Literally living the dream

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Happy New Year!

While I am acutely aware that not everyone has had either the will or the opportunity to bring in the New Year with a celebration, I counted myself fortunate to be able to do so. Especially because this New Years was my first living openly and happily as myself.

I had enough people over to make it a small party. The sproglings were with me and they were in top form – relaxed, and sociable. I had some old friends who had travelled down specifically to spend New Years with me again now that I was not in hiding. I also had a friend and her partner come round, I had only recently reconnected with her after college but they accepted my invite too, I also had my Girlfriend in attendance so the night sped past, with everyone chatting, laughing and enjoying themselves and it was a wonderful way to say goodbye to 2023.

As a year 2023 has seen significant turmoil and changes for me, especially in this second half.

I finally pushed past the tipping point and made my life my own again, and yet somehow this year has also seen me become the most relaxed, confident, open and complete version of me for many years. It has been a year of hurt and healing, of woe and wonder, and I have genuinely started 2024 with more hope and enthusiasm than I have been able to muster for quite some time.

My ex chose 23:59 on Hogmanay to respond to my coming out email sent in October, and lets just say she has no intention of being an ally and wins the unofficial award for most hurtful and spite filled response to me so far and leave it at that because it is already more attention than it deserves. As I was celebrating I did not see it until later the following morning and after popping to the loo to read it through I came back to an unscheduled proposal from my Girlfriend – turning the commitment ring I had received at Christmas to an engagement ring. My Girlfriend’s timing could not have been any more unintentionally perfect as I completely forgot about the pain and gaslighting that was designed to wound, and instead focused on the person I have come very quickly to absolutely adore. I said yes.

While we have only been dating for a couple of months we have barely been apart. She leaves me little post it notes to find around the house when she is at work, and almost everyday has started with a text or comment from her telling me how much she misses, enjoys my company, and loves me. When we are together everything just seems to fit seamlessly and both of us can’t believe our luck at finding someone that just seems to be so perfect.

There has been a refreshing openness and honesty to the relationship that we started and have maintained and it has meant that we very quickly started to fall for each other. At some point both of us admitted that quite apart from one another we had started to wonder about long term futures and even daydreamed about wearing a bridal gown. I was also very open to admit that I come with an awful lot of of emotional trauma – I find the words, “I love you” difficult, because they are easy to say and experience has taught me that not everyone means it, sometimes its just another control mechanism, so while I could admit that my feelings were deep and getting deeper by the day, my GF had to say the words first and not hear them echoed back. She had two rings made for Christmas, one for her and one for me, that fit on our ring fingers and offered one made from my birthstone as a gift, which I took to mean as a sign of commitment when she asked me to open her gift early but never said anything. It had been clearly chosen for that finger, so could have been an engagement ring, but I wasn’t going to assume, and when she still never commented on it other than to say how hard they had been to get in time, it was simply left as a gift and it was beautiful and gorgeous and incredibly romantic.

Then she went off to her family for 5 days over Christmas and it felt like an eternity to be without one another, even though we messaged every day multiple times.

When she came back it was like someone had turned the oxygen back on, I had missed her so much, she had gotten small fun gifts for my kids too and we all did Hobbit Christmas together and they loved her – so I finally started to relax. All of my emotional walls had been built to protect me and help me to rebuild and here is this incredible woman just casually finding ways past them all without trying, I realised while she was away that simply not saying the words out loud did not make a blind bit of difference when I know internally I was answering without hesitation. My brain was scrabbling to find reasons why I should put the brakes on and the only one it could find that wasn’t incredibly tenuous was, “it’s a bit fast”. Which one of my friends pointed out with love when I told them about my engagement, but hey according to internet memes only cis people need to follow all these unwritten rules. At one point when I was sharing my feelings my GF also made the very correct comment that perhaps not having experienced genuine reciprocated love for someone, we just did not know how it should be… which is true, I don’t.

So when I opened my diary and the 1st page had something incredibly similar to this written in it:

“DEE PLEASE DO THE HONOUR OF MARRYING ME!

YOU HAVE MADE ME VERY HAPPY AND I CAN ONLY IMAGINE A FUTURE WITH YOU IN IT

ALL MY LOVE ALWAYS

XXXX”

I had to say yes. How could I not when I feel the same way? There hasn’t been any big announcement as I had already shown the pics of us with matching rings and so I think a lot of family and friends had already decided and I honestly don’t really intend to defend my decision.

It might be quick, but in The Holiday (which we watched snuggled up together) Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet were making life altering decisions in only 2 weeks! Also on a purely pragmatic level the UK government has ensured that it will be at the bare minimum a two year engagement while I gather evidence to apply for a GRC, which means our time together counter will be far more socially acceptable lol.

Taking things at face value, for now I am with someone who is my biggest cheerleader, who makes me smile every single day, who will walk the dog with me, cook and clean with me, who encourages me, sees my flaws as endearing aspects of me and who recognises how amazing my sproglings are. She is attractive, funny – even when she is cracking a terrible pun, she is creative and thoughtful, and cares about this world and the people in it, and blushes when she realises I am looking at her sparkling eyes because she gets embarrassed. She also likes “Birdhouse in your soul” which is an amazing song and has been my phones ringtone for years now even though most people have never heard of it. She is My Person.

Take care

XX