Monday, 29 August 2011
00:03
It’s been the best part of two months since you last heard from me, but I am happy to admit that I am doing well, generally speaking.
A couple of things worth mentioning: I received a letter from the GIC (Gender Identity Clinic) in London with, essentially, an acceptance letter. I just had to send off my details within four weeks to register myself there. Apparently they get a lot of people that contact them asking for appointments that don’t actually get followed through, so they have to be vigilant of things like that.
So I sent off my details and last week I got another letter through confirming my first appointment. It will take place next February. I’d heard various stories about the length of time it took to get an appointment there, but this is about what I expected really. This is only one of the very first steps still and with the amount of cancellations and no-show-ers they must get I would expect this stage to be one of the fastest.
So yeah, that’s happening. I’m happy I’m finally doing something physical about this, but I’m not going to lie; I’m fricking scared! This is quite unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and I’d imagine most people that get these appointments can say something similar. I do still wonder if this is the right thing for me, I mean, I’ve been a lot less upset recently. Like I used to have times when it all got too much and I’d just break down, but that hasn’t happened for a while now. Is it because I’m doing something about it? Or is it something else? I do sometimes wonder whether I’m not just half way transgender. I know that seems bizarre, but I sometimes feel like I’m stuck right in the middle of being male and female. But then, if I look at it from a different angle it all seems completely different. For example, I think that if I had been born female, would I still be going to the GIC? And I think, absolutely not. So then maybe what I am stuck between is actually what is right for me, and what is easy for me. I know I say things like this all the time, because all the time this sort of stuff goes through my head. I know what is right for me, I just know that it’s also a whole lot of work and when it comes down to it, I don’t want a difficult life.
People have this sort of dilemma about all sorts of things. It is most definitely not something that only people like me have to deal with, and I understand that, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Would the difficult life be worth it? Who knows? I guess sometimes you do just have to take a gamble and just do it. I have a terrible habit of faffing about and over-analysing everything. Maybe things won’t work out as bad as I expect.
Anyway, let’s move away from my indecisive scrawl, and onto something a bit happier. I have passed my driving test, and I didn’t do very badly at all either. I’m not sure how the tests are marked in non-UK places but if you’re from the UK you’ll understand what I mean when I say I only got two minors. And they were both for not checking my right mirror when turning right. That was it. I was pretty proud of myself to be honest and since passing I’ve taken a few drives out around the area, and on only my second time out, I decided it was a good time to drive around a nearby safari park. Well I figured if I can manoeuvre around lions and rhinos with relative ease, the city streets will be a doddle!
So obviously I’m pleased about that, and now I can look more seriously at better jobs. Speaking of jobs, what I do now at work has somehow simultaneously become more boring and yet more complex. I now have to help customers around my section with any problems they have. That’s fine for the most part, but my section covers wine, and to be honest the most experience I have of wine is guzzling it down and feeling it’s joyous after effects, which is great, but when a customer asks what a particular wine tastes like, just saying “You guzzle it down and drunken joy ensues” is not enough. So I’ve been on a wine tasting course. Aren’t I the lucky one?!
It was good, but my god isn’t it pretentious?! We were taught how to smell the wine, how to look at the wine, how to taste the wine (but not swallow it) and how to examine your own spit afterwards and see the effects of tannin in your small plastic cup. It was interesting, I’ll give it that, and a lot of the information did help, but it was just a bit unnecessary in general. After all we’re not exactly going to taste every wine we sell, so I still have to boldly lie in the face of customers if they ask “Is this a good Rioja?”. My answer is usually “Yes, yes it is”. Seriously, what were they expecting me to say?
Sometimes that is all they need though. I remember in the first few weeks of my starting this job a customer came up to me and asked “What’s a good white?” and I literally had a quick scan of the shelf, pointed at one with a nice label, said “That one” and he went and bought a case of it! I didn’t even say it with much conviction, but obviously he didn’t really care. I hope it was a nice wine; we still do it so it can’t be that bad, although I have to say I’ve never seen him again! Oh well. I’m a bit better now.
I’m not a terrible worker by the way.
Seriously, hire me.
I like jobs.
Right that about does it for now, I am off to Corfu for a week. It’s very hard to complain about life with conviction when I’m off living the high life flying to Corfu, taking wine tasting courses… driving around safari parks etc etc.
Night! X
Becoming Ella 