Wall to Wall Stuff

When I started this blog all back in 2009 I was in a very bad place in my head. I had had one panic attack that cost me a week of my life as I recovered from the Valium which was given to me to calm down and several close calls. The blog was cathartic for me and I was adding new entries as I needed - mostly weekly, sometimes a couple of times a week. Thanks to there already being a Susan Cashmore with a Gmail account I landed on Stacy, I still don't know why that was my second choice. With the exception of not wanting to change my initials there were no real thoughts behind my choices.

At the time I had a kind of insomnia, sleep would take some time to come, and I would wake early - sometimes I would wake an hour or more before my 5:30 alarm went off. When this happened at the weekend I would come downstairs, pick a film from the cabinet and write whatever was going through my mind whilst drinking coffee.

Obviously at the end of that year everything went totally pear shaped, or at least that is how I viewed it at the time. On 6th December I was on the verge of another panic attack and everything came out to Mrs Stace and we spent the night talking. She made me go to see the doctor for the referral to the gender clinic, and I assumed that I had lost her.

For the next year we pretty much put our life in hold whilst we waited to see what we were going to do with ourselves. I told my parents (in the middle of another panic attack - happy new year mum and dad!) and Mrs Stace told her family (who didn't disown me...) and we sort of ticked over.

I started seeing my therapist, who I continued to see until earlier this year, and was adamant that my preferred outcome was to find a way to live with this without transitioning. Obviously that worked well.

The second visit was my first outing as Stacy. I will never forget just how terrified I was, not how great it was to be out and about as me.

In the summer of 2011 I came to the conclusion that I it wasn't going to be an option and I started preparing for the seriously scary idea of becoming Stace in day to day life.

On the morning of 11th December I told my team what was going to happen the following day, then the department and finally the whole company was told. Being a somewhat small company that seemed to be the best way to do it. I got almost nothing but understanding and kind words from the many people who came to see me over the day to talk about it.

And then on the 12th I turned up as Stacy. I was shaking like a leaf when I got there and was waiting for lots of strange stares - that thankfully never happened. I was pleased to hear that there were people who had decided to look out for me when they heard the news: if I came in and they thought that I needed help with clothes / makeup that they would step in to help. Which whilst it could come across the wrong way was really not how it was meant. Even better: they never did :)

As time went on I started to just be me. Not worrying about what other people thought, and not constantly assuming the worst. Life started to get easier, sure there were the standard life problems. As lots of people have written before: transitioning does not magically make life perfect. But it does remove one major issue from it allowing you to concentrate on what life should be.

We tried for a child, and were lucky enough to get a beautiful boy who gives us smiles every day (along with grey hairs!) and watching him grow up is just beyond special.

And now? Well I am busy living my life, and whilst I won't say that life is perfect, or that I have no remaining issues from my GID, it's ticking along OK.

And so... I think that this is the close of my GID blog. It makes me said to say it but as Kermit once said: Life is made up of meetings and partings. I will never forget those people who I met online due to the blog. I would like to say a big thank you to you all!

Will the blog continue, who knows. I expect so. I have not posted that much recently as I have not put the time into it. I have other commitments and I no longer wake up at 5am at the weekends. However, I do really miss it. But what will it become? Who knows. Do I want to mix the transition blog with life, or whatever else I choose to blog about? Who knows. Not me that is for sure!

I have never been very good at crusading for a cause, I prefer to live out of the limelight and so generally keep quiet. Something I do feel quite guilty about because it means I keep this blog and my life separate.

So... There will be another blog coming for non gender musings (walltowallstuff.wordpress.com, though it is empty right now) and for those who are interested in software development my professional blog (stacycashmore.wordpress.com) is still going, though not updated as often as I would like to... Though I plan on cross posting some of the entries here, I am not sure how often I will manage to do that.

The posts from the last few years will remain here. As much for my reminiscing of the good times (and bad) as for the fact that reading the blogs of others helped me amazingly during my journey and I would like to hope that this may do that for others.

Look after yourselves, and I will endeavor to do the same,

Stace