patriarchy is not (necessarily) spelled m-a-n

Thanks to KB for the reminder, and hey, thanks to all of y'all who are commenting and responding to me.

Spent some good time in therapy today being reminded that I'm doing the best I can, and by god, that's good enough. Now her exact words have slipped out of my head, but Amy said some real smart things today, that resonated with me, and made me feel good. I get so caught up in my own ideas in my own head that I forget to broaden my perspective a little.

And then to read KB's comment was a simple sudden reminder that, duh, even if I'm not being 100% Gender Activist Man all the time, it doesn't mean I'm automatically regressing to 100% Patriarchal Man, either. That's just another binary that I've set up in my head, and that's not how it works all the time. So. I feel a bit of a weight lifting off my shoulders there, though I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the next one descends. Seems like I go through this gender thing in a very specific way- I'll pick one facet to worry about and think about constantly for a while, until I get some resolution on it, and then move on to the next thing- T or Surgery first? followed by How will I be a parent? followed by Am I being the right kind of man? I wonder what's next. I have a suspicion that it'll be my name- I want to nail that sucker down.

Also spent some time in therapy today talking logistics for chest surgery. I've realized that the optimal time for me to do this would be the middle/end of June- after things have settled down at the library, so it'll be easier for me to get off work, but before Fleury goes away, and after school has ended for my sister. Ideally, I could take maybe 2 and 1/2 weeks off of work and fly to Portland, then drive down to SF with my fam, have surgery and stay in the area for a week through some combination of hotel rooms and staying with friends, then drive back to PDX for another week of recovery, then come back to NY and have one or two days off before returning to work.

Hopefully, I'll be able to find someone who might want to sublet my room for two weeks while I'm gone, such that I could save a couple hundred dollars in rent. I don't know if that's entirely feasible- would anyone want to sublet a room for only two weeks? I don't even know.

If I can call Dr.B next week and pay my deposit and make an appointment, that gives me all of March, April and May to rustle up the rest of the money. I'm hoping to get a sizeable chunk of change back from my taxes (and if Kaplan would ever send me my damn W-2s, I'd know!), and I've got a tiny bit of cash saved up and can hopefully save a bit more from my paychecks by then. My mom said she could probably come up with about half of the money, so that leaves me with about $4000 to track down. After the tax refund and my current savings, I think I need to rustle up about another $1500-2000 dollars. That's totally doable, right?

*sigh* Seems daunting when I put it on the screen, though.