For some reason today has been a tough one. In the scheme of things it shouldn\u2019t have been, lunch with a lady I used to work with 20 years ago, tea with someone I have known for over twenty years and then a catch up with someone I have known for 40 years but haven\u2019t seen for 30. The last one was always going to be a story telling time which has it\u2019s pitfalls but I thought I had managed to navigate my way around the tender points quite well. It didn\u2019t turn out that way for some reason and some time after he had left I found myself really struggling. When it came time for my walk, the sun was still out but low so I wore my sunglasses. Just as well really as before I had got very far I found my eyes welling up and the tears rolling down my face. The harsh reality is that the parents thing still hurts me very much and no matter how many time people say to me that times were very different then and lots of things just weren\u2019t spoken about, the truth is that they had lots of time to tell me in the nineties and the 2000\u2019s when things were more liberally spoken about but chose not to. While my physical health seems to be improving my mental health evidently is not which is disappointing as I thought I dealing with things much better. Visiting friends and relatives in the UK was always going to have its moments but I thought this time being the second time for most of them would be easier. Perhaps the fact that I am not having to think so much about my physical well-being has left me more time to dwell on the mental side of things which is more difficult to handle. The physical side of things could be very easily fixed by taking a tablet or two to ease the pain but the mental side is much more of a problem. The acceptance of the fact that in reality I\u2019m not going to find someone who knew about my beginnings and even if I did they are unlikely to tell me they knew anyway is a huge hurdle for me.<\/p>\n
So I am into my last week of the 2018 visit. As much as for the most part I enjoy catching up with friends I am actually ready for home. I miss Denise so very much, I miss the pets, our friends and the place itself. I have been back to the UK 8 times in the last 9 years and I\u2019m thinking we will be having a break next year. There are lots of places in the world I want to visit including the rest of Australia.<\/p>\n
So my challenge when I get back is to deal with the mental health side of my transition. Hopefully the physical side will keep improving and there will be no need for further surgery, the surgeon in Brighton thought there was a 50\/50 chance so somehow I need to improve the odds in my favour which will be the first thing I discus with my GP when I get home. The first obstacle is to get through the next week without too many days like today, hopefully it was a one-off and tomorrow will be better!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For some reason today has been a tough one. In the scheme of things it shouldn\u2019t have been, lunch with a lady I used to work with 20 years ago, tea with someone I have known for over twenty years and then a catch up with someone I have known for 40 years but haven\u2019t … Continue reading “Today”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":686,"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steps2stephanie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}