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Sunday 28 November 2010

Inching forward

Last Friday my wife went to a friend's house for a girls night as it was her friend's birthday and they were celebrating.
That left my son and I on our own at home.
As soon as she was out of the house we sat down and watched an episode of Warehouse 13 that we had recorded.
Once we'd watched it I got my son to get ready for bed as I wanted a bit of time to myself.
By the time that his hamster had been fed and watered and had a run around in his ball it was 9:30. Off to bed went my son.
Once he was settled in bed I popped up to say good night. I've started to raise the subject of Jenny with him a few times but not the subject of transitioning. The closest I've come is showing him a picture of me in stockings and basque that was taken at a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
A couple of days after he'd seen the picture we had a conversation which ended with him asking me if I'd worn a blouse. I told him yes but that I couldn't tell him anymore.
A few days later I mentioned it to him and said I would tell him when I wore a blouse but couldn't at the time.

On Friday night, with my wife out and him in bed, I mentioned it to him again. I told him that I'd worn one in the summer. He didn't believe me so I told him I had pictures to prove it. He asked to see them so I told him I'd show them to him on the Saturday when his mum was out for a drink with another friend who has just had a birthday.


Well Saturday morning arrived and my wife phoned our friend to confirm when they were going out. That was when my plans went pear-shaped. My wife came off the phone and said that she wasn't going out as our friend had a soar throat. She's been unwell this week and so it wasn't really surprising. They decided that they would go out another time.
Any idea that I had that I'd show my son the pictures from the summer went right out of the window as I wouldn't have any opportunity.
Later on we went out shopping and I had an idea. On Wednesday night my wife is going to be out at a church group we attend. I wont be going as I'm taking our son to see the new Harry Potter film. The good thing about doing that is I will be able to take the pictures with me and when we are on our way back, or back home if the film finishes early enough, I'll be able to show them to him and explain things. Not everything but at least some things.
If I can get him used to the idea of my female side then life will be a bit easier in someways but also a lot harder in others. I doubt if his mum will be deliriously happy about him knowing but then again I'm not happy about the idea of having to hide this side of me from him. In 4 to 6 years time, if my wife has her way, when I tell him about all this then he's going to wonder why I didn't tell him sooner. How much trust can a young adult have in a parent who has kept such a secret from them. My son trusts me so much. To find out that I have kept something this major from him for his whole life will be very difficult for him to comprehend. Best to start getting used to the idea now.

Thursday 25 November 2010

All I want for Christmas is...

I've been keeping a journal for the last couple of months. What I've been journalling is based on some ideas I've been getting from a site I found a little while back. Mostly what I've been journalling is to share with a one or two particular friends. My latest journalling idea though I thought I might actually publish more generally.

What do you hope for this Christmas? Is it something material or something intangible?

This year I'm hoping for both material and intangible.

Various family members have been asking me what I want for Christmas. Do I have a list?
Usually I've got a half a dozen books and CDs that I want for Christmas. This year I've not got anything. I've got all the books I want at the moment, in fact I've still got books from last Christmas that I've not finished reading. For some reason this year I've not read many of the books that my favourite authors have released. I've read a few books but not those by the ones I've been following for years.
When it comes to music I've got pretty much all of the CDs that I want. I don't tend to go for what is being released around Christmas, anyway. If I want a CD then it will be something that I have seen at another point in the year and then I'll probably have bought it then.

This year I have nothing that I want especially.

In fact that's not quite true, there are things that I want but I can't get the family to buy them as it will be awkward on Christmas Day opening presents where I get a girls leather jacket or a new pair of heels!

What I have suggested to people is that they might like to give me money. I'm planning to get either a Sony 350 eBook reader or alternatively the Kindle from Amazon. I'm not sure which. I'm leaning towards the Sony but the books for it are apparently slightly more expensive and also Amazon sell books that are aimed at the Kindle. Although when I buy books on-line I tend to buy them from Amazon more than anywhere else so again that might be the simpler option.

Its still 5 weeks until Christmas and although I've got the cost of a Kindle pretty much covered already I've got plenty of time to decide.

