This is an unpost. Unposts are now in their own category on the blog, so you can find them all easily. That’s a bit un-unposty, putting a link in there, but this is the first post of a new decade, so I feel able to bend the rules a little. Not too much, though! I might even eventually come up with a picture to use in unposts, but I don’t want to go overboard – they’re not meant to be particularly sophisticated.
Starting the new decade with an unpost means it can only get better from here.
If you thought I was going to review the 2010s in this post, I’m sorry if the title was misleading. I meant this decade – the 2020s – so far. Yes, I know it’s only been two days, but that makes it more manageable. I’ve got some slight hope of remembering what’s happened so far!
Just to set the scene a little, though, I’ll step back briefly into 2019. We’re still in the Christmas/New Year holiday period here in Scotland – not that holidays are anything more than a slightly unwelcome disruption to my routine at the moment. Christmas Day for me, after going to church in the morning, was spent in a friend’s flat: we had an untraditional lunch of tomato soup and cheese-and-marmite toasties, drank lots of coffee, had some good conversation and played lots of games of bananagrams. It was definitely the best, most chilled, way to spend Christmas Day. Between Christmas and New Year, I managed to finish off a couple of blog posts. My Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve for non-Scottish readers) was spent in part in a somewhat more social setting, as I went round to a Twitter mutual’s house to play board games and eat food with a bunch of other people I’d never met before (well, I’d kind of bumped into two of them, as it happened). Because there was less board-game playing than I’d hoped for, and because I hardly even saw the host, it was a bit weird and stressful and I was glad to get a lift home before midnight.
After that (scene-setting done), the 2020s began, and I felt a ripple of optimism about my personal circumstances – as though I might be able to accomplish something soon and get out of the rut that I’ve been in for a long time. Having said that, I haven’t got up before late afternoon this decade, I haven’t had breakfast or lunch this decade, and I haven’t been outside my flat this decade. (That’s the review bit, really.)
Tomorrow will bring an end to my confinement, because I have my first appointment of the year, to get my monthly triptorelin (testosterone-blocking) injection. On the HRT front, incidentally, I’ve just switched to tablets instead of gel for my estradiol, which means getting ready in the morning (or afternoon!) is much quicker: I can get dressed straight after my shower, rather than having to leave my legs to air for up to half an hour. And my leggings no longer stick to my legs, which is nice!
Looking ahead, in transition terms, I hope that I can get a more regular electrolysis routine going, even if it means trying to pay for some of it privately (which I was loath to do). More significantly, this year should be the year of my GRS, but I still have no idea when exactly I’ll be heading down to Brighton.
I’ll continue to explore what my autism diagnosis means to me in 2020, and I’m still keen to try and get a proper assessment for ADHD, having been disappointed by my non-specialist psychiatrist dismissing it as unlikely.
And of course I’m going to write about all of this, here and on Twitter, so you can continue to follow, or ignore, the contorted and often banal workings of my mind.
I’m very tired – I’ve been up for six hours! – and finding it hard to focus, so I will stop my ramblings before they become too rambly and wish you (and our planet) a very happy new year and a better decade than the one that’s just been. 💜