Starting over is weirdly freeing and oddly disturbing at the same time, whether the scale is large or small.  I really wasnt' sure I would do well when Nikki decided we needed to change EVERYTHING, not just how our marriage worked and my knowing about and understanding his gender fluidity.  As much as it can be understood, he's still learning as he goes too.  But EVERYTHING was going to change.  My home, the jobs, the lifestyle, the diet choices, our clothing, even our hobbies; literally nothing is the same as it was last year.  I'm dealing, but I have fits of depression and weird resentments.  I hadn't realized there were huge parts of my life I was really attached to in a way that I didn't notice every day, just reveled in subconsciously until they were gone.  And finally having to stop lying to myself about the state of my relationship with my maternal family not really being any better than my paternal family, just more discreet about how unhealthy it functions was not surprisingly unpleasant.  

I think I can safely say I'm adjusting though, and I suspicion by this time next year I will have adapted and re-normalized.  

I sorta envy people who see starting over as a grand adventure and love it.  I just sorta wade through it patiently and pretend I'm having a good time, nothing to see here, move along.  It helps that I love my house, and now that my things are here and starting to settle into place I feel lest lost, as long as I stay downstairs.  Upstairs is still an alien place.  My bed sits in this great big empty room with a bunch of boxes creating a maze I injure myself on nightly trying to get to the bathroom, which is now surprisingly far away.  The other two rooms are literally still empty, and it's weird how that empty plays on my subconscious.  

Nikki's love of his new job is becoming problematic, and I work there with him.  But it's company first all the time, and I'm lucky if I get some leftover scraps of attention.  And there is the weird side effect of after weathering the sorting out of the gender issues and not ending up divorced, he's completely comfortable in our marriage.  Comfortable to the point that he takes out all the frustration other people in the company build up in him on me because I'm 'safe' to let it all out on.  Ya'll can imagine how thrilled I am about this new behavior.  Especially since I'd crosstrained to work under him in an effort to try to get more home time (I was a carpool captive). 

We have some more marital work to do, it never really ends does it?  As long as you are two people in a relationship, there will ALWAYS be some new problem to work on.  But after I got really quiet at home because I'm tired of talking about work and telling him verbally we needed to do more marriage time and less work time and he finally pushed my temper into reminding him I can be volcanic when pushed when after someone was rude to me and didn't give me the information I needed he didn't even ask what happened, just tried to silence my voice by gas-lighting me that I didn't understand the interaction I was in (and he wasn't) and I let him know clearly that was so not happening EVER AGAIN, he's working on it with me.  Which makes me realize that old, underlying problem is still there, I can tell him about a problem until I'm blue in the face, but until it affects him by me puling away or losing my temper on him, he doesn't take it seriously.  I'm thinking of suggesting marital counseling once he settles back into individual therapy for the dysthymia again.  20 years or marriage doesn't make anyone immune to the need for a little help sometimes. 

On the plus side he's working on reducing his addiction to constant electronic entertainment and actually exploring our new area with me.  There is a REALLY pretty town a bit south of us (stupid expensive to live in, and close enough to drive to form where we live but the commute would have been overmuch) with a lovely bookstore.  Since my town has none.  So that's a fun place to go.  We're going to go to this super bizarre almost tourist attraction grocery store either this weekend or next, adn the space museum (Nikki loves Nasa stuff). I hope they have a planetarium at the space museum, I do love a good planetarium I must admit.  

I guess all in all I'm fine, life is just continuing to happen both to me and around me.   But the scenery outside is better.  I have a super awesome hangout porch now to enjoy the last days of summer drifting by.  The neighbors have been pleasant to us, and he said hello to me as he got home and I was reading a book on the porch and we had a nice conversation.  So much better than the crazy, half dressed, theiving ones from our former town.  I"m moving up in the world!