I ATE'NT DEAD

I think that the phrase "I ATE'NT DEAD", which the Terry Pratchett character Granny Weatherwax would place on her body while she was having out-of-body experiences, has a parallel to where I'm at.

Me, at 73kg

I'm not dead, but I haven't been me in over a year. That's right, not a single outing in 2016, and not many blog posts, either. :-(

Yes, I continue to have long painted nails and long dyed hair, but I haven't done hair and makeup and dressed en femme in over a year.

In the past couple of months, I've begin making an effort to get my weight under control, with limited results. From a peak weight of 101kg, I'm now consistently between 95 and 96kg, but I don't seem to be able to get below 95. I look at a photo from when I was 73kg, and I like how I looked. I look at a photo from when I was 96kg and I can't stand how I look, to the point that I don't want to dress while I weigh this much, because I know that that is how I would look.

Today, I saw a post from Paula at Paula's Place, about why some people stop going out dressed, which referred to another couple of posts from others. Of the various explanations posited, I don't think that any of them cover why I stopped.

I stopped because life got too much. I think about it several times (or constantly) every day, but I couldn't cope with depression, an excessive workload, rejection within the trans community and a myriad of other issues. The biggest problem was a feeling that my wife and son, while not overtly rejecting my activities, don't like it and make me uncomfortable doing anything girly while they are home.

The only way I could see to work around my wife and son seemed to be to extend the house such that I could dress in a part of the house that was separate from where they were. After two attempts at getting planning approval over several years, it all came to nothing. I've recently been looking at a much scaled down extension that would still achieve the same thing, but with only me earning an income and having recently made an unexpected investment property purchase that will pay off in the longer term, we are now so financially stretched that I don't see much chance of building an extension for a few years.

So all I can do now is concentrate on losing weight, and doing any improvements I can to the house that we have, in the hope that somehow, something will make a difference and I will be able to go out again.