been known to turn into something worse in days of yore.  After a very quiet winter on the depression and dysphoria front, I find myself being visited frequently by both.  Neither are extreme, as I said, but I am unaccustomed to their presence.  I suppose I have gotten spoiled over the last year or so, enough that I thought maybe I had reached a plateau that would be adequate to my needs, and those of my marriage.  Au contraire, mon cheri.

I am in half-calf mode now, epilating halfway to the knee until October rolls around again.   It barely registers as aiding my condition, but no-calf would be far worse, I guess.  My wife and I continue to go through the motions, being parents and roommates pretty successfully, really, but the lack of intimacy is wearing on me, and I don't see it changing.

I have been in denial about a lot of things, things that have been issues for as long as I have been writing on this blog.  I had myself convinced that the worst had passed, but I am no longer certain of that.  The blinders have been slipping off slowly, but the signs have been there all along.  I have been eating junk near constantly at work, in part to stay awake due to the ridiculous sleep habits I have embraced for far too long.  I sense that I am taking years off my life, but I feel powerless to change it.

My brother ran his first marathon last weekend.  I've never run further than a tenth of a mile, but the idea of running holds some appeal for me, at least until I actually try it.  I do wonder when I would have the time to run.  I cannot sacrifice any more sleep, and working less isn't an option either, so it would seem that the excessive computer time should take the hit.  I find it hard to imagine any serious reduction there, but it is really the only place that is flexible.  I dunno, my resolve to change will have to strengthen considerably, but the notion is getting batted around in the back of my head.  I hope it can survive the beating.

Hmmm...more coherent than I expected.