Today's entry promises to be a hodge-podge of thoughts. My mind's been all over the map today.

Last night, I officially acquired my hormone letter and found out that there's a third document in the path, a request for gender change. Apparently, this is the piece of paper to take to get my driver's licence to read "female". I didn't know about that one until recently; I had thought before that that couldn't be done until much later, or was just done on an ad hoc basis.

I may need that letter sooner than later, though. I had a job interview on Monday with another company at which I both requested a twenty percent raise over my current salary and told the interviewer that I would be coming to
work as myself. He didn't seem to bat an eyelash over either one. In fact, he seemed more bothered by the salary requirement than the dress code. I have a followup interview with them at the end of next week some time. I have no idea how that will go, but I plan to be myself for the interview and see what transpires from there.

I made my appointments both to get my referral and to see an endocrinologist today from work. If I had known that I could make the appointment without having the letter, I would've started a week ago trying to arrange it. As it is, I won't be able to go until July. This is mildly disappointing, because Jason and I are going to a get-together with some friends in Chicago around July 4, and I had hoped that I could have started hormones by the time of
the event, which will henceforth be called the Bash, as it's known to its participants. My appointment's on the twelfth. It's a bit disappointing, but not as much as frustrating that I have to wait so long.

Then, to wrap off today, on the way home from work, I heard a radio commercial for a news broatcast that set my mind in motion. The story itself didn't have anything to do with the subsequent memories, but the graphic imagery described provoked a bit of nausea and sympathy pains, and that's what brought back the past.

When I was young, very young, before I learned to present a different face to everyone and pretend to be people I wasn't to get along, I hated watching scary movies. I didn't enjoy them at all. I used to have nightmares if I tried to watch them. One of my friends, in fact the one who recently asked me to remove all references from my site, took it on as a task to "cure" me of this. In fact, this person took it on as a task to "cure" me of many things, the list of which would be longer than I care to remember.

Now, twenty years later, as I begin to unlearn all of the unnecessary add-ons to my life, I wonder how much of what I presented to the world is a result of that person's actions. At the time, I saw that person as a savior, a path
that wasn't my father's. On the other hand, I didn't have many friends as a child and this was well before I had learned to be my own person. I became very co-dependent on the few friends I had and was easily manipulated by them. The fear of losing them as friends and being alone let them talk me into doing a lot of things that I would never have done on my own. 

I wonder, honestly, how much of the false faces I tried to wear for so long are a result of that manipulation, not just by that one person but by the people I considered my friend who, for the most part, were really just interested in me because I let myself be manipulated by them. Was this person a friend? Yes. This does not change the fact that this person spent a lot of time bending me, ostensibly for my own good. Now, I can't look
back and say that it was. 

What matters now, though, is moving forward, not dwelling on the past. I enjoy reflecting on it, but I can't live there.