Stupidity, and I didn't even mean to inspire myself there

So I just got really insecure about yet another ridiculous thing. I was singing One Direction, and my voice is higher than theirs. Dumb, yes. Does that change the fact that it hurts me? Not one bit. In fact, it may make it worse, to know that 1. I'm upset because my voice is too feminine and 2. I'm upset about something dumb. And then the cycle will turn a bit, and I'll think of all the other minute things that upset me, then the major ones, and then I'll start hating on myself for how un-masculine I am.
And, like right now, I'll start to think that nobody will ever be able to see me the way that I see myself.
But that's not true. Because I know it'll happen, because I know I'll make it happen.
I've been frustrating myself with tantalizing daydreams, because I can taste it, because for some reason I seem to think that my next step is really near. At the same time, this heightens my enthusiasm and self-esteem and my dysphoria as well.
I can't win, because there'll always be something stupid in the back of my mind to hate myself for.
But at the same time, I'm not going down, because I'm so close.

Confidence and Happiness and Cuddling

So I've been feeling a lot better recently. I've been going to see a counselor who (I think) is only making me feel worse; she's making me feel uncomfortable and I don't like that, but I'm sticking with her until I can figure out what I need to do/who I really need to see to get myself some hormones.

But I've become a much happier person than the one I was a year ago. I can talk about things that even a few months ago would have mortified me to speak of aloud; I can talk freely about being attracted to a woman I see whereas before I would disregard anything I felt because I "just couldn't do it."

My relationships with my friends are all better--my closest friend had me worried for a while; we would fight a lot and it would consume a lot of my time stressing about what was wrong. But we've moved past it, and we're connecting again smoothly, which always makes me happy because he's so important to me.

My relationship with my mom, though: that's worse than ever. She wants me to be this cute little girl, and I am none of those things, but she doesn't seem to understand. The other day she said I'd "stop thinking I was a boy" if I took pills for bipolar! I've never heard something that made so little sense, but I should expect it from her. She's also been bugging me every second of every day that I need to be at work. I have a job, and I do work for her boss on the side, so it's like I'm working two part-time jobs. Along with taking a class that needs three hours of work a day (even for me, sadly). I understand I owe her money, but it's not like I'm going anywhere. She'll get her damn money.

I was exercising with my best friend earlier tonight. It was something I hadn't experienced in a while, and, surprisingly, it was relaxing. I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, but if it can be nice like that and provide results, then I'll be ecstatic.

All I can keep thinking about this moment is how I want someone to snuggle up to me, and fall asleep with me. It would be a perfect ending to a nice night. It just sucks that my someone doesn't exist in reality, and I have to imagine him there, rather than feel someone physically with me.

Even if I am feeling happier, having healthier relationships with my friends, dating is still out of the question. Not yet.

I need to get my priorities straight.

And stop sucking. I need determination. I wish it was bottled and sold in stores, like, "get your determination here! Also known as motivation, and drive!"
Then maybe I could do something worth my time.
Every time I think to do something, I sit staring helplessly at whatever I was about to do, sufficiently not doing it. Do you know when the last time I picked up a (not class required) language book? Yeah, me neither. What happened to "I'll study kanji every fucking day, yeah!"?
The last time I watched an anime? And I fucking LOVE anime!
The last video game I finished was Pokémon White, when it came out Stateside. In March.
I fucking love video games, and especially pokémon.
Oh, and don't even ask me when the last time was that I wrote more than three pages at one time.
You know what? I can't even tell you what I do with my time. And it's not even like I can blame the computer, I use that to write and to watch anime.
I'm pathetic.
But I can't promise I'll change, because I'll just disappoint myself.
I'll just have to go on a search, and find that iron determination that decided to go AWOL. And give it a nice, hard, flogging to teach it that I need it.
Tomorrow, I'm calling the psychologist and studying Finnish, and I won't do anything else until I do.

Oops.

"Liberty does not descend to a people.
 A people must raise themselves to liberty. 
It is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed."

I found this while I was trying to read my dull as hell book for history. When I read it, having skipped the preceding paragraphs but stopping to read this because it was in all caps and bold font, I read it as something inspirational. That a person (or, as it more implies, a people as a whole) must carry themselves like they are worth something, and do something to prove that worth, to be given it. The British actually meant this in a condescending manner towards the Indians. Oops.
After writing down my thoughts, I see how it fits my weird philosophy enough to consider it inspiring. But it really was, and really seems, condescending.
How backwards am I, in a society where all humans (in principle, should) are given full and equal rights just for being human?
I guess I should replace liberty with honor.