So materially its a book reader that I want for Christmas.

What intangible things am I hoping for this Christmas? That's a lot easier as I can rattle off a list quite easily.

World peace, an end to suffering... Oops, that's my Miss World speech, or Miss Fabuliss if I get persuaded to enter by my Sweet.

This Christmas I would really to be stress free and peaceful. No snide remarks from my wife, no comments about scruffy hair because I'm growing it longer, no moaning about things while we're at my parents and no talking to my family and sounding (at least to my overly sensitive ears like she is talking down to them). Just a nice peaceful Christmas. Its likely to be the last one that she spends with my parents and sister, although she doesn't know it and neither do they, so it would be nice to get through it without everything blowing up big time.
What else would I like for Christmas? Well I'd love to wake up on Christmas morning and find that Santa had left me the best present of all and had gifted me with a totally hot female body, or even just the knowledge that next year I really am going to take those final steps onto the path to becoming a woman.

Saturday 13 November 2010

I am graceful! I have it on good authority


This has turned out to be a really long post. Please stick with it. If you do find that it is too long then comment and let me know. I really appreciate your feedback as it will help me to gauge just how long posts should be before I have to break them up into multiple posts.

Last Friday I drove up to Bristol to have my first ever Burlesque lesson. It was a one-to-one lesson and not a class. I had considered doing a class but decided that it might not be fair on the rest of the students as they would probably all be biological females so instead I booked a one-to-one lesson.
Its a more expensive way to do it but it does mean that I get an hour of instruction that is personalised to me. Maybe after I've had a few lessons and have learnt a routine that I'm able to perform for others then I'll think about joining a class.

Up until Thursday I still didn't know where the lesson was going to be. Repeated phone calls to P, the instructor, failed to get an answer. Eventually, however, I got a response to an email telling me where to turn up for the lesson. The place sounded idea as its used by all sorts of performers, is central and if I'm early gives me the chance to wander around the shops.

That email was soon followed up by another informing me that our room had been double booked. It turns out that the group that run the place are busy preparing for a performance at the moment so there had been a bit of a mix up. Fortunately P has a friend who works from home and offered the use of the room she uses with clients.

I'd been told to wear something loose and if I wanted to bring heels to work in then that was fine.
There was very little chance that I wouldn't take heels to work in so right after making the booking I was in Brantano buying a suitable pair of heels. Not too high a heel as I wanted to be able to move in them, not too thin a heel as I didn't want to lose my balance and sprain and ankle. In the end I chose a pair of 2 inch, sturdy heel shoes that fastened with a buckle.

As I'm keeping quiet to the family about the dance lessons I packed my bag discretely with my shoes and a few other things. My cover story for going to Bristol was that I was attending a lecture and would be back at lunchtime. I got dressed and slipped a pair of leggings on under my jeans. A man's tee-shirt completed the outfit.

On my way to Bristol I popped into a local supermarket and picked up a couple of ladies tee-shirts, one of which, I changed into for the lesson. Not in front of P I hasten to add.

As the lesson was at 10am I managed to avoid the rush hour traffic and made good time arriving with hardly any time to spare. P's friend offered us a coffee. I love her house, its huge. I would so love to have a place like it. Hmm, maybe one of these days if I win the lottery!

While the coffee was brewing P and told us about a hen party that she'd been too where she'd been teaching the ladies how to dance. It had been great fun. P has done a few of these and invariably there is a male stripper turns up at the end. Now some might see Burlesque as a form of stripping but it isn't. Its much more fun than that. It does draw on the art of stripping for some things but it also draws on belly dancing, ballet and other forms of dance.

 
The young men that are working as strippers aren't necessarily employed for their artistic flair, especially if they are resorting to entertaining at hen parties. Most are obviously doing this for money and some you have to feel a little bit of sympathy for when they end up entertaining women old enough to be their mothers and may actually mother them more than enjoying the entertainment.

With coffees in hand P and myself adjourned to the room that we were going to use.

