Rainbows never get old

I'm in a hotel tonight in southern NC that I stayed at last Thursday.  Last night I stayed at a hotel in central SC that I stayed at last Tuesday and Wednesday.  These aren't complaints....and as odd as it might sound it's more about establishing routine in an inherently routine-less situation as anything.

The good news - I do expect this vagabond thing to be ending this week.  It's not that the traveling will end - that's my choice (for now).  It's that I've made the appropriate changes to "stabilize" starting tomorrow....  Phew.

I haven't forgotten that today is the 13th anniversary of my first day full-time.  I don't have too much to say about it more than what I originally wrote in my Journal :

How long have we talked about this day?  I can't believe it's here.  I can't believe this is
me.  It's as if I were just a spectator watching this person do these things, and to realize that it's me is really amazing to me.  I have no idea where I have gotten the strength/courage to actually show up here  today.  It has built itself up over time, because I know it wasn't here too too long ago.  It's one thing to want it and talk about it, and another to do it.  And still another to feel comfortable about it.  How many people actually  follow it through?  Pretty amazing.  

I still think it's amazing.  All these years later.  Now I've spent a quarter of my life as me.  A quarter of my entire life!  Ab-so-lute-ly crazy.

There are those who tell me I'm stuck in the past.  I really don't care what anyone things....my past helps me appreciate my current.  Everyone is certainly entitled to their own perspective but in my way of looking at things the main point in all of this is the journey itself.  It is a test of patience, resolve, character, resiliency, creativity....you plug in the word and I'm sure it applies.

Pre-transition

I also can't forget that I'm just a link in a chain that started long before me, and will endure long after I'm gone.  The fact that I've even been able to imagine this life - much less, to experience it - is the result of people with similar circumstances who have paved the way.  Even more sobering, however, is recognition of how many of us will never get to experience this...for any number of reasons.

So - regardless of how people feel about the way I put my life into perspective the key is that it works.  For me, it works.  And that's all that really matters.

It is gratifying to recognize that the world for trans people today is positively different than it was those 13 years ago.  I suppose it's nice to think I've done my part in helping that to happen, and I like to think I can continue to play at least some small part today and tomorrow and beyond.  As long as I can strike a balance, I'm good.

One of the questions someone asked me at one of my speaking events recently is fairly thought-provoking.  Someone asked, "When you were starting your transition did you have an idea of what your life as Donna would be like, and how close is your life now to what you imagined?"  I suppose I did have some kind of vision of what I expected, but by and large I could never have imagined much of how my life has gone in recent years.  Quite literally - It's still amazing to me.

I still very much enjoy some of the simpler things in life.  The feeling of my body.  Putting on my make-up or doing my hair in the morning.  Going to work.  Just....being.  It hasn't gotten old or blase or a chore.

I treated myself, mid-drive tonight, to dinner at Outback.  Simple, but just what the doctor ordered.  It's kind of sad to admit that it had just started raining and I was hoping it'd rain harder because my truck needs a good cleaning.  But the highlight of it was a rainbow.  Ironic, symbolic, or just coincidence.  Doesn't matter.  It was pretty.

Rainbows never get old, and they're always worth appreciating.  Kinda like life these days...