Stressing out

Well I burnt a whole bunch of pork at work. I left it in the oven overnight at 350 when I was supposed to leave it in overnight at 200. Anyway I am near panic attack about this.

As a teenager I used to stress out about work. I worked in a restaurant for three years and for the first two I was convinced I was on the verge of being fired. Turns out I wasn't. They were very happy with me. Anyway I outgrew that nervousness about working, or thought I did. I am seriously stressing out making mistakes at work and it's getting to the point that I think it might be a real issue.

I need to start making income on my own, apart from an employer, just to relieve some of this stress. I mean. I don't necessarily have to quit my day job, but I think I do need to start making a significant portion of my income elsewhere.

I don't think it is healthy to worry about everything as much as I am.

Plus I need to make a significant amount more money than I already make, like double.

On a positive note I'm on page 102 of the novel I'm writing, and I feel pretty good about it. It's a bit of a mess right now but I think it won't be that difficult to clean up and I think it will sell.

I look more like a novelist than I do a cook.

I think what is happening is that I'm getting to the point in my life where I can't work for other people. I think with writing, I might have finally found something that will actually pay some bills and I won't have to answer to a boss or follow a set schedule. I have this personality where I like to have projects and free reign to complete them as I see fit, not tasks to complete. I think that is why in school I was never much for math homework but I really got into papers and art projects.

Writing is a lot of work, and right now my novel, my blog, my hubpages etc. feels much more important to me than my day job. My day job pays the bills but hopefully my writing is my career. My heart isn't in cooking like it used to be, if it ever really was.

I hate to say I peaked as a cook, but I kind of feel like I did when I was 26. I know more now than I did then, and I think my recipes are much better but it's not something I get excited about anymore, and it isn't something I want to take home with me. Though I still really enjoy cooking at home; that's different.

Plus one thing that really bothers me, and always has really, is wearing kitchen clothing. I hate that my shoes don't look clean, and my jeans are stained and I have to wear old t-shirts most of the time. I feel like dressing in a more professional manner definitely fits my personality more.

I should be the girl who always looks put together, and doesn't chip her nails at work.

The thing is, I have a great kitchen job. It's pretty close to what I've been looking for in a restaurant for a long time. The food we send out is something I can take pride in and I get to be creative at work. It is a pretty cool thing that I get to make pies, and roast turkeys and get paid for it.

I guess the thing is: I'm thirty. I know who I am and I'm pretty happy with that person. I am finally (basically) happy with the body I have and my appearance. I like being the person that I am. I just feel like cooking is this holdover from a person I never really was to begin with.

Oh and on another note: I sang karaoke last night and ended up having to carry my boots when I walked home. I passed a woman on the street at 2 in the morning. She wished me happy mardigras. It's a wonderful thing to be identified with rather than held with caution; she would never have wished me a happy mardigras in the same situation if I looked like a man.

Thoughts about who I am and the life I want to live. Time to become completely self- employed

Okay, so I've decided that I need to be completely self-employed. I've decided that I will be entirely self-employed. First step: get my internet turned on in my new apartment.

Right now I make around $3 a month online. Actually I make a lot more when I actually do things, like those boring as hell tasks on mechanical turk. Anyway if you don't know I also publish recipes at nateismguru.hubpages.com, and have a vlog (which I haven't updated in a really long time) at nateismguru.youtube.com, and I do make a little bit of money on each. I'm also working on a novel, but it's going to be a while before I finish that.

Anyway check the sites out.

So this line of thinking comes from a couple of different things. One, I'm so close to being able to match my current income without an employer I really think it's possible. I mean if I were to devote about 80 hours a week on mechanical turk I'd make just enough to barely scrape by. Yeah, I don't want to do that; those tasks are mind numbing. Two, I really think it's just who I am. I mean I hate working for someone else because I always have my own projects that I'm working on that seem much more interesting and important to me. I want to be paid based on the value of my ideas and work, not based on the time I spend on the clock. I think that is really why I went to college and became educated.

I've been working towards this goal since I was 17 and I get a little closer every year.

