Tag: stealth ftm

~ transmandad ~ Leave a comment

How does one make friends?
I’ve never been the best at it – especially around here with most other men being sexist and misogynistic at best, downright racist, close-minded and abusive at worst.

I always feel like other men will “clock” me – so I only let people in so far before I shut them out.

I’m so busy this doesn’t really matter, but it does occasionally make me feel like there’s something missing.

I’m blessed to have mates that will travel to see me and vice versa, but it would be super nice to go to the bar with a few local mates and shoot the shit once in a while.

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K was up the entire night vomiting with a pretty bad stomach bug.
Wifey is taking the day off work to care for him/take him to the Dr and I’m downing a million coffees before I head off to work.

Kiddo is pretty lucky that at almost 12 this is the worst illness he’s had – he can’t recall having a stomach bug before. On the downside it also meant he was absolutely seriously convinced he was dying – poor thing!

Parenting hey?

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Buying a home is stressful and we haven’t even made an offer on one yet.
Saw three today.
One of which is great but beyond what we want to spend, especially as I’d replace the carpeting and update the kitchen/bathroom. Which I can easily do myself but materials are still an expense to consider.

Our theory is spend as little as possible and pay it off as quickly as possible.

We don’t want a show home, but with a soon-to-be-teenager we’d like room enough for K to have his own dedicated space(s) and room enough for our constant influx of visitors. I like my own space.

I’m just not sure we can manage the latter and the former at the same time.

I feel blessed to even be able to consider these things, but that certainly doesn’t make it any less stressful.

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We totally went to K’s high school induction last week. We figured it would be us all sitting in an auditorium with a plethora of other parents and potential students, listening to some kind of presentation.

Well – that was what my Wife and I did.
But upon arrival, we were told “students go this way, parents the other and you’ll meet up for the tour at the end”. Cue panicked looks between my Wife and I, and a very meek K being led away by a year 7 student.
We entered this grand old ornate hall (this place looks like fucking Hogwarts) and got delivered an informative and lengthy presentation.

By the end of it, I was eager to see where K was and if he was freaking out. Our tour group met up with our kids and I saw he was grinning from ear to ear, sitting with three other boys. He’d obviously made friends. He didn’t even stay near us for the tour, electing instead to forge ahead with his newfound mates.

In one hour, this place had taken my quite shy little boy and turned him into a little adult! We were impressed. K was beside himself with excitement about the facilities.

We submitted the application today, and interviews begin next week.
Please cross your fingers he gets in.

Schools around here are absolutely abhorrent, to the point where graduates can’t even read. I don’t want that for my kid. He needs this opportunity.

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We’re going to K’s high school induction next week. He’s still in primary school currently, but applications start this year and the induction is compulsory.
It’s freaking us all out, I think!

Schools around here are lacking, to put it mildly. We’ve been researching for years and have settled on a private school out of area, which is interesting as both my Wife and I were educated publicly (me only in high school) and we don’t particularly value the religious elements of private institutions here.
Nevertheless, this school has amazing curriculum that aligns with K’s interest areas, fantastic facilities and a really good national and anecdotal ranking.

It’s also hella competitive and expensive.

K is busy experiencing all of the emotions that come with entering puberty, finishing a chapter of education and embarking on a whole new stage of life. Naturally we’ve had lengthy discussions around his fears and other concerns. We reckon his feelings are pretty damn normal – this is an intense time in anyone’s life.

So…that’s a tiny portion of what’s been going on for my little family lately. My Wife and I often sit back and discuss how thankful we are for having found one another, and marvel at our wealth of love.

I’m one lucky man and I am so grateful.

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So here’s the artists impression my very good, very talented friend did of me a while back. None of these are entirely accurate, but there’s a lot of ‘me’ in all of them and that makes me feel exposed and vulnerable I guess.

My friend said no credit was due, and that also protects my anonymity somewhat so I am thankful. But I’m very very appreciative of the work that went into this “very quick sketch”.

As always, if you know me IRL please respect my privacy.

Do you have any fears of being inadvertently outed by your young son?

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Sometimes, and he’s almost done it once when he was much younger.

But not so much now, as he completely understands that it’s not a secret, just not anybody’s business other than he, his Mother and I.

We gave him a list of people it’s okay to speak to about the subject, which is a short list comprising of very close friends and family – to ensure he always feels like he has people other than us he can speak to about it.

But in general now, no – I don’t hold that fear very strongly.

Impending Weekend.

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Work has been so full on and stressful lately, I’m loving every second I am away from the office.
The weekend is creeping up, and we’re all going on a road trip to visit my parents, in particular my Mother – for Mother’s Day.
Mum’s really excited because both of my Sisters and thier kids and spouses will be there too – we’ll all be in the same state at the same time.

This post has been tricky to write, because I’m trying to leave out most details and make this a little less personal.

I’m excited to see K and his cousins play and interact – they’re all fairly similar in age, and K is super excited to see them.
I’m a little apprehensive with regards to my Sisters and I being in the same space for so long together. They’re good people, and we certainly get along but I do have quite a bit of old anxieties when I’m around my whole family at once.
It’s like, old memories of pre transition and they get stuck in my mind. I can’t really articulate it properly. 

And for some reason they feel ownership over my history – they’ve outed me to random fucking people here and there, and when I pull them up on it and get angry they say stupid shit like “You can’t deny your past, you shouldn’t hide who you are!” and it makes me want to smash things. So I tend to avoid them a fair bit as a result.

Regardless, it will be a welcome distraction from thinking about work.