pandora_parrot: (transformation)
[personal profile] pandora_parrot
My boss turned to me and asked me that today.

It's an interesting question.

I'm a very very happy and excited person. I get so excited by all the little things around me. I think it stuns people.

Tonight, as my boss drove me back to the hotel from the I sat there talking about how incredible it was to be around so many brilliant software engineers and geeks. How beautiful the weather here is. How much I love my job. All of that. That's what prompted the question about being manic.

I'm just really happy, and how can I explain that to him? How can I explain that the party tonight was the first time that I have ever worn a dress in my life. How can I explain how exciting it is to go into the bathroom with other women and be accepted as one of them? How can I explain being able to talk to a female coworker about being the only other female engineer in the company? How do I explain how awesome it is to meet mathematicians that have done work in really cool areas of pure mathematics and talk to them on the same level as them? How can I explain how neat it is to be read as a geek by a coworker, and have him be impressed that I carry a bag of dice with me in my purse? How awesome it is that people are impressed by the wide array of electronic gadgetry I carry around in my purse? How incredible it is to be paid an actually reasonable amount of money for the skills I have? How awesome it is that *I* have *breasts*? How awesome it is to see my name on a placard written as "Joyce."

How do I explain that I've never had these things? My last job hurt me every single day because it required me to pretend to be someone I was not. I was paid chump change for the privilege of being subjected to this. I have always been the lone geek, the lone nerd, the one math nut... I never actually got to share my love of physics, board games, math... all that stuff, except with one or two other people, infrequently, throughout my entire life up to this point. That I never wore a dress before. That I have always lived in the same place, barely ever even leaving the state? That I didn't used to have breasts? That I used to go by a different name?

I'm ecstatic about every second of life, precisely because it is so beautiful and precious to me. Every moment, both happy and sad, is absolutely incredible. I have gone from being unable to really experience my emotions, to being immersed in them. Going to an incredible job, making decent money, as my own gender, around people that respect me and cherish me... being able to go home to friends and lovers that adore me for all of my crazy geeky weirdnesses.

There are not words to explain how wonderful all of this is. How wonderful it is to live each moment. How incredibly incredibly happy I am all the time simply because, for the first time in my life, I am truly and completely ALIVE.
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Pandora Parrot

November 2023

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