I haven't posted in a while. It's not that nothing has happened but there are fewer noticeable changes happening. The biggest change has been that I switched from pills to shots for my estrogen. Now I inject once a week instead of 3 pills a day. Much easier. The doctor walked me through it and I did the first shot with her watching. Literally no problem.
The last time I did the shot I had a bit of bleeding afterwards. I freaked out because the other times it didn't bleed at all that I saw. I was so paranoid and trying to find info online. What if I had hit an artery or something? Turns out that while it's possible it's highly unlikely. I take my shot in the thigh and the arteries/veins are harder to hit there. There are people who have shots in the butt and that was where most of the info I found was. I had none of the symptoms: dizziness or a coughing fit (among other things). Unfortunately the doctor didn't say anything about what would happen if I did mess it up and I didn't think to ask. The effect would have been very fast and noticeable though and so I was much calmer after that.
So far the dosage seems to be perfect and I feel alright. I still think my testosterone is too high but I won't be getting another blood test until the next appointment in about 5 weeks. We'll see if it's just my imagination or something measurable then.
There have been a few of these. They don't seem very noteworthy but it is important to remind myself that this is stuff that did change. I do go full time on weekends with no exceptions and that has been alright. I get a few weird looks but I am still confident and feel good. I don't think I look good by any measure but I still feel good. It's different from the way I carried myself before where I felt like the confidence was an act. Before I acted like I didn't care what people thought but I would still be very self-conscious. Now I still don't care (I mean I do but not in the same way, it's hard to explain) and I do feel self-conscious but again not in the same way. It's years and years of hiding myself just being lifted from me.
Very recently my job was merged into another company and I have asked about talking to HR to see if they can update any documents they need to and get my pronouns correct(ed) where needed. I figure now is about as good a time as it can be since almost all the people who meet me will be new and won't have a history with me. They will see it visually or hear it when I talk but they won't have known me before so it might be a bit easier to not have to adjust the pronouns if they never used the incorrect ones.
The biggest news is that I got my license updated! It just came in the mail and I am almost in tears every time I look at it (or think of it). The picture had to be updated and while I hate it I know that nobody has a good license picture. They also changed the number on it. I thought that was pretty interesting. The big change though and most important is the smallest. They changed a single character from an "M" to an "F". I am struggling to find the words that describe how emotional I am about that. It's just one letter but it means so much to me. Almost nobody is going to see it but it is really hitting me with reality. It's like I am being validated or something (like I said the words aren't there for me).
I can't think of anything big enough to write about here. There are plenty of little things but they are just miscellaneous bits of life that I feel like everyone experiences. Overall I would say that things are still going up.