Take A Picture

Well, if there's anything good about being sick the week of your vacation, it's that you have time to think about things. When I'm not zonked out on cough syrup, that is. :c)

When I wrote about being addressed as a girl last week for the first time, there was something I meant to include in that post that got lost in the shuffle.

While driving back to the office that day, S and I talked a bit further about it.

As I mentioned previously, S has known for a while, and has frequently told me that she sees a difference in me on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis. She reiterated that again.

She then noted that I've been on hormones for over a year now, so it isn't really surprising that something like this would happen. She commented that she takes it for granted, but that others who don't know me at all - like the hostess - are simply responding to what they see.

Then as an aside, she said something that stuck in my mind.

"Even people who see you regularly, like people at work, may have noticed you've changed, but they either brush it off, or aren't quite sure what to say. Or if they should say anything at all."

It didn't really register with me at that moment - I was still trying to take in what had just happened :c) - but the thought re-occurred to me on Christmas Eve.

My brother hosts a Christmas Eve party every year, which I attended - in boy mode, of course (although it crossed my mind this might be the last time I do so - one way or the other).

As always, both my sister-in-law and I take pictures. It's one of those things I really enjoy, and can never figure out why I don't do more often.

Anyway, my sister-in-law posted her photos on Facebook, including a shot of me with my two nieces. As soon as I saw it, I was startled.

Granted, the flu had rendered me even paler than my usual post-cadaverous pallor lol, but that wasn't the real reason.

I just looked… different. Strikingly different. And that was confirmed when more than one friend wrote to me privately to say as much, and to express amazement that no one there noticed a difference.

Which leads me back to S's aside. It makes me wonder if people at work *have* noticed, *what* they have noticed (i.e. my appearance or my mannerisms, which I'm having a harder and harder time concealing at work), and if they *are* commenting.

As awful as this job is, there are a number of genuinely nice, kind people there; they are the majority, in fact. And I suspect they would be perfectly fine with, or at least not really care about, the truth. So in that sense I'm OK with it.

However, it has become crystal clear to me that this most certainly is NOT the kind of company in which I would want to come out if I could possibly avoid it.

I don't have control over getting another job, least of all in the economic environment at the moment, but it does give added impetus to really ramp up the job search post-holidays.

Well, that will do it. Back to guzzling cough syrup and thinking about what Santa might have left me under the tree at my parents house. (No, I still haven't opened my gifts.) My sister asked me a few weeks ago what I wanted, and I immediately thought "boobs," but thought better of it. :c) (The walls have ears, after all.) Anyway, I suspect I'll have to wait a while - a long, long while, given how scrawny I am. lol

Ciao!

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I included one of my favorite pictures, which I took shortly after moving to  Seattle. I was taking a photography course around Christmas time, and we met at the Seattle Center one rainy, chilly evening with instructions to try to get unique shots. Since I didn't know my way around very well, I got a bit lost, then looked up and saw this:

A happy accident, methinks. :c)

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Don't really no much about this band beyond this song… but what a song!