Blue skies are gonna clear up...

... put on a happy face! =)

It was a great day today. More bills in the mail, and some Christmas cards from old overseas friends. The weather was great today, and I had to go to the post office to mail a couple of letters off (yes, snail mail is still alive), so I thought, what better time to take my dogs for a swim! N loves the water and S is usually a little iffy about taking a plunge, but there was no hesitation today! We had a great time, especially since the beach was nowhere near as crowded as usual (due to the recent riots). Heaps of people were out with their dogs however, so it was great fun all-around.

The walk to the post-office dried us all off, and it was nice to see some newbie surf groups head out to build their skills. Made me think about another reason I felt great today: the last year-and-a-half have not been kind to my physique. I've been so busy that I've not had time to be anywhere near as active as I'm used to, and that's played absolute havoc with my metabolism. The result: I'm carrying close to 20 kilos (that's 44 pounds to you!) more than I should, and a lot of it is flab and fat. It doesn't help that I eat a lot healthier than the average person and actually play some sport or the other on most weekends.

Anyway, at the risk of repeating myself, I felt great today. More energetic. Even my clothes seem to hang on me better than in the past few months. I've decided that the right thing to do will be to concentrate less on work, and work on losing most of this fat and flab. In fact, I resolve to officially have an extra half hour a day at the very least for a good run/swim and an hour of pilates/weights by the time the new year rolls in. In the meantime, I'll have to make do with getting up an hour earlier. I'll have the Christmas/New Year period to catch up on the sleep.

What's more, when I got home, I found that I'd heard back from Gaye, the counsellor at the Gender Centre. She said that I'd be able to come in on either the 10th or 11th of Jan for a session as she'd be away till then, unless I wanted to do a phone session. I said that I wasn't depressed or suicidal, so let's enjoy the holidays and I'll look forward to meeting in Jan.

In fact, it'll be perfect timing. I've just gotten off the phone with my parents. I hadn't counted on seeing them before mid-winter (that's about the end of August), but as luck would have it, our respective schedules have changed and we'll now be able to see each other in February. I'd planned to talk to them about both my gender identity (male) and sexual preferences (bi but primarily into women, which makes me mostly straight in my mind but mostly gay to the rest of the world I suppose) the next time I met them.

Had this been mid-winter, I would (preferably) have been at least 6 months on T and been far enough along the process to let them rest assured that I know what I want. However, now meeting in February means that I'm sure my mom will try to talk me into putting the whole thing off for a while "till I'm sure sure". Knowing them though, they'll be 100% behind me after the first week and it'll be great to be out and know that I have their love and support instead of living a double life. The next challenge will then be my extended family. Great.

As I was typing the last paragraph, a pair of white cockatoos landed on the railing on my balcony! I got some nuts out of the pantry and slowly walked up to them, and stretched out. They're quite tame and I see them quite often around the neighbourhood and in the tree just outside my balcony, so I wasn't surprised that one of them took a nut out of my hand and proceeded to eat it. The other immediately came up and started helping itself, so that was kind of cool. I hope that they don't start hanging out here though, as I'm not looking forward to cleaning up any mess they leave behind. It's bad enough having to pick up after 2 dogs.

Wow, it's a long entry so far today! I'll leave it at that, and hope that I'll have something to say here before the 10th of Jan.

Posted in coming-out, counselling, Cronulla, family, physique, sunshine, the-tribe