Quiet night at home

It's the first time I've denied my friends in a while. In the past year or so, I've developed a more "normal" sense of socializing, and I feel guilty if I deny them or outright refuse their attempts to hang out. On top of that, I'm jealously possessive of my best friend. I don't want to miss a thing he does with other friends, and I don't want to leave him alone with our other close friend, because I'm afraid he's a bad influence (even though I know my best friend isn't that easily influenced, nor does he desire to do many of the stupid things our other friend does).
That being said, there is many a night when I step forth from my house without wanting to. And tonight I just wasn't going to have it. Going over to someone else's house meant I would be inclined to wait for them to decide to do something interesting, which I don't get the feeling will happen easily tonight, and who says I'll want to do what they want to do anyway?
I want to spend a nice and quiet night at home, listening to smooth or slightly depressing music in the language of my choosing--Japanese (despite the fact that my shuffle is insisting on giving me upbeat Korean songs or heavy rock songs) and writing my new story or reading Temeraire. My mom bought the first 3 books in the series in one hardcover volume, as well as the two new books we didn't have, and seeing as how when I thought about what I remembered from Victory of Eagles, I said "They were in Africa...or something, right? And there was a cave--a prison?", I need to reread the whole series before proceeding. (As a side note, I fucking love dragons.)
I'll enjoy my night at home, so long as the creative initiative starts taking over.

Trivial Reasons and The Pain of Restraint

It seems like the most complicated things in our lives lack reasons. I ask myself, sometimes, after having a good day despite having the wrong body, "Why is it so important that I transition? I mean, to me, things like physical body shouldn't matter when it come to how to treat people."
I never know what to say to myself. It just is. Words that are so dreaded to someone so scientifically-minded, so detail-oriented as myself.
Why am I so hesitant to simply speak to a stranger, or even an acquaintance?
I just am.
It's a little dissatisfying, especially when I can ask myself something ridiculous and trivial like "Why do you waste your time writing a blog?" and can give myself a clear, concise answer like "it's an outlet." I'd give up knowing the reasons for the trivial things if I could know the reasons for the important things. But then, because humans are humans, the important things, because reasons are known for them, and easy to explain, would become the trivial things.
On another note, Macs don't seem to be very good for someone who has wrist pain. The way there is so much bulk between the edge of the laptop and the keys...Work left me in pain today. ;A; Carpal tunnel surgery...if what my mom says is true, I'm gonna have to dish out the 150$ or so for Dragon, and dictate everything for a while...which would mean..no writing smut! What will I do!?

frRiOeMnAdNsChEip: When did it get so mixed up?

So, you step into a restaurant. There are two people at a nearby table. They're laughing and joking, they even reach over and touch each other's hands a little. You assume...?
Most, if not all people, will answer "they're a couple." Including myself. Culturally, we're all guilty of this, because it is what we are brought up with. It is what, in our world, is naturally assumed.
So what ever happened to good, old-fashioned friendship? Like when we were six? (Well, even then, parents and the like said "Oooh, you've got a boy/girlfriend! You like him/her?" But we would all answer "Eww! That's gross! He/she is my best friend!")
The emphasis, no matter where we go, is on the relationship. We, as cultural citizens of not only any specific country, but any country on this planet, are expected to become romantically intimate with anyone we get close to, who suits our sexualities. We are conditioned, indirectly or directly, to believe that a friendship can only go so far or else it will stall out and run flat, that the only answer to deepen a bond further is to become partners.
To further illustrate my point, I'll use popular (mostly children's, the impressionable ages') media. In Disney films, the friends are always comedic, mascot-like side characters (Sebastian/Flounder in The Little Mermaid, Cogsworth/Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast, etc.) and the princess' main bond in the film is the one she makes with the prince. That "true love" is considered the most important thing in the film, and sometimes, as in The Little Mermaid, leaving the best friends is sometimes necessary to be closer to the one the heroine loves.
It's not only Disney that's guilty of minimizing friendship and throwing romantic love into the spotlight. In fact, the very few examples of a strong friendship bond without romance in film that come to mind instantly are only Miyazaki films. (yes, Disney does handle all of Studio Ghibli's America releases, but they don't make the films.) In Princess Mononoke, a "shipping" is hinted at, but never explicitly made true, and one could just take that to be friendship. In Spirited Away, the same goes for Haku and Chihiro/Sen. In Ponyo, a shipping isn't really possible because they're so young...
Anyway, I diverge. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that in this world, the significance of bonds of true friendship are minimized so much that most of us have misconceptions about friends and relationships.
I myself am guilty of making this fallacy, (well, we're not going to count shipping when it's probably just meant to be a deep friendship bond, because...well...that's just too fun) and it took a lot of pain for me to realize that a deep, meaningful bond of friendship can, in fact, exist. It made me look even more like the idiot I was (who am I kidding? am!) when I came to realize the object of this love knew this from the beginning. (What a wise one he is, to ignore every cultural indicator that such a thing should not exist.)
I think, in this society where cases of social anxiety are becoming increasingly common (I can't name a child under 10 I've met recently that didn't hide from me), and where, as statistics say, each person has at most two real friends, that the culture should let everyone within it know that friendship is important, just as much as romantic love, if not more so.
Dreamworks seems to understand this. One of their most popular films, Shrek, shows a deep bond of friendship, even if the entire movie is just comedic relief.
But How to Train Your Dragon is perfect. Here is an example of friendship and romance coexisting, as it should in real life. One should not ditch their friends for their partner, but should also not blow their partner off for their friends. The movie does a good job of placing the friendship and the deepening of that bond between Hiccup and Toothless before the romance between Hiccup and Astrid, which, along with almost everything else about that movie, makes me very happy.
Oh, how great it would be if the next Disney Princess scorned romantic love and found herself a best friend! A prince, at that, just to throw the audience off more.
Now, we all get offended when we're with a friend and people come up to us and say "are you dating?" because we're upset that they're making assumptions and stereotyping taking place. Isn't it fair to think that others feel the same way?
I am going to work on changing my own conditioned reactions to seeing pairs of people in public. I believe that a friendship can exist between a male and a female without being "platonic." And, on top of everything else, I want to write a story about two friends. (For some background, all I ever write is romance!)
A lot of this is thanks to my best friend, who I love unconditionally and know that our bond can deepen without the need to be romantically involved.

