Today, I had practical labs in kickboxing. What that effectively means is that I wrote a 5-minute routine for people to practice and learn.
In this case, a progression: Jab, bob&weave, cross and then moving on to Jab, step to the side, side-kick, cross, and finally to jab, step to the side, low-side-kick, high-side-kick, front backfist, cross, and front hook.
What makes me really proud of it is that the teacher praised it. She said it was extremely well-thought-out and had a nice flow to it, which was exactly what I was aiming for. Apparently, most people don't take it seriously and just throw stuff together. And having done some of the others, I could tell. They were awkward to do, lacking good flow.
So that's put me in a bit of a good mood for today.
Also, in recent good news, I had my first time as being the first-place winner in a day of a tournament, in this case, being the Experts League in Heroes of the Realm. The item I got was a fairly nice necklace, and now I know why it took me so long to win; it was a Level 18 item, and it was only within the last week that I actually GOT my heroes to Level 18. The items given out are generally what level the heroes are expected to be, so that means me not winning before was to be expected.
...Of course, I still got absolutely butchered in the Masters League, but now I won't be having many losses in Experts! (For the curious, I have a currently-8-skull-snakes, all-female team. The plan is to go to 10 skull snakes, since 10 skull snakes gives out INSANE bonuses. I have Ivan in training, yet I still need another. Also, absolutely vital is to make sure the new team is actually stronger than the old team. But I think they will be.)
Now with that said...something I was thinking about on the way home is relationships in my story, Disease. It's probably the story of mine with the most characters aside from the side-story I work on (not sure if I've named it here or not), but I'm pretty sure I've referenced that. Yet back to Disease...I know who my characters are. There's Brian, Julie, David, Trevor, Dallas, Jack, Calvin, Marie, Katherine, Sarah, Andy, Moses, M, Emmet, Marcus, an unnamed-as-of-yet telepath, Mike, Ipe, Edina, an as-of-yet unnamed aeromancer, an as-of-yet unnamed energy-user, at least two as-of-yet unnamed antimagic-users, a healer I am semi-solid on, and potentially three other characters using three powers. On the protagonists side. (You can add in at least a teleporter from the antagonistic side.)
Some of them, I remember. (Spoilers abound!) Brian obviously gets with the healer, and Julie gets with Trevor.
Others, I only vaguely remember. I'm decently certain (thanks to a scene I have planned) that Marie ends up with Andy. I remember that Katherine was stuck surviving with Calvin, in spite of not being remotely interested in him, and ends up with his brother, Jack.
Between Sarah and the unnamed telepath, I'm decently sure we have who Marcus and David end up with. (I think David ended up with the telepath and Marcus, Sarah, yet I don't remember for sure; it could have been vice-versa.) You can see the problem; I kept these relationships in my head yet never got far enough in the story to show them.
I do strongly remember, though, that M ends up with the younger Ipe and that Emmet ends up with the older Edina. And I also remember rather strongly that Dallas ends up with the teleporter.
Yet if Jack, Moses, Mike, the aeromancer, the energy-user, or the antimagic-user end up with anyone, I certainly don't remember it. One of them I'm pretty sure ends up with a geomancer, another I'm decently sure ends up with a (highly, highler spoilerific!) humanized darmichron, yet that's about as much as I can remember. Ah, well.
There's one last thing I want to touch on, though, that's a recent event. Normally, I'd end on the high note above, but I feel like this is important enough that sandwiching it between two rather-trivial things (or even having it first) would itself trivialize this, when it is nothing trivial at all. And that's something that I've wanted to talk about since the blog's inception, yet have always gotten distracted about: my trans status. It came up recently when someone in a similar situation to my own talked about their own status.
The full ramble I still say is best saved for a full post of its own, yet I can give you the basic version: it sucks. For a start, I'm 6'2". A bit on the tall side for a woman, which would make me stand out. Then, there's the fact that every time I look at my reflection closely, I have an intense bout of pain. Just looking in the mirror from a distance is fine. I either see just a random guy, or I can remove the guy and see the me I really am. (Speaking of which, one of the things I wanted to mention in that Sunday blog I never wrote is that I was able to see a full-bodied me-as-a-girl in formal square dance attire. It's not the me from my mental-image of myself...yet it was a girl-me, all the same. Instead of the feminine girl that I see my mental self as, I was seeing a masculine girl that's more realistic...yet that was still ME. As a GIRL. Which made me insanely happy.)
