I’ve been here before! Today has been an uneventful ordinary day in which I did some shopping, did some washing and a whole heap of other jobs around the house, not very exciting but jobs which needed to be done and that gave me some satisfaction. I think the problem today has been a mixture of too much time to myself, surgery which is fast approaching and a comment made in an email to me a couple of days ago which questioned whether transitioning in Busselton was the right thing to do? What is it with people who think I should move to where no one knows me in order to do what was necessary to give me some peace in my life by becoming the person I should have always been? I don’t get it at all, the person in question has not seen me for almost three years and I have only recently told her that I have transitioned and why, it just seems a very weird comment to make. I want to say once and for all I am proud of what I have achieved this year and very thankful for all the help, support and love I have received locally up to now, I have successfully become Stephanie, I think I present in an acceptable manner, dress suitably and for want of a better word, pass with ease. The fact that no one gives me a second glance when I am out and about in Busselton or any other town/city makes me feel that I am as presentable as any cis gender women who live here so to suggest that I should move to Perth or some other big city is quite bizarre! Sadly it has preyed on my mind all day which has not helped my mental state.
So my surgery date is fast approaching and I am still some way off being fit and the correct weight for it. I have been stagnant around the 80 kgs mark for some time now and am struggling to get below it even though I am exercising a great deal in fact over the last three days I will have comfortably averaged over 20,000 steps each day which I have stepped up from around the 12,000 mark, I do however feel much fitter which is comforting even if the weight isn’t where I want to be. Our flights are booked, the hire car is booked and we are now able to stay in the recovery suite from the day we arrive which is a help, we will at least be able to get comfortable even if the cooking options are limited, Ardmore is a lovely area so I’m sure there will be lots of places to eat locally, I think I will be rather too preoccupied by the thought of my imminent surgery to be concerned about getting fed!
Sadly the Nannup project has not progressed much over the last few months, I am not able to put the roof sheets on by myself and the person I want to help me is very busy at the moment. Hopefully we will get at least the roof on before we go to Philadelphia. I have however spent a couple of very enjoyable days making the place as bushfire ready as possible. The area above the house is now tidy, most of it has been raked and the leaves and branches burned along with the pile of debris which the ground works crew left. It all gave me a great deal of satisfaction and I am happy that if there is a bushfire then there is not much material on the floor to fuel it, in fact there is now a huge area around the build totally free of anything flammable so I don’t think the local fire officer will have anything to complain about, unlike the property to the left of us as you stand looking at the block from the road, which looks to me as though there is much work to do to make it safe. It would be lovely to think that when I get back from Philadelphia I can immerse myself in doing the inside, there will be lots of learning curves to negotiate my way through but it will be good therapy I feel.