When I was young my handwriting was awful. So bad that all too often I couldn't read it myself. It was a scrawl; I just didn't care. About 35 years ago when I started working with computers I forgot how to write in cursive. I'd either type out notes/letters on the keyboard or use printed capital letters, trying to mimic an architect's hand. I was still able to sign my name in cursive but it's always been a scribble, identifiable as mine but otherwise indecipherable. Until a couple of months ago.

After I drove away from my life with my wife, heading north to destinations unknown, I wondered if my handwriting had always been so poor because on some level I felt that cursive was too feminine and that having nice handwriting might expose my feelings about myself. Sounds odd, I agree. I found a simple guide to cursive writing on the web and started slowly practicing. Soon it all came back but it's beautiful now! I love it, I'm proud of my writing. I wonder how and why it was so poor before but I think I know. Emma was in my writing and she needed to be kept in her place, out of sight if not out of mind. Not anymore.

Yesterday I had a first meeting with a doctor in a Seattle medical center to talk about starting HRT. We got along well and I told her that I didn't want to start right away; I just wanted to get to know each other a little and I'd continue to think about hormone treatment, and possibly have similar meetings with other doctors. She was perfectly fine with this but near the end of the meeting I knew: yes, I want to start, right away. I told her this and she was very okay with that, too. So now I have an appointment with one of her residents on September 11th (I just realized the significance of that date) to start that ball rolling. They know and list me as transgender in my chart with directions to use female pronouns and Emma as my name. Wow. But there's more!

A couple of months ago I met with a speech therapist to talk about voice feminization training. She's excellent and performed thorough tests on my voice, glands, and so forth. She had a concern that I might have a vocal chord issue so asked me to have an ENT evaluation before starting work with her. This morning I went to the ENT who inserted a scope up my nostril so she could see my vocal chords as they do their thing. And she gave me a clean bill of health, too. I'll start my vocal training at the end of next week! Still more...

I am lucky to have a couple of lesbian old friends in Seattle, who are married to each other. We enjoy each other's company and they have encouraged me to dress however I feel when I'm at their house. But I've still been a little nervous. Well, they introduced me to a good friend of their's, a cis/hetero woman, who is becoming a friend of mine, too. She and I planned to go to a Mexican restaurant together last Saturday night (as a ladies night out, if you will), and I dressed fully, in leggings, a tunic top, makeup (light), some jewelry, and wearing my breast forms. But NO wig! Just my very gray hair which is growing out pretty well but not long enough to be styled as yet. Probably will get it styled near the end of the year. My friend was so nice to me throughout, another woman complemented me on my earrings, and the waiter referred to us as "ladies." It just felt good, ya know?

I dressed the same way (but different outfit) yesterday when I went to see my therapist and the endocrinologist. It all went well. A couple of women smiled as we walked past each other; the way I interpreted it was that they could see that I'm a trans woman, and it was if they smiled out of encouragement, nothing else. 

What an amazing space trip I'm having!

Emma