I started learning Spanish today, which seems kind of silly considering I haven’t finished ANY of my other Duolingo lesson trees. I know a lot of German now. French I already had a head start on from being Canadian. I’ve forgotten most of Scottish Gaelic except sometimes I can still translate pub names that are in Gaelic. I barely scratched Portuguese. BUT now I’m moving right on to learning Spanish so I can get around Buenos Aires next month. I so far learned to say man woman boy girl apples milk water bread. So I will at least be able to talk about a couple of genders and ages and eat bread milk water and apples. TBH tho there were a lot of Spanish words I already knew just from hearing them around. Like, I am pretty sure I could order an empanada no problemo.

It is kind of funny that two kinds of intense weather patterns are basically called Little Boy, Little Girl. I’ve never really thought about it before.

Anyway it’s still early in my Duolingo lessons, AND I have to travel two other places first this October so I’ll be really busy and trying to squeeze in times to learn.

I’m really enjoying my new chest. If I could make it better I would have bigger pecs tho, and I can’t work out my pec muscles for a little while longer. I mean I could but I don’t want to stretch my scars. I have full range of motion again which is great, I’m just so nervous about working that area as hard as I worked out before. Although I’ve heard I could do weight exercises that don’t include raising my arms above my head. I don’t know, to be honest everyone seems to have different ideas of how soon you can do weights after top surgery. I’m not gonna do bench presses until November at the earliest, but maybe I could start doing push ups again, I don’t know.

I didn’t realize I would like going to the gym this much until I got on testosterone. Like seeing gains is really motivating, and even having the energy to do life stuff AND still want to go work out is incredible. I definitely didn’t have this much energy before testosterone.

I’m starting to get used to being single finally. I think I was fighting it on an interior emotional level. But being single while I’ve been transitioning has been really good for me. I read all these stories from other trans guys whose partners are being manipulative and talking them down from making major steps in their transitions and it’s really depressing. I’m worried I would have been too influenced by trying to hang on to some kind of love, even a toxic love, that I would have stopped taking T, or decided against getting top surgery just for someone else who isn’t me and who might not even be around my whole life. I’m glad I took steps based only on what I needed to make myself happy in my body. Because the only for sure person who is gonna be here my whole lifetime is myself.

Also though I’m sure there’s great things about having a partner, but I have a particular freedom I think I take for granted. Like my life decisions even beyond transition only affect me. Like decisions around moving and money and stuff like that. And living alone is great, it’s very stable. I’ve been here since 2015 living on my own and it’s amazing, I am settled in my ways. And I can hyperfocus on projects and no one feels neglected.

I’m open to love but also not really feeling the vibe right now. Like I keep opening these apps and swipey swiping on people but I’m not really into continuing a long conversation for some reason. I think I should probably give it a rest until I can actually interact properly. I’m probably more open to people I already know, because at least we’ve spoken in some meaningful way and maybe belong to some of the same communities. I know I probably belong to a lot of the same communities as people on the apps tho.

I found out a couple (ok a few more than a couple) friends know my therapist, or PROBABLY know my therapist. And my therapist was really straight up with me when we started that we belonged to the same community so we probably had some friends in common. And the good news is none of the ones I suspect are people I am super super close to. It’s just awkward. I hope we never have some kind of mutual connection that is too close where we have to stop working together, because she is really awesome and has helped me get through some really negative things and patterns etc. Especially because if I dated someone too close to her it probably wouldn’t even work out because none of my relationships have worked out so far and so it would suck if I was ever in a situation of losing my therapist because I dated someone for two months. OH MAN that would suck. Luckily though it hasn’t happened so far.

Fears of things that never happen! I am also afraid a mouse is gonna run down the spout of my kettle and drown in there and then I’ll make mouse water for my oatmeal the next day. HORRIBLE THINGS!