I know this comment wasn’t targeted at me directly, but wow! What a story! And such an encouraging comment for everyone to read and take in. Thanks for sharing, this definitely made my day!
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Thank you for sharing, @kevinwho!
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Like ColdStream said, what a story. Thank you so much for sharing this.
I’ve been feeling quite lost recently, as it’s my last year of college. I always get distressed for not being “normal” as I’d like (and as my parents had expected", for not being cis. And the fact that I’m a Psychology major sometimes makes things worse because I keep acting like med students who get stomachaches when studying GI diseases. I feel like so many things have gone wrong because I’m trans. Normally I talk with my friends. But we are all twenty-something. Even though we hold different beliefs on so many things, we are still sort of echoing each other. One of my friends said that I should talk with someone older, an uncle or a teacher. I just don’t see anyone in my life that I can turn to now.
I think your post puts me into perspective a bit. When dysphoria hits, I tend to forget other people don’t get it easier just because they are cis, or further into transition and more comfortable in their own skin. We just face different sort of sh*t life throws at us.
Soooo glad we have this little cosy corner on the Internet.
It’s strangely reassuring to know that others don’t necessarily had it figured out. Like, I can cut myself loose on trying to feel normal. It’s also strange that it’s so easier to think and write in English for me. I know who I am when I’m talking in English rather than my mother tongue. I don’t think we have enough words and expressions and most importantly, awareness and contexts in Chinese to articulate these kinds of things. My mom and dad hadn’t heard of LGBT+ people before I came out. My high school teacher tried to be cool and talk about some of the new things that young people are at, and talk about people being gay as a new thing that just appeared these few years.
I’m babbling a bit now…
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Oh, like I didn’t babble? 
When I was a teen and to the age you are now, I generally had a feeling of not fitting in. I was the kind of odd kid that would watch Doctor Who on PBS at a time when being a sci-fi geek was its own social leprosy.
I wound up hanging with other pariahs, and drew a lot of strength and support from them, as I think they did from me. Don’t discount the value of sharing life experiences with your peers. I think you’ll all be enriched by it.
Of course, I didn’t have much choice. I was too shy a kid to reach out to most adults (that shyness is probably what ensured I’d never mesh with the popular kids). But my point is, I’m still very close to some of the friends I had in high school and even before, they’ve carried me through a lot, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
Not that I’d argue with your friend’s suggestion, but bear in mind that us old folks needed to carry a dime with us in case we needed to call home. If we missed an episode of a show it was gone forever. We had to walk 2 miles to school. We had to write letters to communicate over distances. We lived in a very different world than we’re living in today. A group chat was a bunch of sitting in a circle. If someone my age claims to truly understand the life experience you’re going through, chances are they’re fooling themselves at least a little bit (or they’re Betazoid).
By the way, holy crap - English isn’t your mother tongue?! But…but…you’re so eloquent in English. All the years I spent in French and Spanish classes, I could barely string together a rudimentary sentence. And by the end it was half in French and half in Spanish, by brain couldn’t keep them separate. Wowza.
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Nope. All thanks to Big Finish, I guess. The hundreds of hours listening and re-listening really did marvel to me
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Tested positive for covid. That’s certainly not made my day. But aside from the microscopic things inside of me giving me one of the nastiest sinus infections in my life, I’m fine.
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I just had breakfast at the absolutely cutest cafe I’ve ever seen.
It’s vegan and run by Ukrainian refugees. I almost felt bad eating the food it was presented so beautifully. And I didn’t even get to try one of their stunning pastries because I’m full!
My heart great 3 times this morning 
(Cream Dream, Covent Garden, London)
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That looks incredible
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It was my birthday yesterday. I went to a pizza place with my family and my grandparents and listened to an audio from 11 and Valarie after a long break.
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Happy (belated) birthday!
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Been messing around with various Linux OS’s for my 13 year old MacBook Air on and off today and yesterday, and finally settled on Lubuntu, which seems to run the fastest while still giving me as much control as I like with customisation. It was very annoying to go through all the installations, but I’m quite happy with what I ended up with. It’s not the nicest looking, but as I only use it for writing anyway it doesn’t really matter. My battery life is better than ever!
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There was just someone asking on mastodon about using Linux on a 2014 MacBook Air, too…
I’ve got Linux running on a variety of computers, though not Mac hardware. I’ve run Lubuntu before, too, though I don’t think I have it installed on anything right now (except possibly an old eeePC?).
Lubuntu was on LXQt which, while not what I’m using right now, is a nice lightweight desktop environment. Right now, I’m mostly using XFCE, or Cinnamon on one computer.
Linux tends to be great on older hardware, though, and often breathes new life into it.
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Yesterday was such a good day with Stuff of Legend and meeting people from here in real life. I even bumped into an old friend I haven’t seen since before lockdown which made the day even better.
Today we had a few friends over and it was so good having a catch up with food and drink.
I need a weekend to get over this weekend though so heaven help me at work tomorrow! 8 year olds aren’t terribly forgiving when your tired on a Monday morning - and PE is our first lesson!
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Had 3 dates this week - which was a lot! I can’t believe I scheduled them all this week 
they were great though. Each person was really interesting and engaging. I felt like we were both coming at the date out of genuine interest to learn about each other.
The last 2 in particular each lasted 3 hours long - so I’d say they went well! Already have 2 dates planned with those 2 this week!
It’s been a while since I dated anyone, and over 2 years since I’ve been in a relationship. So I’m proud for putting myself out there - but also a bit exhausted!
Good thing too, is that all of them were familiar with Doctor Who! The two I’m continuing on with watched it years ago, and weren’t sure why they dropped off. I got good reactions, even one who really wanted to start again from Rose with me! So that was nice 
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What has been good is that my mandatory internship has been a lot of fun. I have been incredibly lucky with both my instructor and where I got placed. While I still do have a lot of anxiety surrounding the questions whether I am actually made for the job, I am a lot surer about wanting to do this for a living.
What has been bad is that I barely have time for anything else. Like what even is free time? 
Most evenings I barely manage reading more than one chapter of my book before falling asleep. On top of this is theoretically still have to write an essay for university. The deadline being before the internship ends of course.
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I’m back at uni for a few days which is good since I’ll have structure and support for studying. What isn’t so good though is that while I wasn’t here, some problems have accumulated. I’ve got more silver fish in my room than I’m comfortable with, my heating isn’t working, my bike had a flat tire and needs its brakes replaced too. Nothing of this is that bad it’s just a lot of annoying stuff at once.
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Went out in Salem last night (yes, the one with the witches) and we went to an arcade bar which was already fun, but then they had this!!
Safe to say, that’s what I spent my time doing.That, and DDR. I loooove DDR
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Just got off the train, now back in my home town, but we bumped into some old friends we haven’t seen for years as we were getting on the train home!
It’s a small world! 
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Woke up at 5am after two hours of sleep at most to the sound of a cat crying outside. It sounded unusual close, so I opened the balcony door to find the neighbours’ cat has somehow ended up there (and this is how I found out I have new upstairs neighbours). I handed him over but couldn’t get back to sleep, so instead I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. Got over 2000 words down this morning, and I’m not even usually up by this hour.
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Maybe the cat is your muse? 
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