...Yet it never holds up. Whenever I get a close look, my heart sinks. I can imagine my face with makeup, to help hide my biological face. I can even imagine some of the fat maybe being redistributed. Yet I'm an artist. I can see, whenever I'm within 5 feet of the reflection...that the very bone structure of my face visibly betrays my birth gender. And all the images I build up of me being a girl fall apart...painfully. Do you know what it's like? To get a drink from a drinking fountain, and having an intimate stare at your face, not crystal-clear like a mirror, so with enough room for imagination that it should be EASIER to see yourself...only to instead find it impossible to see anything but the guy you so despise? That the more and more you try to be a girl, the harder it is to see it?
Imagining it can only get you so far. And what's worse is the knowledge that I could live a fine life as a guy. I'm building up a life. My family supports me, heavily. I've got a job. I'm finishing up college, and may get a higher-paying job. I've got good physical activity going on. I've got good communities I am a part of, via square dancing and round dancing. They all know me by my birth name. And while one or two of those may support Bree, might support the real me, most of them wouldn't.
Among the most important being my own family, who I am near-100% positive would not. Which makes it particularly heartbreaking and difficult. I'm not only financially dependent on them (thanks to my entire lack of social skills, which is suspected autism as I think I mentioned in my very first blog post), but also emotionally dependent on them, for the same reason. (Particularly bad is thinking about how I'd be without them supporting me when I AM diagnosed with bipolar disorder, thus, without their help......yeah. That probably won't go well.)
I just...really, really wish I was born as a girl, biologically. It'd be so much less painful for me, then. As things are, I feel trapped. And while I'm working on getting out...while I'm working on an escape...while I have internet friends there to support me...that doesn't change how I feel as if I am on my own. Yeah, stupid thought, I know. I'm not. There are others like me. Heck! This whole train of thought, which I had pushed to the back of my mind, was sparked by someone who is basically going through the same thing.
...Yet that mental perception, selfish as it may be, is incredibly hard to shake. I need to actively tell myself, basically every day, that...I am not alone. There is hope. Everything will work out. There will always be issues, yes. But I can handle them. I can do this. Things will eventually be better, as long as I continue to try. And as much as I doubt those words right now, so long as a sliver of belief remains in them so much as potentially being true...I should be able to survive, to endure.
Deep stuff, I know, but very real aspect of my life right now.
(Now if you excuse me, I sort-of want to work on NaNoWriMo.)
In this case, a progression: Jab, bob&weave, cross and then moving on to Jab, step to the side, side-kick, cross, and finally to jab, step to the side, low-side-kick, high-side-kick, front backfist, cross, and front hook.
What makes me really proud of it is that the teacher praised it. She said it was extremely well-thought-out and had a nice flow to it, which was exactly what I was aiming for. Apparently, most people don't take it seriously and just throw stuff together. And having done some of the others, I could tell. They were awkward to do, lacking good flow.
So that's put me in a bit of a good mood for today.
Also, in recent good news, I had my first time as being the first-place winner in a day of a tournament, in this case, being the Experts League in Heroes of the Realm. The item I got was a fairly nice necklace, and now I know why it took me so long to win; it was a Level 18 item, and it was only within the last week that I actually GOT my heroes to Level 18. The items given out are generally what level the heroes are expected to be, so that means me not winning before was to be expected.
...Of course, I still got absolutely butchered in the Masters League, but now I won't be having many losses in Experts! (For the curious, I have a currently-8-skull-snakes, all-female team. The plan is to go to 10 skull snakes, since 10 skull snakes gives out INSANE bonuses. I have Ivan in training, yet I still need another. Also, absolutely vital is to make sure the new team is actually stronger than the old team. But I think they will be.)
Now with that said...something I was thinking about on the way home is relationships in my story, Disease. It's probably the story of mine with the most characters aside from the side-story I work on (not sure if I've named it here or not), but I'm pretty sure I've referenced that. Yet back to Disease...I know who my characters are. There's Brian, Julie, David, Trevor, Dallas, Jack, Calvin, Marie, Katherine, Sarah, Andy, Moses, M, Emmet, Marcus, an unnamed-as-of-yet telepath, Mike, Ipe, Edina, an as-of-yet unnamed aeromancer, an as-of-yet unnamed energy-user, at least two as-of-yet unnamed antimagic-users, a healer I am semi-solid on, and potentially three other characters using three powers. On the protagonists side. (You can add in at least a teleporter from the antagonistic side.)
Some of them, I remember. (Spoilers abound!) Brian obviously gets with the healer, and Julie gets with Trevor.