The thing is I went to a bridal shower yesterday. Yeah! a bridal shower! I'm a bridesmaid! Who would have thought even just a few years ago. I didn't know anyone (except the bride of course) and ended up being super quiet like I always get when I don't know people and don't know what to say. This of course led me to the observation that changing my sex really hasn't changed who I am in anyway. I still feel uncomfortably shy in groups of people I don't know. I still retreat into my own thoughts a little. I still feel embarrassed to eat and still pray that I don't win at bingo or something and have to get up in front of everyone.

The nice thing is I did get to meet one of the other bridesmaids and I like her. I mean, despite all the things I wrote in the above paragraph, I'm cool with it, and I'm not really ashamed of it. I mean despite all that, I'm basically comfortable, and though I'm not the social butterfly I like to be, and am when I've had a little to drink or I'm hostess, or in charge. I'm fine with it. And I do meet people, and I do enjoy meeting them.

But I did have a good time, and I'm really glad I went. It was surreal for me also, because after everything I've gone through and all the years I thought I was something completely different, it turns out that I'm basically normal. I mean it was really easy for me to imagine the same bridal shower, only with my cousins, aunt, and grandmother. It wouldn't really be that different.

I'm as American as anyone else.

The other thing I realized is that I kind of like that, and I kind of want that more often in my life. I'm so sick of bars and working in bars and being in an environment where it is socially acceptable to drink heavily, or socially acceptable to use alcohol as a tool to overcome shyness, slef doubt, inhibitions etc. I mean even when I'm not drinking I am in that environment where relationships are shallow, based simply in being the person sitting next to you at the bar, or cooking your food, or serving you drinks.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

Except, I don't care about food or alcohol so much to continue making that my life. Nor do I want to spend a whole bunch of hours working on someone else's idea, or for someone else's goals.

I want to cook great food for people I love and care about. I want to spend time decorating and presenting things because I want to do something nice for someone, not just to pay the bills. And I want to make my living doing things that I feel are really important.

Like sharing my life story. I think it is very important that people know who I am and how I think. I don't want to be a statistic, just another transsexual. I mean, I'm real, and it seems that the media, and people who don't know me don't realize that.

Like women smiling at me like they've seen through a magician's trick when I walk by and they read me as trans.
Or men who think I'm some sort of exotic fetishistic third sex.

Also, and lastly. I don't get paid what I am really worth. I'm just as talented, capable, and intelligent and all my friends, and I have great ideas, and really valuable knowledge. I shouldn't be struggling to pay my bills and eat like I am. I'm not a barely above minimum wage person.

I'm a writer, a thinker, a teacher, artist, and I know a shit ton about cooking, people, and life in general.

It's time for me to really start focusing on my own pursuits and leave restaurants and employers behind.

Let's see how long this takes :)

I

things I've been thinking about recently.

Okay, I really hope I can keep this post short. I'm in the library.

I just wanted to write a couple observations I've been making recently.

I kind of miss the warm feeling that wearing women's clothing used to give me when I didn't wear it all the time. Like putting on a bra and panties used to make me feel special and just kind of really good, not in a sexual way exactly, but now it's just underwear. Skirts and dresses are just something I wear. And when I see myself all dressed up, I'm just dressed up.

I didn't think I'd miss this, and I don't miss it enough to ever want to go back to it, but I do kind of miss getting all dressed up and seeing a woman's reflection instead of a man's.

I guess it was the feeling of just relief. And I wouldn't go back to living as a man for anything.
OMG, I'm like one of the girliest persons ever; I don't even like wearing jeans and t-shirts to work. I mean I have nothing against jeans and t-shirts, (though when I wear jeans I like to pair them with heels, or roll them and wear a cute pair of reeboks)...Anyway I don't want to write a blog about clothes.

It's just kind of this observation I've made recently. I do still like looking cute, and dressing womanly, but now it isn't really something special or unique. It just is. Weird, and hard to describe.

I've also been thinking about all the things I've lost through transitioning or because I didn't transition early enough: My best friend, (actually a lot of friends have kinda fallen aside even though they didn't specifically reject me), members of my family.

