Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted an entry!  I’ve mostly been recovering from the fallout of my last entry, working on other projects, taking more personal time, enjoying the remainder of my hiatus and just generally living the rollercoaster that is life.

Also I don’t feel like I’ve had much more to share that was incredibly relevant.  I mean I could share bullshit anecdotal tales about how this and that happened to me, but I honestly don’t think anyone really cares.  Hell, I’m not sure I care.  I’ve always tried to approach my blog entries from an analytical point of view where I could self examine aspects of transitioning that we don’t talk about and give them a little bit of limelight.  That, I feel, has merit.  But alas, I’ve come to a new conclusion.

I’ve entered into a new stage of transition that I didn’t expect, and it kind of caught me off guard.  I was getting used to being a teenage girl, and maybe I’m just growing up, but it occurred to me that I feel like I’ve fully transitioned as a female.  I’m not post-op yet, but I feel like I have a vagina and actually forget sometimes that I still have a penis.  “Oh, what are you still doing here?”  It’s really only a matter of time.  My breasts are still growing and I’m still working on various aspects of my appearance, voice and behavior so that I can pass better.  But I feel as full a female as I think I’m ever going to feel.  And that is wonderful.

Enter stage two.  Now that I’m fully female (minus surgery), I’m discovering a new path.  Womanhood.  I feel like now I am finally growing as a person, as a woman, and I don’t entirely claim to know where that path takes me.  This is the person I present myself as, how I carry my demeanor, where I prioritize things in my life and adventures I embark upon to gain experience that ultimately helps me become a fuller woman.  It’s actually an exciting time and there are many bold new things to try, and to be honest, for the first time in my life I feel neither scared nor ashamed to try them.

I end up getting my fair share of compliments.  Awhile ago I was walking through a mall and received a tap on the shoulder.  It was from a girl who looked to be about 15 and upon seeing my puzzled expression wondering if perhaps I had dropped something, she told me “I just wanted to say I think you look really sexy.”  And with that she wandered off.  Now you remember that old game you can play with fortune cookies where you add “…in bed” to the end of every fortune and it still works?  Well you can play the same game with compliment.  “I just wanted to say you look really sexy… for a transsexual.”  And damned if that isn’t the voice that’s going on in my head.

Yes, I’m still rife with insecurities of my own, and all the compliments in the world can’t make those go away.  I’ve talked to trans girls who have been fulltime longer than I, and they still deal with these issues.  Part of me wonders if I’ll ever conquer them, or if it’s just something I need to learn to live with.

I’m also back in Vancouver now.  A city I’ve always loved and feel at home in.  But now I have to confess to feeling a little intimidated as a single girl in this city.  I see so many girls here that can only be defined as unbelievably drop dead gorgeous.  And even the girls that don’t fit that mold certainly have a sense of uber-style and look fantastic.  It’s hard not to feel like I can’t compare.  I won’t deny it fills me with a certain level of depression and like my odds of finding a girl a repulsively slim.

To make matters even worse, I am hormonally like an 18 year old girl right now.  I’ve experienced a renewed sex drive that unparalleled to anything I ever felt in the past.  So this only amplifies my loneliness to new heights.  Frustrating indeed.

But I suppose here I am a single girl in a big city. (Hmmmmmm… I suddenly have an idea for a TV show)  I can only really look at it as a realm of possibilities.  My chances of finding a girl here are going to be the best I have anywhere, short of being in San Francisco possibly.  So I’m in the right place.

Now to just get out there and make some friends.  How hard can it be?

Ashley