Two years later—the long tail of recovery.
Patricia turned two! I love my Virgo vagina so much.
If the first year after surgery was about rest and recovery, the second year was about learning to take care of myself. That may sound weird coming from someone who turns 40 this year, but I mean something specific:
As a parentified oldest child and as a trans person, I learned early on to ignore my own needs, my own feelings, and my own body. Paying attention and listening to our bodies and wants often comes with pain. We learn not to trust them, to shove them down deep—so deep that we can’t hear them.
Two years later, I no longer dilate daily because I have to, I dilate about two or three times a week—not based on a schedule but on whether Patricia is telling me she needs to. I can finally sit in a chair without padding and regularly stand at my standing desk without getting too exhausted. I am able to vary my yoga flows based on what my body needs that day rather than preset rules. I’ve picked up and fallen in love with circus arts as a way of getting into my body.
Not everything is perfect, my left leg still tingles and goes numb from when my sciatic nerve got damaged during surgery. I am pre-diabetic with the added weight from not moving as much as I did before surgery. And yet I know and trust that I can take care of myself and do so within my limits instead of beating myself up for not recovering as quickly as I would like. And it can still be hard to figure out what my body needs or wants—sometimes trying to figure out why I have a headache or what that pit in my stomach means feels like trying to read a particularly complex tarot spread. Sometimes I just have to keep guessing until I hit on something that works, it’s like the signals are generally going in the right places but I only have a partial cypher. But every month is clearer than the last as I learn more about myself.
Obviously bottom surgery is not the only thing that has helped me get better in touch with my body—this is a culmination of healing from years of therapy (I love my queer Asian decolonial therapist) and the fruits of stability that I never had when I was younger. That said, the joy of being in a body that I love makes listening to her hurts so much more bearable. I’m no longer trying to avoid pain that I can do nothing about.
The highs don’t make the lows worse. And that’s what we mean when we say it gets better: the bad doesn’t all go away, but the good gives us the tools and the hope and the resiliency to face the bad.
Happy birthday Patricia Pricilla, I love you.