closer

I find myself in the last days or hours as it may be before my genital surgery. I will be going into the hospital on Monday morning for tests and surgery preparation. The surgery will be performed early Tuesday morning. I am so happy the day has finally arrived. I am calmly excited about the surgery. I know that it will be a painful healing process that will take several weeks. I have everything I need to take care already finished and I will be resting a lot in the next couple of days. I am so thankful my girlfriend will be able to spend three weeks with me during this difficult time. I was hoping not to have to go through this alone, and thankfully I won’t have to. She is so kind and loving to make such a sacrifice for me. I am really looking forward to her being with me. We have been becoming closer than ever in the last several weeks.

I began to get ill last week while I was on a business trip to the Netherlands. I was sitting in the back of the car when I began to feel very nauseous and slightly dizzy. From that point on, all week I was feeling a bit nauseous here and there, and then on the weekend I came down with a cold. And of course I promised to have several things finished and ordered before I finished this week at work. I assume the stress didn’t help with my health matters. I went home sick on Tuesday and stayed home on Wednesday completely. I felt better yesterday, but I think it might not have been such a good idea to go to sword and aikido practice last night. I got a lot out of the practices, but I think I should have saved my energy to get well. I was able to get things at work to the point where I could leave at a decent time today thanks to the help I received from my colleagues. I was wondering if the nausea I was and still partially experiencing is from my dying or dead testicles. The other thought I had was that I may be having problems with candida yeast again. The symptoms seem a bit too similar to those problems that I had last year around this time. I cannot be sure what it is, so I am just going to try to get as much rest as possible in the next couple of days, in hopes of being reasonably well for surgery.

I have been feeling very feminine in the past couple of months. I suspect it may have to do with surgery coming, or maybe it is the backlash from me altering my beauty regimen in response to the complaints of my girlfriend. I had stopped wearing makeup every day, and I was not dressing nice like I had last winter. I think this time has helped me to temper further the amount of time I spend on how I look. I have begun to wear makeup only on special occasions and when I will be meeting with customers. There is a woman that works at a company on the same campus as me, and I would see her usually at lunch in the cafeteria. I would get secretly very jealous of how she presented herself and became disappointed that I had let myself and my wardrobe go. I couldn’t even dress nice like that if I wanted to simply because I don’t have any clothes like that. She is almost always wearing a skirt with a nice blouse and pumps, very classic and almost exactly how I want to dress.

When I first came out at work I was dressed always relatively nice, wearing either things I had made myself or store bought. I became inspired by seeing that girl, and now I have a whole new wardrobe planned to make while I am recovering from surgery. I have prepared a few pencil skirt patterns, in the latest high waist style and also bought some nice flannels to make them out of. I also am planning on making blouses out of satin, crepe de chine and cotton shirting. I have also had relatively good luck with finding several pairs of pumps in my size in different styles and colors. This season my shoe of choice is clarks. Over the past couple of months I have been trying on many pairs of shoes to get a feel for how they should fit. I learned a very important lesson when I visited a customer earlier this month about the correct fit of pumps. I noticed through all of this that my left foot is a half size smaller that my right. Noticing this difference has been a big help in determining the correct fit. The problem I encountered at the customer was that I was walking out of the right shoe, and then as soon as I corrected that with the insoles I brought with me, I began to walk out of the left one as well. That was a very embarrassing and not to mention painful experience I do not intend to repeat.

I figured out that the right shoe should fit relatively snugly in the toe box and at the heel. The left shoe I can add a half insole to help that foot fit better. I had thought at first that having plenty of room was a good thing and that trying them on in the evening after work made sense. I know now that neither are totally correct. I guess if the shoe will only be worn at night then that would hold true, but I also realized that I will be wearing the shoes mostly for work and that means wearing them starting in the morning when my foot is at its smallest. I also realized that if the shoe is loose in the morning, the problems caused by rubbing or walking out of them will cause my feet to swell and tire quickly, only exacerbating the problems. Heels are not really made to be comfortable, so I have come to the conclusion that if I want to wear them, I will have to deal with a bit of pain. Minimizing the pain, or limiting it to my feet being tired, instead of pain from chafing, blisters, and birds eyes is a decent tradeoff. Trying on shoes only in the evening is not the complete solution as most would have you believe. I have also determined my maximum heel height, 70 mm. Over 70 mm I cannot walk correctly. I am tall enough already anyway. I have been training myself to walk in heels at night by putting them on and wearing them around the apartment for a few hours at a time.

I have mentioned many times here that I had a definite vision of myself as a woman and I really feel the need to live that vision, because I am able to if I just work at it sensibly. The skirts and blouses that I am planning on making during my recovery are somewhat simple to construct, and energy permitting I could make one each per day. I will be in hospital for two weeks after surgery, and then four weeks at home. I assume that after the first week at home I will be able to sit for a reasonable amount of time at my sewing machine. I will obviously have to see how it goes, and try not to push it if it doesn’t work. I am happy that I have the creative energy to sew once again. Most of what I have picked to make are timeless pieces that will hopefully bridge seasons. I am also very happy that my body has changed to the point where I don’t really have to do much pattern alterations to end up with a good fit. I actually have a discernable waist, hips and ass. The slimming of my waist has helped my hips and butt become shapelier, although both could be a tad bit larger. There is enough o work with though. I have selected styles that will further accentuate my barely there curves. Smart accessories like the perfect belt help too. I caved in and bought a pair of burgundy red pumps which seems to be popular color for this fall-winter season. They are of a classic style, so I am not so worried about not being able to wear them after this season. I wanted to buy a brown pair of pumps, but I had no luck. I guess the burgundy red is the new brown for this season, or at least which is what I have been telling myself to ease the guilt. On the other hand, I haven’t spent any money on clothes or shoes in almost a year. I can afford to let myself indulge a bit, and besides, I have been buying staple items or investments in my presentation.

I like dressing up in nicer clothes, and it also makes me feel good about myself. The confidence I feel when I am all put together is amazing. I suppose part of it is satisfying my ego, which I have been slowly letting go of through practicing aikido.