"I want to do something that makes me feel like a man."

That's my sentiment. I wish I could pass, go somewhere public, like a mall, where people are always trying to talk to you (the salespeople) and just hear them say "Sir, would you like to try this out?" or "Sir, do you want this credit or debit?"
Unfortunately, there is nothing in this world I can do as of yet that can make me feel like a man. I wish my best friend was around; Sprout makes me feel, at least, like sex and gender are insignificant, and that if I'm a man, I'm a man. But he's not answering my text, and he's not online (what a surprise! He's not even on his online home, Tumblr!), and God, I hope he's not with Avalon. He was with Avalon last night, so I didn't want to go see him, because I get agitated whenever I even hear his name now. It just keeps getting worse.
My mom, my brother, and I went to go see Beauty and the Beast in 3D today. I really like that movie, but when the end came, I found myself wishing it ended differently. I found myself rewriting a Disney classic in my head. I wanted Belle to be too late, for her confession to come just a second after the rose fell. And for all of the people cursed to remain as they were. That movie places a lot of emphasis on the concept of beauty, and it tries to stress that what's on the inside is more important. I feel like it would have supported that concept so much better if Beast had remained a beast. And it would have been so much more beautiful, but instead he had to conform to the traditional, "normal" sense of "beautiful."
Hanging out with my family all day made me realize that neither of them will ever accept me as a man. The whole time they would be like, "you're a GIRL, stop acting like a boy, because you're not!" and they mean it as harmless teasing, but I want to punch my brother every time he says it. The only problem is my wrists will hurt me more than my punch will hurt him (stupid carpal tunnel; I can't wait for surgery!). He said something at one point that made me almost cry. He told me I looked like a boy with my short haircut, then turned around and said "But it's fake, because you're a giiiirrrrllll!" It's like any effort I put towards transitioning is fake, that even when I get surgery, my body will be medically constructed, and it'll be fake. I know this is not and will not be true for me, but I don't want others to think of me like that.
I decided long ago that anyone who wouldn't accept me, anyone who insisted on calling me "Sami" or "she" after my transition was complete wasn't worth being in my life. And I would cut those people out of my life forever. I don't want to lose my mom and my brother, or Avalon (I can't say he doesn't matter to me, even if I am mad at him), but if it comes to that, I feel like I have no choice.
This brings me to another point of mine. A friend of mine who is MTF is talking about getting an orchiectomy like it's not a big deal, and it seems like it might be so much easier for her to get that surgery than it will ever be for me to get a hysterectomy. (Then again, everything seems easier for her because her family has money, and I couldn't even afford to see the doctor, until I got health insurance that will go away in March and a job.) Sprout's mom was denied a hysterectomy and she as 46, and about to go through menopause! So my question for society, I guess, is: Why is it so much less acceptable for a woman (or female-born person) to become infertile?

