Being in transition for me feels like everything in my life is temporary. For the past 2 years I’ve been taking all these steps to try to feel like a normal human. This week is my two year anniversary of being on hormones and I’ve also had my braces for over 2 years now as I get my bite corrected. I’ve been getting hair removal all over my body and preparing for bottom surgery. I’m been doing all the necessary things to treat my gender dysphoria and address other medical problems that I’ve been putting off for when I had good health insurance. But all these things just feel like going through the motions in hope that on the other end I can rejoin the real world and live the life I actually want.

Many days I feel like a ghost, like an interloper from another plane of existence trying to navigate a world that isn’t built for me. I feel like I can interact with the real world but I’m not a part of it yet. Like I need to somehow “earn” my way into that life by doing all the right things. And in the meantime my life feels ethereal and temporary, like it could all be washed away by a really bad day.

And now with all of the Seattle area on lockdown for this COVID-19 pandemic, life feels even more temporary. It’s hard to make plans not knowing how long this will last. And scary to know that my surgery date could be effected.

It’s not that I’m afraid of dying; in fact that’s partly the root of the problem. I don’t feel any attachment to living because most days I feel like I never actually have. I’ve never fully lived the life I want as the person I want to be yet so I have no stake in protecting that. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that after all this transition work, I can actually have that life. I don’t know if it will be better or feel more real, but it’s the only anchor I have to reality right now.

And now that I’ve lost a lot of my routines and physical interactions, even more of my life feels unmoored. I feel like I’m adrift in a world that is panicking and chaotic while I sit here at home mostly feeling numb. I keep saying that I’m ok but if I’m honest I’m not really. I’m spending most of my time dissociating by playing video games to fully immerse myself in a different reality. A reality where I have achievable goals and can actually go out and kill the bad guys and save the day. Don’t get me wrong, the video games are essential to my survival right now. But they are also part of this temporary feeling where the real world isn’t real to me.

I’m not sure when these pandemic measures will all end but I keep holding on to the hope that I will still be able to have surgery in August. And that surgery gives me some grounding in my body and in the real world. Because I do want to live. I just don’t know how to yet.