Also, I really want a relationship. I really need my surgery. I don't know if I can see myself in a relationship until that happens. I mean, seriously, the thought of being sexually intimate with my penis exposed kind of turns my stomach. It isn't that I particularly find it gross, though I kind of do, but more so that it is just so completely not who I am, and it really bothers me that other people can't see me in a sexual way the way I see myself.

It sucks that people see me as something different.

I guess that is the temptation of going stealth. I mean when I was told all my co-workers knew I was trans it really put me in a bad mood for a couple of weeks. I guess it's just this complicated thing about being trans. I'm sort of proud of it, and it is a big part of who I am but maybe only in ways that are very personal. It's kinda like being trans is only important to me and the few people I know with whome I share it. It isn't exactly something I like sharing with cis people. Or I do, but I feel like it's something I'd much rather disclose than have it figured out.

I don't know that trans people will ever be open like gay people, because it is such a personal thing.

I don't know. Anyway this entry is all over the place. I apologize. I'll be more concise later when I have more time and feel like organizing my thoughts better.

Recurring trans related body issues

Well, the cat is out of the bag at work as to me being trans.

It's funny. I've actually been avoiding writing in the blog, because I always post entries on my facebook page and I was kind of trying to stay stealth at work. I hope that it took people a little while to figure it out. Though no one has been messing up on the pronouns which is more than I can say about the gay bar I was working at before.

I'm not feeling well today. I had to call out sick. What I thought was probably a hangover at 9 in the morning turned out to be a bug. I got out of bed at 2 this afternoon, took a shower, let the dog out and spent five minutes vomiting water. I really didn't drink enough yesterday to justify a hangover like that. I hope I feel better tomorrow. Anyway I mention this because my thoughts are less positive when I am sick.

I want to re-emphasize that transitioning was the healthiest decision I have ever made, and I am really happy being a woman. Being a "man" was pure hell for me.

That said, I really wish I could be a cisgendered female.

It isn't about the childhood I missed, though I cried uncontrollably about that the moment I realized that there was no other explanation for feelings I had been fighting against from the time I learned I wasn't normal.

I guess this is what this entry is about: being normal. I guess that's why when I found out all my co-workers know I'm trans my heart sunk a little and I started seeing the "man" that I once was.

Trans women really are just like other women. I see those models in magazines and the actresses on TV and wish I could look like that. And I look good by all standards. I wish my voice wasn't as deep as it is, and that I didn't have an ongoing struggle with facial hair, that my jaw wasn't as square as it is, or my forehead as broad, that my shoulders weren't as wide, that my hips weren't quite as narrow.

I wish I had never had the experience of looking in a mirror and seeing the reflection of a man.

But I have.

I wish that I didn't feel like I needed to conceal my past. Or rather, revealing my past shows me up as being different.

I wish I could have children.

I have body issues. I think that really goes without saying. I have this love/hate relationship with my body and have for as long as I can remember. I remember hating that my hair color was the same as my father's when I was a little kid. I remember hating that looked like him. Small or big there have always been aspects about my body that I couldn't stand.

I wish I could have the type of sex I would enjoy.

I really try to explain this being trans thing to cisgendered people. It's hard because I don't really understand it myself. I have this need to be seen and accepted as female that is a driving force in my life. I was talking to my therapist about surgery, about how much I need it. How if that possibility were to be taken from me, it would probably be my end. I don't think I could live if it were a fact that my body would always have male parts. I also know that my need for surgery is becoming more and more of an issue for me.

When I think about all these things, about how important it is to me to be seen and accepted as female, the fact that my perception of the degree to which I appear masculine or feminine has such a powerful influence on my mood, how really nothing could have stopped me from transitioning short of death, I have to conclude that gender is somehow on the same level as instinct. That for whatever reason I was born with a female mind that absolutely has to be recognized as such.

Being trans is a blessing and a curse. I can't describe the joy I feel when I see the reflection of a beautiful young woman in my mirror. Having lived as a "man" I know how much I love being a woman, and I think that is a gift that only trans people get to experience. Yet there are times, even now over two years of hormones and living 24/7 as a woman, that I doubt myself, that I wonder if I'm not too masculine in looks and personality.

And then I think to myself that there probably isn't a woman in the world who doesn't have similar doubts occasionally.

