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Today we are both broken, exhausted human beings. I injured my ankle but good, so I'm limping around like a lame horse, but we got a LOT done. We also during the packing and moving process took a hard look at the things we own and got rid of at least a third of it all, maybe half, it's hard to judge when it's all in a pile of boxes vs, in it's normal position around the house. It does seem like less boxes than the last move though. And the couch isn't in great shape anymore, it was a cheap couch that lasted like 10 years, so we jettisoned that too and will just save up to get a nicer one after we move. We have plenty of really comfy folding camp chairs and zero gravity lounges we can put in the living room until we find one we like. I also see how many of my bad habits came from my childhood, normalized permanently into me. I can't ever undo that, no matter what people say. Our life experience is our life experience and it colors who we are and how we are in the world. What I can do is learn to identify it and control that part of me instead of being controlled, and having far more success learning better ways and keeping to them. I can see how a thing is better, and normalize that into my brain too so I consciously have choices and make them. 45 and I'm still figuring it all out. Grandpa told me I'd never stop learning til I die when I was very young and frustrated with school because if felt like it was just reiterating and they'd taught us everything, and he taught me a new thing to prove it. I think he also cemented the ideaology of learning on my own outside the system into my subconscious mind that day, where beforehand I had been socialized by both family and school system that school was everything and anyting not included wasn't important (ah, the 70s elementary education system). Thanks grandpa for saving me from myself. ​ He was literally the best, most caring, and most nurturing parental figure in my life. I wish his life hadn't been cut so short, I really would have liked him to meet NIkki and see me finally get my life together. ​ I guess I should go back to cleaning, sit down break is over and time to test the ankle. And Nikki might want to eat at some point, and right now I'm the only person here who knows where any of the food is. I'm important! LOL

Dear MichelleLea, Concerning wigs and hairpieces, be aware that ONE THIRD of cisgender women wear them! Monica

I have also experienced how the stars are aligning for me of late. I've made tremendous progress too. I never imagined I'd be able to go out and about dressed as a woman and now it's getting close (but not yet) to be simply another woman living her life. I go to restaurants, therapist, and medical appointments, which involves all the normal city stuff: parking garages, walking along the sidewalks. I've even received several nice compliments. Your post isn't about me of course but I thought you d be interested. i think it's terrific you've painted your nails. I've never done that... yet. A girlfriend suggested that she, another girlfriend, and I go have a manicure and pedicure together and I'm all for that. And then, OMG, go shopping. I really need to do that as winter will soon be upon us and I only have one London Fog raincoat that I bought used. I need sweaters and at least another coat of two. Probably a hat and gloves. Keep it up, Michelle! Keep pushing your boundaries, perhaps in small steps, that's fine, but enjoy your progress. And yes, enjoy how people and events will continue opening up for you! Emma

I suspect you will have "typical" days again, they'll just be a different "typical" 😛 Xoxo Chrissy

​Good for you and Nikki, Bree! Your mom is lucky to have you cleaning up her house. I can't imagine having to deal with spoiled food and crap from over a dozen years ago. Three hours to just get through the pantry? What was she using it for, a dump? "Mom is getting the better end of this deal, really." Ya think? !!! Good for you too that your feeling better and Nikki is holding his own. You're both troopers! xxxoooxxx Emma

From my experience after Nikki finally came out to me, there was a long period where everything was constantly different, and typical was a think of the past, but now a year and a half later, typical has reasserted it just looks different than it did before. However, that doesn't HAVE To be true. It's true for Nikki and I because we are both at our core creatures of habit and homebody types for the most part. I know friends who live everyday like a new adventure, in truth, not just a platitude, and 'typical' for them means doing something they've never tried before. If you like your old sense of typical, it will come back. If you didn't or like the new one better, it's yours for the taking! And with the modern age of internet, you can literally find anything you want out there, from toys of childhood (hides her Ebay spending on My LIttle Ponies, nothing to see here!) to full transgender specifically designed altering items from wigs down to shorts with a silicone vagina (I have seen things on the internet helping Nikki figure out what things he does and doesn't want!) to illegal things we won't discuss, but the point is you can find ANYTHING you can imagine, you just have click a few things on google. Get out and explore girl! Monica is completely right. I have a few, but they are from my anime cosplaying and more effort in hallloween than my current lazy rear end puts into it days. I will admit I have put some thought into getting a really high end green one that I don't have to keep touching up my hair since they don't make permanent green dye, but my natural hair is hot and summer reminds me I might not like wearing one all the time. Nikki wasn't interested in them at all, has plenty of hair he just has me do it on girl days and days I want to practice a new hair idea on (I find it easier to master on someone else's head before trying it on my own where I can only see half of what I'm doing, and he gets a kick outta doing the girls day stuff with me). Now my ex-mother in law once had a massive emotional breakdown because I once accidentally saw her without her wig. You'd think I just murdered her youngest child in front of her or something from the other the top reaction of me coming home an hour earlier than I was expected and seeing her without it as she was in the kitchen. (I lived there for less than a month, you can imagine why!). Then there was a hissy fit of how was she supposed to be able to supper herself and my brother in law without the rent money I was paying(on a place she'd been living for three years before I MET my ex-husband, and the three years before I married him). Apparently wigs are nearly a sacred item for some people, regardless of the cause for them wearing them.