Winter Wonderland…

Well you have had it in the UK for a while now, but this week the snow hit Holland as well.  Two days before the garage were due to swap my tyres to my winter ones.  Thankfully the car behaves wonderfully in this weather, and the most important (and busy) roads are so well maintained that they were just wet – stopping wasn’t a problem.  The side streets were more treacherous – but without the volume of traffic they were more than doable with a little care when slowing down.  I must admit to playing somewhat on the empty roads and especially in the office car park which is also empty when I arrive at 7ish :)

Wednesday I got my winter tyres and playing had to stop (they just grip too well).  Good timing too – yesterday the snow started in earnest (5cm since 9am this morning!  It’s 11:45 as I write this).  We are going for Sint Klas today with my neice and nephew – having enough grip is something I am pleased about.

The poor rabbit is having a time of it.  She’s getting old now (just turned 9) and her hip is starting to play up.  So instead of living in the snow as she has done in the past years she is spending a lot of time in her bedroom buried under piles of straw.  According to the vet we are fine to leave her there as long as she eats and drinks still (she is).  The cat is just going mad as he doesn’t like the cold.  He runs out in the morning to do his stuff and comes back within a couple of minutes and spends the rest of the day inside pining to go out, but refusing to go out in the cold.  As such he’s busy having lots of mad half hours to burn his excess energy.

Outside of that it’s been a tough week…  Things have been interesting between Mrs Stace and me this week.  On two fronts, the shopping – which was possibly too much too soon for her, and my body image.  The first lead to a little iciness, nothing major – but it was a little uncomfortable for both of us.

The second issue caused a much bigger problem this week.  As I may have written before, I have a serious problem with body image.  At 5’10” and 73KG / 11.5 stone (last time I checked) I am not overweight.  But when I look in the mirror that is not what I see by a long stretch.  I am very aware of the path that I am treading here and I make sure that I eat enough (to be honest I also like unhealthy food) even if I feel really guilty about it afterwards.  This was brought up somehow during a meal this week which caused Mrs Stace to get angry at me obessing and me to get upset and walk off.  She came after me and we had a discussion about it (healthy discussion, not arguing) and after I calmed down we finished food.  We both discussed these issues with our therapists this week – and they both said the same thing about it.

The problems causing the arguments are not the cause of the arguments – Mrs Stace is not in competition with me regarding my clothes or anything else.  Rather she is probably feeling that my femininity is threatening hers.  The things that trigger the arguments are typically female things.  And she is supposed to be in the female role, me having those issues can make her think that she is being forced into the male role.  It’s something that we have to work through, and no doubt is going to take an amount of work from both of us.

On the subject of my body image my therapist told me I’m text book.  The way that he explained it to me is that I can’t expect to just be unhappy with ‘those’ parts of my body that are obvious, and teenage body image problems (when mine started) can be caused by not wanting the body to grow up.  Girls have this when they start to get bigger, and in my case I just don’t want the body to change to be an adult male (makes sense to me).  Without me telling him more than saying I have bad body image he managed to tell me exactly what goes through my mind with it – makes me think that he is on to something there…  He also said that I *have* to watch my weight.  I am not allowed to lose any weight at all, and I have to make sure that I don’t over exercise.  Once a week I have to weigh myself and make a note of it, and response accordingly should I start to lose any more.  He also said that should I transition I need the weight I have, and should expect (and need) to put on another 5KG or so.  Wonderful…  He did also say that if I transitioned I would likely lose the body image issues as my body started to change – I’m not sure how I feel about that as it just adds more weight to my need to transition.

On a bright side he did compliment me on my ability to pick clothes that suit me – it’s nice to know that the clothes I pick are not marking me out when walking down the street.  Which is a wonderful bridge to a nice close; I managed to speak to a complete stranger with confidence this week whilst out as Stacy.  For the first time I actually felt comfortable doing it – and I got a pleasant smile and hello back.  Just a stranger passing in the street – but it felt great.

And on that good note I’ll call it a day.  Hope that you all have a good weekend, and that you manage to enjoy the winter weather without it having too much negative impact!

Stace