I think that when it comes down to it, this whole trans experience is more simply a human experience, and that I'm really not as different as my body makes me feel sometimes.

Cutting off a friendship because I fell in love, and another reason I need SRS

It's been a while since my last blog entry and a lot has happened in my life since then. Actually this is going to be a blog entry that I meant to write a earlier, but I needed a little more time.

So, the boy I liked: I really really liked him. He is a trans guy. He hasn't started hormones yet (well he might have by now) and he has like this somewhat cocky way of holding himself that I found really attractive. He has like this really arrogant front he puts up. Anyway I also think we really connected on a lot of different levels. 

What happened: 

He blew me off for a while. Basically our friendship was such that several times it seemed like we were about to begin a relationship, each time more than the last time, and each time he would distance himself from me before anything really happened. Also this is a pattern I recognized, and though (ask any of my close friends) I have girl emotions, I am very very good at hiding them. I think he was scared of a relationship and I think he kept himself distant in an attempt to not have one. There's more I could write but it probably isn't important.

Well I decided that he really wasn't being much of a friend, and that whatever his reasons were and however much I understood them I wasn't going to stand for being blown off for months at a time. So, I deleted him from facebook. He noticed like a day or two later, and started showing up at my work (which was still the lesbian bar) and telling me all night how much he "loved" me, and then sent me a text begging to stay friends.

Actually the text said something like "Please can we be friends, I secretly love being the geeky guy who is friends with the kind of bitchy, really popular girl." I thought about it overnight and told him we could stay friends but he had to start treating me better. 

And he basically did. Then we met up for karoake and he brought this guy with him and it looked like a date, and I lost it. I started getting crazy jealous and left the bar early. I stewed over it the next day debating whether or not I should tell him I didn't like him dating other people and then early Friday morning I told him. And I told him that I really couldn't be a friend to him if he was going to be dating other people. Then he told me it wasn't a date and I had to apologize for getting crazy. Well that night he came in and was in a really good mood about it. Contrary to being mad that I basically told him we weren't going to be friends if he dated other people he seemed quite glad it happened, and actually started acting more like my boyfriend than not. And even turned down a couple situations that would have led to a lay.

This went on for a about a week and then we actually had the conversation we really needed to have. He told me he didn't want a relationship and I told him we couldn't be friends. So it ended that night. I think we both wish things could have been different.

He told me that he wasn't in to women, or that he was but only occasionally, and that he thought we had an intellectual connection. I think that was bullshit, and I told him. I think he was/is scared. He's had a couple really bad, abusive relationships in the past, and I am not someone he can control, and that scares him because he can't be the victim again. Also though we held a lot of similar interests, and mental capacities our relationship wasn't strictly intellectual.

Anyway, a part of me wants to say that I did a very selfish bratty thing by cutting off our friendship, as in "You won't be my boyfriend. Fine. We can't be friends."  But the reality is, I was completely honest with him. I am not capable of being friends with someone I am in love with. I tried it once before and in the process I made myself miserable, and caused he a lot of misery as well and though we did become very close, she did eventually dump me and we barely talk anymore and I doubt that will ever change. I think in this regard, there is a certain closeness even beyond physical that I don't like having with someone who isn't committed to me.

Maybe were I a "perfect" person, I'd be able to be friends with all the amazing people who bring that inner person out of me, that person most people never meet, and I wouldn't get jealous when they continued to date other people. I'm not a "perfect" person, and I'm 30. I know what my "flaws" are and they are unlikely to change. Furthermore, no friendship is worth going through what I would have to put myself through to be friends with him.

So it's been a couple weeks and I pretty much haven't seen him since we had that conversation, and I doubt he will ever be in my life again, and that hurts, but not as much as it did when it happened. And I doubt I'll ever be completely over him. I've had a few exes I've never gotten over. I don't have the ability to forget connections I've really felt with other people.

Oh and I'll just quickly mention that I'm going to be moving into a tiny studio apartment. It's the best location of any apartment I've ever lived at, and I can't wait to be living alone again: just me and my dog.

And I'll be able to save for my SRS.