The room that we'd been loaned to practice in was great. It wasn't clinical and full of mirrors like the dance rooms you seen used on shows like Strictly Come Dancing or even the exercise rooms that you might get in some gyms. Not surprising really as this was a room that someone does all sorts of work in.

Before we started P and I sat down so that she could get a better idea of what I wanted to get out of the lessons. I told her that I had no preconceived ideas about what I wanted. I slipped over to my bag and took out the corset I bought recently and showed it to her.

“I'd love to learn a routine and to wear this while doing it” I told her.

The corset is gorgeous and will look really good if I can get the rest of the costume to go with it. What the costume will be I don't know yet!

After a short chat we were ready to go. P told me that I didn't have to practice in heels this first time but I shot over to my bag and dug mine out. I quickly removed my jeans as well so that I was in my leggings. Much more comfortable to wear.

P and I slipped into our shoes and we were ready to begin.

We started by working on my posture. P asked me to pull my belly button back towards my spine. Well the couple of Pilates lessons that I had really helped there as I was easily able to do that. Next I had to roll my shoulders up, back and then down in order to cause my chest to thrust forward. Finally I had to push my tush back. By the time I'd done this my figure was in a very sexy S shape.

Next P got me to place the toe of my right foot under the arch of my left foot and to bring my right knee across in front of my left leg. Finally she had me raise my arms above my head and strike a Showgirl pose.


I was able to do this all on the first attempt which P was really happy with.

Next I had to take 4 steps across the room and then strike a Showgirl pose. Again I was able to do this, OK, I was a little bit wobbly in my heels but I can remedy that. A few more practices and I knew what I was doing.

After this we moved on to a couple of other poses. P demonstrated a few poses and then told me to come up with a few poses of my own. While she nipped out of the room to see if she could find a CD player, as the one in the room was being temperamental, I thought about some poses.

When P returned she asked me to show her what I'd come up with and when I struck the poses she was delighted.

With that out of the way we again sat down for a chat. This time we talked about the three things that any Burlesque dancer needs to think about.

Character
What was my character going to be like. There were three options, bawdy, demure and naïve. The first character would have been really interesting to portray but is so far from my usual personality that it would have been a real challenge in addition to concentrating on the dancing. Of the other two demure is closer to the normal me as I'm quite shy by nature and naïve is not too different but again would require a bit of acting to pull off, not as much as trying to be bawdy though.
In the end we decided that demure was the character to go with, although the other options are still there.

Best feature
The second thing that needs to be thought about was which feature of your body is the one that you are going to use primarily. It doesn't have to be your best feature but one that you can tease the audience with.
In the past I've been told that I have good legs so I decided that would be the feature that I'd choose.

Name
The final thing that P said I'd have to think about was a name. That was easy. I looked at her and told her that a friend had already given me a name. I told her that my Burlesque name was Jenna von Risque. P was pleased and told me that the name fitted with the demure character that we were going with.

With all of that covered we got back to practising.

My next challenge was to take 3 steps across the room, turn towards an imaginary audience and point my leg. I repeated this a couple of times.

P then rummaged in her bag and took out a couple of feather boas. I took one and she kept the other. I was shown various ways that a feather boa could be used. It was incredible the number of uses such a simple item could be put to.
Then came my next challenge. I had to repeat the walk, turn and point activity, only this time there was more to do.
Once I'd finished with pointing my leg I had to take the feather boa and run it down my leg while looking at the audience and making them believe that because I was running something expensive and luxurious over my legs then they too were luxurious and special. Once I'd done that I had to whirl the boa around my head before throwing it to one side.



The first time I did this the boa was all over the place. P suggested that I took hold of it somewhere in the middle in order to twirl it as it would make it shorter. Sure enough this was the case.
I practised this a few times before P added another element to it.

Once I'd run the boa over my leg I was to walk in a circle around the room before stopping and twirling then discarding the boa. Again I tried this a couple of times. My balance is still a little off in the heels but I didn't do to bad a job.

With the lesson coming to a close P showed me how to do chest and bum shimmies. I managed to do both quite well at the first attempt. When she asked me to a chest shimmy while leaning forward and then back I went to pieces as I lost my balance. Between now and the next lesson I have to practice leaning forward and backwards while wearing heels.
Of course I also have to practice the rest of what I was shown.