Others, I only vaguely remember. I'm decently certain (thanks to a scene I have planned) that Marie ends up with Andy. I remember that Katherine was stuck surviving with Calvin, in spite of not being remotely interested in him, and ends up with his brother, Jack.
Between Sarah and the unnamed telepath, I'm decently sure we have who Marcus and David end up with. (I think David ended up with the telepath and Marcus, Sarah, yet I don't remember for sure; it could have been vice-versa.) You can see the problem; I kept these relationships in my head yet never got far enough in the story to show them.
I do strongly remember, though, that M ends up with the younger Ipe and that Emmet ends up with the older Edina. And I also remember rather strongly that Dallas ends up with the teleporter.
Yet if Jack, Moses, Mike, the aeromancer, the energy-user, or the antimagic-user end up with anyone, I certainly don't remember it. One of them I'm pretty sure ends up with a geomancer, another I'm decently sure ends up with a (highly, highler spoilerific!) humanized darmichron, yet that's about as much as I can remember. Ah, well.
There's one last thing I want to touch on, though, that's a recent event. Normally, I'd end on the high note above, but I feel like this is important enough that sandwiching it between two rather-trivial things (or even having it first) would itself trivialize this, when it is nothing trivial at all. And that's something that I've wanted to talk about since the blog's inception, yet have always gotten distracted about: my trans status. It came up recently when someone in a similar situation to my own talked about their own status.
The full ramble I still say is best saved for a full post of its own, yet I can give you the basic version: it sucks. For a start, I'm 6'2". A bit on the tall side for a woman, which would make me stand out. Then, there's the fact that every time I look at my reflection closely, I have an intense bout of pain. Just looking in the mirror from a distance is fine. I either see just a random guy, or I can remove the guy and see the me I really am. (Speaking of which, one of the things I wanted to mention in that Sunday blog I never wrote is that I was able to see a full-bodied me-as-a-girl in formal square dance attire. It's not the me from my mental-image of myself...yet it was a girl-me, all the same. Instead of the feminine girl that I see my mental self as, I was seeing a masculine girl that's more realistic...yet that was still ME. As a GIRL. Which made me insanely happy.)
...Yet it never holds up. Whenever I get a close look, my heart sinks. I can imagine my face with makeup, to help hide my biological face. I can even imagine some of the fat maybe being redistributed. Yet I'm an artist. I can see, whenever I'm within 5 feet of the reflection...that the very bone structure of my face visibly betrays my birth gender. And all the images I build up of me being a girl fall apart...painfully. Do you know what it's like? To get a drink from a drinking fountain, and having an intimate stare at your face, not crystal-clear like a mirror, so with enough room for imagination that it should be EASIER to see yourself...only to instead find it impossible to see anything but the guy you so despise? That the more and more you try to be a girl, the harder it is to see it?
Imagining it can only get you so far. And what's worse is the knowledge that I could live a fine life as a guy. I'm building up a life. My family supports me, heavily. I've got a job. I'm finishing up college, and may get a higher-paying job. I've got good physical activity going on. I've got good communities I am a part of, via square dancing and round dancing. They all know me by my birth name. And while one or two of those may support Bree, might support the real me, most of them wouldn't.
Among the most important being my own family, who I am near-100% positive would not. Which makes it particularly heartbreaking and difficult. I'm not only financially dependent on them (thanks to my entire lack of social skills, which is suspected autism as I think I mentioned in my very first blog post), but also emotionally dependent on them, for the same reason. (Particularly bad is thinking about how I'd be without them supporting me when I AM diagnosed with bipolar disorder, thus, without their help......yeah. That probably won't go well.)
I just...really, really wish I was born as a girl, biologically. It'd be so much less painful for me, then. As things are, I feel trapped. And while I'm working on getting out...while I'm working on an escape...while I have internet friends there to support me...that doesn't change how I feel as if I am on my own. Yeah, stupid thought, I know. I'm not. There are others like me. Heck! This whole train of thought, which I had pushed to the back of my mind, was sparked by someone who is basically going through the same thing.
...Yet that mental perception, selfish as it may be, is incredibly hard to shake. I need to actively tell myself, basically every day, that...I am not alone. There is hope. Everything will work out. There will always be issues, yes. But I can handle them. I can do this. Things will eventually be better, as long as I continue to try. And as much as I doubt those words right now, so long as a sliver of belief remains in them so much as potentially being true...I should be able to survive, to endure.
Deep stuff, I know, but very real aspect of my life right now.
(Now if you excuse me, I sort-of want to work on NaNoWriMo.)
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