Hey,
My deepest, darkest secret is that I really love this time of year.
The reasons why I love this season have changed over the years. When I was a kid it was about falling asleep under the Christmas tree and hoping Santa remembered where I lived. When I embraced my Pagan faith, Christmas transposed to Yule, and I mostly carried on as before. But I didn’t quite have the appreciation for the Solstice that I do know. I think that’s because I was thought of Yule as a translation for Christmas; in my latter years I realized that it’s actually closer to Advent. A time of waiting for what’s next.
One year ago today I started hormone replacement therapy.
The funny thing is that it wasn’t even supposed to happen that quickly. I knew I wanted to start it after I moved into my new place— in fact I moved out in large part because I wanted to start HRT and I didn’t feel safe doing so where I had been living— but it was something I had in mind for the new year. Maybe before my birthday. Maybe before spring. But a few days after I hosted my first Yule party last year (and my first time hosting any kind of social gather since moving out) I had a doctor’s appointment for something unrelated and I left with a prescription for estradiol and spironolactone.
I took my first dose the next morning. Three days after that Yule party in which I made an unspoken oath to myself during the symbel to get the ball rolling on transition. Less than three weeks after I moved in to that new place. I didn’t plan on it happening that quickly, but when my doctor asked me if I was ready to go ahead, I didn’t hesitate.
And I’m glad I did, if for no other reason than for the symbolic resonance.
I have three transition anniversaries now. The other two are in Spring; March 7th is the day I told everyone that I wasn’t actually a guy, and March 29th is the day I told everyone my name is Bridget. Spring feels like a good time for putting words to things. But I know now that the work begins well before the naming. You can’t name something that isn’t there, and every something is born from the dark.
And so, having this trans anniversary fall right around Yule feels good and right. The Solstice is the time of deepest darkness and the signal of the return of the light. Whoever you were before is dead. The world you knew before is gone. Something new is coming, but it’s not here yet. The waiting is part of it. But it’s not an empty promise; we are given a sign that what we hope for will come. That’s Yule. That’s Christmas. That’s taking your first dose of estrogen and rushing to look in the mirror and seeing no visible changes.
That all feels so much more literal this year. There’s a feeling common among trans folks, where your memories start feel like they belonged to someone else. The gap between who you were and who you are starts to feel so wide that you start wondering how you ever got here. I look at what my face looked like less than a year ago and it somehow looks like me and someone else entirely, all at the same time. The days were getting longer but you couldn’t tell back then, because they were only getting longer a few seconds at a time.
It’s so easy to get discouraged on HRT because you keep looking at the same face every day and it feels like nothing’s happening. Then one day you look up and it’s summer. It’s you.
Every year your world dies, and every year a new one emerges around you. Right now is the deep breath before the next thing. You won’t notice the changes from one day to the next, but then you’ll look up and see that it’s still light out.
Take that breath. Love who you were, and let them die. Spring is coming.
Take care,
Bridget