The final thing that P showed me was a way to move from almost a squatting position to a post with the arms held out in front of you while you rear is thrust back and you are bent over. I know its really difficult to describe without pictures but it was very simple to do. Especially when P said to imagine that I was holding a pole as I lifted myself up. She did point out that I might not want to hold my hands as if I was holding a pole as that would look really interesting as I lifted up.
With my hands face down and one on top of each other I struck the pose.
Just before I did though P asked me “have you ever done pole dancing?” When I shook my head she continued “you might want to try.” Now that is a thought. Me and a group of women doing pole dancing. I wonder what they would think of that. I might just think about it if there is a one off session on a class running locally to me.


At that point the lesson was at an end. P asked me if I had any long evening gloves. I haven't so she dug out some for me to try so that we could work out what size I needed. By next lesson I need to get a pair of my own. If I can get hold of my own boa before then it will be good. P is going to think about the routine that I'm going to learn based on what we did and the character to be portrayed. The music that we'll be practising to is My Heart Belongs to Daddy by David Rose, the composer who wrote The Stripper. We might need another song too depending on how long the routine ends up being.

Well that was my first Burlesque lesson but definitely the last.

A number of thoughts have gone through my mind since the lesson.
Firstly, that once I've taken a few lessons and have perfected and performed the routine then I would like to actually take a class with a group of women. If any of them are worried about have me in the class then I can turn up and do my routine for them to show what I've learnt and achieved.

Secondly, once I've got the routine to a standard that it is ready to be performed then I would like to book the room that hopefully we'll be practising in and invite a select group of people who know about my transitioning and also know about my taking up Burlesque. That means that I'd be inviting Lou, L (from work) and K (my friend who I told about my plans the other week). A small and select band. The other person that I would have to invite is Zee, she doesn't know about my dancing, yet, but will do before my next lesson. A small audience of four plus myself and P. I think that should be enough.

The final thing that went through my mind was that during all of the lesson I was completely relaxed and felt confident in what I was doing. It felt really natural to me to be doing those moves and poses. I've tried various things in the past, puppets because of working with the children's group at church, learning to play the guitar, drawing and even writing. Nothing has actually felt so right to me as what I was doing during that lesson. Maybe, just maybe I've actually found something that I might with practice actually be good at. I've thought about performing for an audience, bigger than 4 people that is. Although the thought does make me feel a little uneasy because I am a shy person my nature, if I could overcome the obvious disadvantages I have, i.e. I don't have a women's figure (not yet anyway) and at present would be seen as a man in drag (there has to be a way to come up with a routine that gets around that and allows me to do female Burlesque), then I would really love to give it a go and perform live in a show.


My next lesson is at the beginning of December and I'll update about the routine and what else I've learned then. The couple of days around then are going to be really interesting as following that i'll be going to see Lou to have my hair done, highlights put in and hopefully cut and styled into a feminine enough style for me to wear for the rest of that day and with a bit of touching up the following one. After Lou's I'll be going to Portsmouth and going out for a meal as Jen for the first time to a restaurant. I don't want to have to wear a wig to go out so hopefully Lou can work a miracle so that I look totally feminine once I've got my makeup on. How I appear and how people react to me will give me a good indication of people's reactions when I am full time.
The following day I'll be spending pretty much as Jen including another visit to Sugar and Spiced. More details about all of that once they've happened.

Change to blog

I've made a few minor changes to the blog today.

Comment moderation is turned off again so we'll see if I get any spam comments like I was receiving sometime back.

I've also gone back over some older posts and removed them as they don't really fit in with where I really want to take this blog for the time being.

When I've got enough time to finish the task I'll be uploading my own web site, including blog, that I've been working on. When I have time!

