Top Surgery LOG Day 4 and 5

Post Operative Day 4: Easing into It  

Ease in Being Injured

I’m easily tired as I recover. However, I feel more alert each passing day. I had my drains pulled on Monday which makes three solid days and nights with drains in. I feel (again!) absolutely reborn without the blood bags dingle-dangling off of me. My pain has decreased so much so that I’m off the percocet, I’ve experienced no nausea, no dysphoria, and no post-breastum depression. It has been an incredibly smooth and easy ride for this sleeping phoenix (as I often call myself). I feel humbled in this expansive and dearly grateful way. One of my greatest meditations the two weeks before top surgery was to surrender to the amount of help I would need at the most basic level. Eating food. Sitting up. Wiping my butt. Yes, Megan wipes my butt. And I am mostly graceful in my ability to accept her essential help. Thank you, Meg.

Allowing oneself to be helped by others can prove difficult, as I’ve discovered with myself. It is this inability to receive that points to an imbalance within our internal world. It is a fear of losing control. The whole paradoxical reality about transitioning is that you must give up all control, all you’ve ever known to be true, unleash all the pain you’ve kept inside--to bob up on the shore, reborn,  more-whole and shining with evolving self-assurance. You can argue against it being a spiritual experience. I will kindly disagree. I believe everything drenched in raw urgency  towards Self speaks to a spiritual something.

Image: my chest 4 days post op by Dr. Steinwald

Post Op Day 5:

   Today was simple and easy and my mood is bright like the plastic tunnels of LED lights that brand the street below the flat. I made love with Meg, which is interesting to navigate when one receives major surgery just four days prior. We did just fine and reveled in the sunshine-stained fabric of this strange winter.

In my soul it is spring. I am reveling in the novelty of this post-boob world. I am at once a very old man (I finished two ½ sudoku puzzles the eve before) and a bright young baby aeon, heralding the new race of genderless folks to come. I feel incredible. It can only be known by those who experience it: the reclamation. When a part of our queer body is reclaimed, made to match more with our internal chemistry, there is a profound and bittersweet relief. Mostly sweet, but I am an artist and I sure do like it bitter too. I find it sweet because it’s a monumental moment to rejoice! Rejoice! I rejoice, for living my life as an affront to a collective schizophrenia that demands brand-named normalcy. We are a species so essentially diverse! What is this “normal”? It, whatever it is, has wreaked havoc on our psyches. And it is through self-reclamation, individuation, and respect of others’ individuation that we may combat this troublesome trend of twos: Us vs Them, Male vs Female, White vs Brown, Rich vs Poor etc. etc. etc.

Top surgery has been an unquestionable (although I did question it) necessity for me on my journey to self-individuation. I can relax into the deeper work I must do with my psyche because this external reality I toy with has been, well, toyed with. Some people buy themselves cars, I bought myself no-boobs. The price is comparable.

Could I have individuated without top surgery? Well, I’m not sure I could have (and perhaps hypotheticals for alternative realities is not too useful). Here, let me try anyway:

My life would have been different. I would have navigated around my inner and outer worlds in a different manner. When I touch into my true voice about this, it tells me I’d live a life forever somewhat uncomfortable in my body. Because even now, in this reality, I spent a decade living with breasts (and a gender assignment) I tried to accept. I diluted my inner voice with all kinds of bullshit, be it church, state or MTV. I fumbled about, trying to accept my body and secure my “cis privilege”. Nope. Did not work. I even dived into some New Age hippie mentality (which can remain just as dangerous as orthodox religions if you don’t pay attention) that one’s body is a temple and thus one should not defame it. I clung to whatever information kept me from the soft parts of myself: the wounded animals that breathed heavy on the floor of my internal wilderness. I strained to live with syrup-sweet ignorance until I got a toothache that later pierced my brain with unsettling clarity. I was about to take action on a secret I had been uneasy with for a long time: I have all the makings of a leader, but I am not a leader like they’ve seen before. I am 3 parts angel 3 parts mutant and 3 parts archetypal human. I am here to lead with the heart. Revolution #9.