I have this pattern in my life of falling for people whom I can't have a relationship with and those with whom I can, it never lasts very long. The longest actual relationship I've ever had was for 6 months with a girl who told me repeatedly not to fall in love with her because she could not love me back. I think this pattern probably has a lot to do with my body issues. Any sexual relationship I get involved in is going to include a body part of mine with which I absolutely do not identify. I don't think I could ever be intimate with someone I really cared about using my current equipment. It wouldn't be me and I would always resent the person for having sex with something that wasn't me. 

I don't necessarily want to harp on this surgery, but it is kind of the most important thing in my life and getting the funds for it seems almost impossible. There is absolutely no way to describe this condition to non trans people. There is no way for me to describe how much I really want to fall in love with someone and have a relationship and how that isn't possible. It isn't that I'm worried other people won't accept my body, it's that I know that I can't. I can't. I tried for years, and it isn't even a self acceptance issue. My body is wrong.

Click here to donate to my SRS fund.

Being (somewhat) stealth at my new job

I only have two more nights left at the gay bar where I have been working for a little over a year. It's time to move on.

I'm not going to write anything bad about Babe's or the management. I'm sure you've heard all the complaints you'll ever hear. The truth is it was a job that payed decently when I really needed a job. One way I'm different than I was four years ago is that I'm not so quick to quit a job because it isn't perfect. I've had a couple of job offers since I've been looking but where I am now is the one I accepted.

And I think it's going to work out REALLY well for me. I'm proud of the food the kitchen puts out, I'll have the freedom to get creative and be able to create some of my own recipes, I think it's a kitchen where pretty much everyone is on the same page, and I'm comfortable with the menu and atmosphere. It's very close to what I would like to open up if I were to open up a restaurant.  I'll also have much better hours.

Oh and no one except the owners know I'm trans. I discussed it in my cover letter and said I'd rather my co-workers don't know. This is what I want to write a short entry about.

It is so wonderful. I'm treated like a normal person for the first time since I started transitioning. That isn't exactly a fair statement to my other friends and co-workers. It isn't that I've been being treated like someone weird or something; everyone has been incredibly accepting. It's just that I've been different. I'e been a woman who isn't quite a woman. I've been a man who is becoming a woman. I've been someone in transition. Now I'm just Natalie, a woman who works in the kitchen and is probably a lesbian.

Well actually in that regard I outed myself the other night when I complained about my current room mate who is also an ex-girlfriend. And everyone knows I'm coming from the lesbian bar.

Of course I don't consider myself a lesbian. I'm still figuring this one out. Maybe pansexual; I think that fits me better than most. Odd how many trans people identify as pansexual, but anyway...

I really hope my co-workers don't find out, which might be next to impossible considering how many people in Richmond know me, but it is giving me the chance to taste what life in another city might feel like. I think I want to move elsewhere after I get my surgery.

Being trans for me is really just an embarrassing medical condition. I mean I'm not a man who really really wanted to become a woman. I'm a woman who had a severe prenatal hormone imbalance, or something. Anyway I do seriously believe that my mind and spirit are as female as any other woman's. And I guess when people aren't aware of my past that believe the same thing.

I feel that in hiding the fact that I am trans from my new co-workers they are actually forming a more honest opinion of who I am. I think they are better able to see the real me. and I guess this is one big differenence from being gay and being trans.

When people assume that I am exclusively attracted to men I feel like I'm hiding from them a big part of who I am as a person. When people assume I'm not trans I don't feel like I'm hiding a big part of who I am. I mean it's more like I've had a trans experience rather than actually being trans.

I've written before that being transsexual is not being transgender. I think that's why I'm glad no one knows at work. I don't want everyone to know what medications I have to take and what surgeries I need to get, especially since "transsexual" carries so many assumptions about queerness that I don't feel paint a realistic picture of who I am.

Really what I have at this new job is what I've always wanted: to feel like people see the real me.