Friday 12 November 2010

Speech Therapy

When I saw Dr Brooks the other week she told me that she would be writing to The Laurels on my behalf in order to see if they could suggest anything that I could be doing before I ask her to refer me onwards.
Today I had a letter from Dr Brooks letting me know that she has heard from The Laurels. They have said that they do not refer anyone for speech therapy or hair removal (I wasn't expecting them to) before patients begin the Real Life Test. However, they have given Dr Brooks the name of a speech therapist at my local hospital.
The lady in question might be prepared to offer me an assessment and some advice.

Dr Brooks has asked me to let her know if I think that it would be helpful as she will write to the speech therapist. There are no guarantees that she will agree to see me though.

I know what I'll be doing on Monday then. Phoning Dr Brooks to get her to write a letter. It certainly wont harm to ask and the speech therapist might just have a bit of time available to provide me with some suggestions as to how to start working on getting my voice to sound right.

Saturday 6 November 2010

Fate?

The other evening I was on Facebook using my male account and not my femme account when up popped a couple of friends. I started to chat to them. After a while one of them had to get off to bed as she had to be up early for a day out. The other friend had confided in me that she was going through a rough patch so we carried on chatting.

With everything that she was telling me at some point I decided that I was going to share about my transitioning.

She took it in her stride and our chat got deeper and more personal. As a result of this our friendship has changed completely.

I've known her for a good few years now and have to admit that personality wise we are very much alike, I've actually thought that if I had been born into a female body then I would have been like her.

I like the way she dresses and behaves, if I had to make a list of people who I had to use as role models then she would be one of them.

We chatted until gone midnight when I finally had to bow to growing fatigue and the fact that I had to be up 5 hours later in order to get ready to go to work. 6am starts in work aren't fantastic, especially when your job is pretty much deskbound. Although realising that you've done half a day's work by the time everyone else has finally arrived is nice as is finishing work when everyone else still has half their day to go.

The both of us promised to keep each other up-to-date about what was happening.

I found myself thinking about her the following morning and hoping that we will be able to become even better friends once things are sorted out in both our lives.

That same evening I had to collect my phone as it had finally been returned from being repaired. As I was walking back through town with the plan of popping into a local department store to have a browse around and maybe buy some new lingerie before meeting up with the family who should I spot but my friend.

She was wandering around killing time too. We chatted briefly and were about the part company when I turned to her and asked if she wanted a coffee. She agreed so we went into the local Starbucks and spent the next hour chatting about out situations face to face.

I'd been thinking that morning how much it would be nice to get together with her for a drink or a coffee and suddenly there I was chatting about her problems and my transitioning over two mugs of cappucino.

Fate? I'll leave that up to people to decide but it certainly means that I have someone who knows me who can be a shoulder to cry on and who I can provide a shoulder for her to cry on.

Can't wait to have another coffee with her in the next couple of weeks so that I can find out how things have gone with her.

Monday 1 November 2010

No smoke without fire

They say that there is no smoke without fire.
Well that was certainly the case last week.
My father-in-law has been down for the last week. On Wednesday the whole family were having showers. Father-in-law had had his, wife then had her shower, son was next. Finally it was my turn to make use of the bathroom.
I was heading towards the bathroom when I found myself wondering what my son had being doing because it was full of steam. As I got closer I noticed that some of the steam was black.
Eek, with a shock I realised that it wasn't steam but smoke.
I raced into the bathroom, pulled back the door and found the electric shower in flames.
Dashing back out I shouted to the rest of the family that there was a fire and then told the wife to turn off the electricity at the mains.
Grabbing a towel I was back in the bathroom beating at the flames. Eventually I managed to put out the flames on the outside of the unit but it was still burning inside.
Grabbing hold of the housing with the towel I pulled it from the wall. The inside of the unit was still on fire so I continued to beat out the flames until finally they were all out.
At that point I went downstairs in time to take the phone from a neighbour who had started to dial the emergency services.
Within 5 minutes the fire brigade had arrived.
The firemen made sure that the fire was out, that the loft hadn't been set alight above the bathroom, fitted a smoke detector to the upstairs ceiling and turned on a giant fan in order to ventilate the property.
With all that done they were able to leave.
The next couple of hours were spent arranging for an electrician and plumber to come round and make the shower safe and reporting the fire to the insurance company.
The bathroom is pretty much out of use at the moment. The bath certainly is. A specialist cleaning firm came around on Friday to see what needed to be done to clean up the place. We're waiting for the insurance company to authorise the work.
Its amazing just how far the soot particles carried. We've found them even in the kitchen downstairs. Even more amazing is the fact that it is going to take 2 days to clean the areas that are worst affected, the bathroom, part of the landing and my son's bedroom. The fact that the fire was contained within the bathroom doesn't seem to have stopped it affecting other areas.

