Number 129

The Sound of Silence

So it's been awhile. It's not that I ran out of things to write about - I just needed time to step away from the limelight for a bit. "What limelight?" you might be asking, and that would be a pretty sick burn, if I was claiming any sort of fame or celebrity. No, in this case, what I mean by 'limelight' refers to the manner in which I've written a lot of personal things about my life and my emotions in many previous blog entries. I'm not sorry that I've done so - to me, honesty and candor are necessary if I want this blog to be a worthy endeavor. It's just that my latest setback on my road to gender congruence left me feeling a lit bit like Icarus - I flew too close to the sun and got badly burned. 

Briefly: Six days before vaginoplasty surgery, after my surgeon decided my BMI was too high to guarantee a successful outcome, my procedure was canceled. I was both completely surprised and devastated by this decision. You may wonder how things could have possibly unfolded in this way, but frankly, I'm not interested in going into the details. Quite simply, there were some issues with communication.

And so I needed to lay low. First to lick my wounds and then to determine how to move forward. Believe it or not, I got through those two steps in fairly quick order. I made immediate and decisive decisions about changing the way I ate, so as to facilitate the necessary weight loss. As a result, I have already lost more than half of the weight that I need to. So why have I continued to lay low?

In a word, embarrassment. In my unbridled excitement leading up to my anticipated surgery, I told everybody. To now have to go back out, face all of you, and admit it didn't happen because I was too fat was a humiliation that was hard to countenance. Frankly, I lacked the fortitude to be out among my people - whether it was in person or online. The notion of having to tell the story of my canceled surgery over and over was unappealing and frightening. It still is.

Additionally, Covid-19's powerful resurgence and Trump's post-election temper tantrums have also been unhelpful in inspiring me to reengage with the rest of the world.

What changed? Why am I now engaging with you by writing this? Well, for one thing, typing an essay while safely ensconced in a comfy chair with my two dogs nearby might be credibly termed "baby steps." But the more important reason is that I missed writing down my thoughts. Perhaps this blog is nothing more than a glorified journal, but if that's the case, I'm okay with it. I don't recall ever feeling worse after finishing a blog post. In fact, most of the time, I feel better. Writing this blog is not exactly therapy, but I'd be lying if I said that writing it wasn't therapeutic.

So, for better or worse, I'm back.

P.S. For the record: I do not yet know when my (hopefully soon to be) rescheduled surgery will take place, but when it is, you will not hear about it here until afterwards. Promise.