I haven't been having that great of a time recently. With everything that's going on in the world, and especially in America, I'm scared for my safety and the safety of my friends and family. The current regime is truly truly evil, and I see echoes loud and clear of the Nazis and WWII, but with a much more powerful fascist monster at the helm with a whole lot more military might behind him than the Nazis could have ever dreamt of. And that terrifies me. I'm scared not only that I and so many others will lose our rights (many already have), but also that our very bodies and lives may be endangered (again, for many, this has already happened, such as those who were deported to an El Salvadorean slave labor prison).

And all of this is happening at the same time that I'm starting to feel overwhelming dysphoria roll over me like stormy waves. Not just the usual, like, people-treating-me-like-dirt-because-I'm-trans induced dysphoria, but bodily dysphoria and what I can only describe as existential dysphoria. Bodily, I still don't feel at home in the body I have. Yes, I have boobs now, and that's awesome, but the real problem lies further down. As much as I'd love to continue to say that I'm 'proud of my trans body' and 'own the girldick', I don't know that I can anymore. I don't think I want it anymore. It's fine and lovely for other people, but for me, I've really been feeling like I want a vagina after all. Ideally, if I had infinite resources, I would go beyond that even. I would want full reconstructive surgery on basically all parts of my body — rebuild my pelvic bone, widen my hip bones, change the contour of my rib cage, redistribute my body fat in a more normatively feminine way, fill out my boobs more, feminize my face, fix my vocal folds; just anything that would bring my body more in line with what is considered female. Yes, I am saying that I hate my body; I hate what "nature" has given me; I DO feel that I am in THE WRONG body, and I buck at anyone who says that's wrong somehow.

Existentially speaking... how do I put this... the way that I have existed feels wrong? I don't know if that best captures the way I feel about it. It's like... the course of my life and the things that I've experienced, they ALL in some way contribute to my dysphoria. Because of the way I was born and raised, I had what I would consider to be the wrong childhood, pushed in the wrong directions, put down the wrong paths towards having the wrong experiences. Again, I buck at anyone who says this is wrong somehow — you do not properly understand this feeling, and I don't care how it fits into your epistemology or whatever. I don't care about that sort of wanky nonsense when it comes to feeling and lived experience. Essentially the feeling boils down to this — if I had been born with the body I want, with the body that I feel I ought to have, would I be where I am now? Now maybe you say that's an unanswerable question, but for me, the answer is pretty clear — no I wouldn't. I would have had different experiences, gone down different paths, have made different memories. And that state, that alternate universe, I think is ultimately what I want. I often ask myself: if I could get a full do-over, annihilate all of my life and everything that has happened, both good and bad, and start over as a cis girl, would I do it? Would I hit that reset button? And I definitely would. Without a second thought, I would hit that button. I would eradicate all of my memories and all of my experiences and all experience anyone has had of me and start over fresh with the body I want, the one I ought to have. Does that make me a monster? I don't know, and that bothers me too... It almost feels monstrous to say, but that is truly how I feel.

That is the dysphoria that came over me like a tidal wave in the past few days, and it's been kicking my ass. When it first hit me, I almost tried to kill myself. I don't really like to talk about it with the people that I love most, but behind the smile I try and put on is a lot of fear and sadness and dread that has been building up all my life — a darkness that's been eating me alive from the inside out. And now, in the midst of all that is going on external to myself, when that even more terrifying darkness is eating me alive from the outside in, it's getting increasingly difficult to keep it together. Like I said, I almost tried to kill myself a few days ago, and that coincided with me snapping on my real life social media, to predictable consequences. IRL friends were reaching out even from halfway across the country to check in on me, worried for me, and while that is in some sense comforting and I appreciate that they care enough about me to do that, it does little to stop the darkness that's still there, gnawing at me from both directions. I'm starting to tear up even now as I type this because it's just so hard to keep on smiling; keep on being the ray of sunshine and positivity that people expect of me. It's just... so... hard...

A lot has happened in the time since the last journal. Long story short, I am now at peace with the fact that I am actually a trans girl and have begun the arduous process of transitioning in real life. I have come out to my friends and family, have started HRT, and am in the process of getting my name changed and updating all of my identification (which takes quite a while, as well I know, having changed my name a couple of times already before). One of the neat side effects of this all happening, though, is that I am happier than I ever have been, which isn't really saying much, given that I've always been kind of depressed, but almost all of my self-doubt and so on has completely evaporated, beginning from the moment I sort of came out to myself. It was as if a massive weight was lifted from my shoulders; I could allow the mas[c]k (haha) of pretend-cisness fall to the floor and begin to discover myself for real for the first time.

So, yes, finally I can confidently say I know what I am — a girl.

Just typing that and reading it and knowing I typed it brings me such an overwhelming tidal wave of euphoria such that I've never felt before. I want that feeling to continue on and never ever go away.

Now that I'm here, it's fairly set in stone now that I can never go back. As far as furry, online platforms go, I will now be Reina full-time. Now the question remains from last time of what to do with my old sona. I think they may be in need of a femme makeover, so I will definitely be in the market for that in the future.