söndag 1 juli 2007
First day back at work
Yesterday was my first day back to work since facial surgery, and my first day presenting visibly as female and being addressed by my new name. It was almost as much of a non-event as when I came out at work. Granted, I didn't see all that many people, but everybody that I did see was either just normally cordial or actively positive. A few people said they couldn't see any differences in my face (which is frustrating, considering how much I spent on it), but more people said they could tell some of what had changed and thought that it looked good. A few folks were quite visibly and audibly impressed, and one female manager even said "so I don't mean this in an offensive way, but wow, you really do look like a girl!" (Knowing her as I do, it really wasn't a negative comment... just a reaction to having culture-induced expectations shattered a bit.) I was a bit of a chicken about using the restroom and managed to only drop by once (when, as it turned out, no other women were present), but that should get easier with time.I had expected to find myself huddled in a corner gibbering in terror yesterday morning, but while there was a significant amount of anxiety, that proved not to be the case. Instead, I found myself comfortable with the idea that it was finally time to take that step and just get on with things already. By the end of the day, I think an internal mental switch had nudged over, and while I'm feeling a bit of anxiety again this morning as I prepare for day two, I still find that I seem to have quietly, calmly entered a totally new stage in my transition. While it will be necessary to try to pass as male at times until I get my driver's license updated, I do believe I am essentially "full time" at this point. Yeehaw and such.
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I'm glad everything went so smoothly! I was pretty sure that it would.As for people not noticing the differences, I wouldn't worry about that. Most people really just don't pay that much attention to the world around them, so they were likely not intimately familiar enough with the geometry of your face to notice changes unless they were massive, and for most people probably not even then. The way our facial cognition works, I think people just tend to take in the whole and associate it with 'kelly'. As long as the whole doesn't change so much it's not recognizable as 'kelly' any more, they don't really notice the change. If that makes sense?Congratulations on reaching more-or-less full-time status, though!
Thanks! :-)I do think you're right about both causes of people's difficulty seeing any changes (general non-scrutiny and gestalt geometric processing of faces), and really, I'm not at all surprised that some folks don't see any changes. It almost makes me wish I had needed more radical work just so people would see a more significant difference, but not really, as I'm grateful that the cost was lower and that the result was more incremental than would have been the case with more dramatic work.Everyone, however, seems to notice that I appear to have sprouted breasts. ;-) I imagine a good number of them assume they're either fake or augmented, which is a testament to the power of the sports bras I was wearing to hide them before.
Happy fulltime day to you! Glad everything's going so well for ya. So... pictures???
Thanks! :-)As for pictures... eventually, yes. I've got a lot of stuff to get sorted out now that I'm back, so I'm kinda swamped. :-/
Congratulations!!! and good luck trying to pass as a guy; get that license fixxed!!!
That's fantastic Kelly, I'm really glad to hear it. Your post got kt and I talking about our first day full-time and first day at work ft. We couldn't remember some details but some parts will prolly stay with you for a long time.
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