Hopefully we'll have it all sorted soon and can at least get back to using the bath. Having a new shower fitted will take a little bit longer but hopefully not too long.

The only good thing is that I was home and that my son had had his shower when he did. I would hate to think what would have happened if I'd been the one having the shower and he'd had his later on during the day as had been planned. If I'd been the one to shower then it might have been 15 to 20 minutes before the fire was discovered by the time I'd got dried and dressed in my bedroom and come back out again. By then the entire bathroom and loft could have been well alight. I shiver to think of what that would have been like.

The best bit of all this though is that on the Monday and Tuesday I'd been on a First Aid Refresher. What was the most important point that was drilled into us over the two days. Check for danger, don't put yourself or a casualty at risk. First chance I get I put myself at risk.

At least I know that in an emergency I wont get flustered and will simply get on with things.

Freed from the world of electronic communications

For the last week I've been more or less offline. Making up for it with an explosion of posts.

Over the last few weeks my laptop has been playing up. The screen has been flickering, it has gone blank if its been in the wrong position or even if I move it while the laptop is on. Eventually I contacted the repair people at PC World and they sent a courier to collect it so that they could fix what appeared to be a faulty connection between the screen and the main part of the laptop. 7 to 10 days without a laptop but up to a month I was told.
Ok, I can cope with that, I still have my Blackberry.

Huh, the day after I contact PC World about the laptop my phone decides firstly that it wasn't going to turn on. After an hour of charging the phone turned on. Oh joy, now it started to dial someone from my contacts. Before I finally took it back to the shop to get it repaired, or in this case replaced, it must have dialled the school room at the local hospital a dozen times.

The shop told me that it would take 7 to 10 days to get it dealt with.

I have to admit being without my phone has been good, without the laptop not so.

As of today my laptop has been returned and appears to be working fine. My phone is due back in the shop on Thursday so I should be able to pick it up either at the end of Thursday or on Friday.

By the weekend I should be back up and in contact with everyone I need to be again.

Another coming out

The last couple of weeks have been simply one thing after another.

A couple of days after seeing Dr Brooks again I went to see one of the vicars, D, at the church I attend and his wife, B. Earlier this year I had dropped out of a number of groups that I'd been involved in. One of the reasons for this was a course I'd been doing which had made me think about who I really am and who others see me as. Dealing with this made me bring forward my plans to transition from the end of this year to the beginning.
When I'd dropped out of leading Sunday school I hadn't told D and B the actual reason why I was doing so.

The other evening was my chance to explain. With S there I sat down and after a bit of general chat got down to the reason for the visit. Amazingly I actually found that I couldn't speak, the words wouldn't come out. S had to step in and explain things.

Once S had told D and B what had been going on I found that I could tell them about things and we were able to discuss everything.

Well the conversation pretty much went the way that you would expect. D and B didn't really have any experience of transsexuality and so asked questions. I did my best to answer them.

While we were chatting I noticed that B has a sad look on her face a few times. I've not had a chance to talk to her properly since. Hopefully I'll have the chance to do so soon.

At least they now both know what is happening and why I dropped out of things.

The interesting thing though was last week we had an All Age Service at church which B led. The theme of the talk was "the masks we wear". B talked about the different masks that we wear and even mentioned the material from the course that prompted me to take action earlier in the year. I'm sure that it was a coincidence. It did feel that the talk was aimed at me. I'm sure that others felt exactly the same though.

I bet that we wont be talking about that talk at group this week. I'm sure that S will be steering clear of the subject to avoid any sticky moments.

