Daily journal: facial feminization surgery

how things feel on hard days

when the days are long and my brain is tired, it all feels harder to go through with. yesterday was one of those days. it’s harder to put makeup on my eyes and keep myself from smearing my lipstick off with my arm every time i think about hating the way i look.

through these moments i have been encouraged to remind myself that hard moments will pass. i hold stuffies and try not to think about who will feel bad if i hold a stuffy that someone else gave me instead of the one they gave me. i think about the people who love me and worry about how much i’ve hurt them. i do progressive muscle relaxation to try and get my mind and body under some form of control. sometimes it works wonder, sometimes it makes me frustrated. it didn’t hurt this time.

closing my eyes without a meditation focus doesn’t tend to help. i can see too much with my eyes closed. every possible bad outcome crashes through my brain. i finish word searches on my phone until i can move again.

i listen to music that i know will make me cry. i don’t regret it even as tears stream down my face and i cry the kind of cry you know makes people around you uncomfortable.

i look at before and after images of other people’s facial feminization surgery on the internet and imagine what putting lipstick on a new face will feel like. i smile at this sometimes even when i’m feeling bad.

in time, i can see not happiness but at least the possibility for sadness to end.