I wonder if I can ever truly have that in an environment where everyone know my trans past.

new job same person, trans happiness and this whole gender identity thing

I started a new job yesterday. It's in the same neighborhood that I've worked in multiple times and I got the job based on a recommendation from Shannon, my old boss who employed me as assistant kitchen manager and had me on a salary of 30k a year; it was a mistake to leave that job. Actually when it comes down to it, I still think I had to leave that job. In retrospect I could definitely have transitioned there but I was never going to know it. I held a lot of responsibility and respect there. It's really really hard to come out of the closet to an employer as trans; I also quit an insurance sales job because I couldn't come out.

I don't want to write this blog about why I quit my job a assistant kitchen manager; it wasn't about transition,

The reason I mention it, and the thing that inspired me to write this blog is this: Four years ago I woke up every morning around 7, got dressed, shaved well, and put on make-up. Then I rode my bike to work, completed a prep list, and worked the line a little, and rode my bike home. At home I would change from my work clothes into a skirt, eat dinner, watch politics on tv with my dog and drink beer. Yesterday went almost exactly the same way except I no longer wear makeup in such a way that it can't be noticed, I don't have much facial hair left,  I have breasts that fill a bra, and when I came home I didn't change into a skirt to feel "girly" but rather because I had to wash all my other clothes.

It was even the same skirt from four years ago. Of course now it looks good on me.

I like this new job. I felt like I fit in well. Weirdly it felt just like working did before I transitioned, except now I'm a "she" and I used to be a "he." Which when it comes down to it is really the only thing I've changed.

Of course in making that change I've grown up a lot. 

But this isn't an entry about how I've grown either.

The thing that I find really curious about myself is why I had to transition. When it comes down to it I think I am the same person as a woman that I was as a man. I even look like the same person (except of course that I look like a woman), and yet I'm happy. 

Four years ago I had a better position than the one I just started, and I felt like I was not living the life I was supposed to be living. I don't mean that I constantly was thinking "I should be a woman." That thought was there but I was usually able to suppress it, at least enough that I wasn't consciously aware of that being the cause of my dissatisfaction, and hell maybe it wasn't the sole cause. I bitched about working in a kitchen, wearing clothes I knew were going to be ruined, getting off or work stinking and sweaty, looking like someone really blue collared.

Maybe it was solely about my need to transition. Okay I still don't particularly like how I look coming home from work but I don't mind it so much. I don't look like someone I'm not. 

Oh and it was actually easier to be my girly self in a kitchen surrounded by guys than it is in the lesbian bar. When it comes down to it I really like being the female in a male/female dynamic. I think, though this is off subject, maybe that's why my trans friends are pretty much exclusively female to male...but back to topic.

I think more than anything else I transitioned to feel comfortable in my own body. I feel so much more comfortable in my own skin than I ever did before. Even as a little kid I used to feel very uncomfortable with my appearance and I didn't even have an explanation for it. I hated that I looked like my father and little brother but not my mother but it didn't occur to me that it was because I didn't want to look male. 

Gender dysphoria is an experience that cis people can't even imagine. I know this because of how happy it makes me to look in a mirror and see a woman, and how happy it makes me to look down and see breasts, and how happy it makes me feel that I am allowed to wear heels, and makeup, and skirts and dresses and all the girly clothing that was denied to me for so long; that I am allowed to express myself as female.

Sometimes I am so jealous of cis women because they have always had this, they will never have any doubts as to their gender, as to being perceived as their gender, as to their right to express themselves as their gender.

Of course they take it for granted, and some call trans women shallow people who are trying to be stereotypes; you know it is actually difficult for me to publish that statement above about liking heels, and makeup, and skirts and dresses. I do, but it isn't a huge part of me and I don't like them all the time. I really like expressing myself as female. It feels natural, and comfortable, and right. And I feel more confident when I'm dressed in an outfit I like; a friend told me I "glow" when I like an outfit. To say I'm shallow for that, or that I'm working against woman's lib because of that is really unfair.

I have this happiness with my gender that most women don't get to experience. I mean, I know what it is like to be perceived and treated like a man, and for a female gendered person that is a pretty horrible thing. As bad as this woman thing gets it never compares with that.

And yet I'm still the same person I always was, and have the same dynamics with people I have always had. This gender identity thing is such a weird thing. It's so hard to actually define that were it not for my experience with needing to transition I wouldn't even believe in it.