Finally managed visit two to the psychiatrist

I had my appointment in Taunton with Dr Brooks. It was an interesting experience.
I set off with plenty of time to get to the place. Last time I got lost as the address on the letters that they send you is near the train station while the actual place is about 2 miles away. Anyway, I knew one of the addresses was wrong so picked the address I thought was right. Doh, blonde moment. Ended up near the train station again so had a lttle detour while I reprogrammed the satnav for the correct place.
Finally I arrived with 20 minutes to spare. I thought about sitting in the car for a while as last time the place was full. In the end I decided to go in as I only had 15 minutes to wait and had a book to read.
Walking into reception I found that there was only two other people there. I spoke with the receptionist to tell her who I was and who I was there to see then sat down to read.
While I was sitting there and making a few notes on a pad I could hear the two women around the corner groaning at what was on television. Curiosity got the better of me and I went around to join them watching Life On Earth.
After a couple of minutes the one woman was called through which left me and the younger one.
I was making some notes when she shrieked and started going on about a spider. I looked up to see what was going on and she was gesturing at this tiny spider that was dangling just in front of her. I put my book down, got up and took hold of the spiders thread and carried it outside before letting it go. Apparently she was scared of spiders. My good deed was done for the day.
She was called through just after that so I was left sitting in the waiting room with this guy in a wheelchair. He was called in to a small interview room just of reception which left just me.
I sat there for 5 minutes waiting when suddenly there was a lot of shouting and the door to the interview was slammed open.
The guy in the wheelchair came hurtling out, yelling at the women in the room that he pitied them for not understanding, slammed the door shut behind him on a startled looking woman and stormed across the waiting room. I stared at the television ignoring him as I didn't want to engage with him. His incredibly pissed off and dramatic exit was unfortunately halted by the doors when he attempted to open first the wrong one and then the right one the wrong way. :-)
A couple of minutes after this I went in to see Dr Brooks. The interview itself didn't take long. I went over what I'd done with talking to family, including that I can't tell my son just yet. I told her that I didn't want to have to go back to square one so she suggested that I have another appointment in 6 months time. She said that is probably a good thing as The Laurels have currently put a hold on all referals and so even if she had written me a referal I'd have still had to wait.
I'd read about The Laurels moving to Exeter and a halt to any new operations but since they don't do operations there its a halt to new referals that they have put in place.
So in 6 months time I can go back and see Dr Brooks, or even bring the appointment forward if need be.
When I originally sat down to write this I couldn't see me bringing forward the appointment. Events since then have left me thinking that maybe I could end up bringing the appointment forward.
In the meantime Dr Brooks is going to write to The Laurels to see what things they recommend that I can get on with in the preparation for seeing them, I'm thinking things like speech therapy so that I sound more like a female, maybe even electrolysis. Once Dr Brooks has heard from them she will write to me to let me know what they say.
In the end I was back out again by about 10 to 12.
When I got in the car I rang my wife and told her what was happening.
I told her that she could now talk to her mum. Her reply was that there was no need to as things were still a long way off.
I was a bit confused by this until she said that its going to be 5 or 6 years before anything happens! I know that we'd agreed to wait until Rhys was older, 16 years of age at the earliest, which is why I wanted to see what other options there were. As it is I'm not sure that I can wait 4 years. I fully expect that something will happen to change that, probably Rhys finding out before then. Once that happens then my wife is not going to be happy and I suspect the marriage will be over.
The fact that she isn't going to tell her mum right now means, I think, that she is in denial over all this and expects it to go away by the time 5 years is up. I think that she is hoping that by putting this delay in my way then in 5 years time things will be different. Alternatively she's probably thinking that another reason for me not transitioning will come up, probably she's hoping that we'll have another child and she can use that as an excuse to stop me going forward.
Personally I can't see me being able to deal with 4 years let alone 5 or 6. I said to Dr Brooks that if it was up to me then I was ready to be referred to The Laurels right now.
Only time will tell but I'm not expecting to be waiting to transition in 5 years time, either I'll be in the middle of transitioning or have completed everything and finally be living full time as a woman.