Beauty and Medicine

I heard an interesting definition for the word "beauty" today. It went something like "It's how you identify yourself on the inside and show it on the outside, and don't you care about what anyone else thinks or says about it." There's a lot of emotion attached to that simple definition, although it's hard for me to say whether the person saying this meant for it to have such an impact, or if she was simply attempting to complete her assignment. It was during a speech.
One I also had to give. Not on the definition of beauty, but a speech nonetheless. And guess what? I didn't die! I didn't even have paralyzing nerves. Maybe it's because I had enough of nerves yesterday.

Oh, so I went to the doctor's yesterday. (This is something rare for me, being raised in a house with little money and no health insurance until recently. So this is a bit of an event.) Turns out my wrist pain is carpal tunnel...Let's hope I don't need surgery for that, or, if I do, the insurance will cover it. If not...well...I don't really know, it's not like I'll be getting any of my really important surgeries any time soon.
About the more important part of my appointment now! The doctor said he didn't know of anyone in the whole state who deals with hormone therapy, anyone who'd be experienced with it. (Fuck my shit for living in the first state to do anything bad, and the last one to do anything good.) So he recommended me to a therapist, one that  I hope will have at least some experience with or an idea of how to treat me; I want the luxury of not having to worry about how long it's going to take to be approved for hormones. I'd rather know what I'm getting into up-front.
This appointment wasn't anything like the last doctor's office, when I told the doctor I was transgender and he said, "oh, well, good luck with that..." That's what I get for going to a rich white people doctor, rather than the doctor who takes insurance (the one I went to yesterday). Thanks, mom, for that recommendation last year.
My mom yelled at me because I didn't leave the office with depression medication that she swears up and down I need, and my best friend told me my liver was going to shut down and I'm going to die because of how many Excedrin Migraine pills I take. That being said, I told the nurse I was "maybe" interested in preventative medication for my frequent migraines, but nobody said anything about it once the doctor was around...
In the end, I consider it a success. I'm getting a specialist to call me about carpal tunnel and I have the name of a psychiatrist.

In other terms, I survived my first week of term. Now I have to survive work tomorrow.

Signs & Looking up

Well, today was the first day of the semester. That being said, I survived, because I'm writing this. Nobody said a word about me cutting my hair, though if anyone asked I was prepared (and willing) to tell them I think it suits my gender identity better than the long ponytail I was donning before.
I'm still faced with the problem of using masculine endings in Spanish when talking about myself and getting away with it, but this is something I'll have to deal with. It's my major, after all, so I won't be quitting the language any time soon. If it comes to it, I could explain it to my teacher. She's cool, and she's also my advisor. That being said, she likes me already.
Tomorrow's going to be the hard part. I have...Speech. Me, the socially inept, too awkward to make a single college friend on his own shy guy I am...in front of a class, talking. I'll be lucky if I don't have to retake it over the summer.
I spent some time on my own today. And while the weather was nice, and campus was bustling, I managed to snag a nice table outside, all to myself. And ponder...
Maybe I'll post what I wrote during that time when I feel like copying it over and editing it.
Surprisingly, I noticed some good signs today. (However, the only literal sign I noticed today was the entrance to a place I guessed--rightly so--is an AIDS help center I never knew was there before...) Maybe things are finally changing for me.

Maybe this semester won't feel like I'm trudging along with cement shoes, like Fall did.

Maybe my appointment with my doctor (who I've never met before) on Wednesday will go well...

Maybe I'll finally be pushed in the right (or any) direction towards hormone therapy, towards my final sight of the end of my transition.

Or maybe I'll just feel better for a little while.

Any one of these things would be such a blessing, just to take the stress or unease of one of these problems away...

That awkward first post

Well, this is it. My first blog post. I'm Alaric, eighteen years old; the main reason I decided to make this blog is because I've been feeling rather dysphoric and depressed, and I don't want to annoy my friends with the problem too much. Maybe if I'm lucky (and by that I mean dedicated), this blog will follow me through the entirety of my transition (besides almost four years of anguish and waiting to do NOTHING) and will be interesting to look back on later.
I write a little--maybe if I feel in the mood for it I'll post short passages that I write. Most of what I write are long stories with characters and intricate plots (and fanfictions for my friends) but I also spend some time writing uncharacterized one-shot passages, though they're much harder for me.
I'm hoping this will be a safe place where I can just express myself. If you feel like coming along for the journey, be my guest!