Toronto Pride 2022

“To be yourself is a truly revolutionary act” and this weekend I saw revolution through my eyes. For the first time I get it, Pride is bigger than us. It’s this personal feeling that makes us feel whole, that makes us feel loved and accepted. Pride takes all the shame away and gives us the courage to shine as bright as we can with all our true colours. “We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love.”

Yes, we party during pride, and we know damn well how to party. Period. But Pride is so much more than that, it is the admiration to all the people who are not scared to be their authentic selves, is respect and gratefulness for everyone who fought before us, is that warm feeling that runs through all the veins in our bodies when we’re walking down the streets, we lock eyes with a stranger and they smile while they say: “happy pride”. This year I finally experienced the community within pride and I’m proud to say that my community is the most beautiful one that exists. Without knowing each other, we accept one another. We don’t care, we don’t judge, we only have love!

Thank you Toronto for this beautiful experience.
Thanks to all the allies out there, you are more important than you know.
To who’s questioning, there’s nothing wrong with you and we’re waiting for you.
To my people, let’s keep fighting for what we deserve, never forget how powerful we are because we survived, and we’re finally free.

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I’m back… I hope

So I’m back, or at least I hope. It’s been almost one year since the last time I wrote. I’m scared that I might be rusty but I guess I’ll just write from my heart and let the words come out how they want to. 

So I wanna give some sort of update but without any details. There’s some things I want to get out of my chest and I guess that’s why I’m writing again because if I don’t, I’m probably going to explode. 

So I stopped taking my antidepressants woohoo that is amazing, yes. But then again I started feeling again hahaha I’m emotional now, I cry about everything and sometimes, in different situations, my emotions get the best of me. I am not enjoying this at all and it’s taking me some time to adjust to it.

School… has been a nightmare. Yes I chose this but then again I only did it because it was the easiest way to ask for my PR here in Canada. I truly believe I’m not made for school and the amount of the assignments that I have just makes me want to quit, but I know I can’t and I won’t but ugh… I just want to start working, grinding but please no more homework and classes. 

I love my friends here though, I’m really happy that I’ve created meaningful connections that if we all stay here in Canada, we’re probably going to be in each others lives. But if we talk about being friends I had one situation where there was a problem and I tried to help with that problem but at the end I just couldn’t. I’m aware that the situation was and is out of my hands but I just felt shitty for what I had to do and for not being able to help in the way that they wanted me to help.

Taking care of my mental and physical health has been something that I left at the bottom of my list and it’s starting to backfire. I completely stopped meditating, I stopped sleeping at a decent hour, and you know, it just went downhill from there. Plus, I’m fat hahaha like I need NEED to move my body and take care of it asap. Pride is coming and I set like a goal for me to be comfortable in pride cause I wanna be shirtless. We’ll see how that goes. 

Anyway, that’s it for me now, my computer is about to die so I’ll write about some of the other things in detail. 

I missed this… 

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Let Me Start Over

So basically this month was an eye opening one. I not only got drunk every weekend but last Saturday my drunk self decided that smoking weed would be a good idea. I gained 5 kg and I didn’t do anything of the paper work I’m supposed to do.

At first I was really mad with myself but then it hit me, how sad I must be? Damn, really fucking sad to the point where I thought smoking weed would be a great idea. I guess I’ve been carrying all of the weight on my heart. In the beginning I thought, “now that everyone knows that I’m trans, I get to be myself and most importantly, happy!” And that’s kinda true but with the changes in my voice, the facial hair that’s growing, some of the people around me are now realizing that I’m really changing and they’re scared, and I understand that, but I wish they weren’t because they just project that onto me. On top of everything I’m feeling inside, ‘cause the dysphoria just keeps getting worse and worse, honestly this isn’t what I need.

Today the month ends and I’m just learning that today is #TransgenderDayOfVisibility. With that in mind I want a fresh start, I’m giving myself another chance. This time I’ll go at the pace I’m comfortable with, I’ll stop wasting time and I’ll spend my time doing what I have to do, or reading some of the books I bought for myself, or writing more for this blog, or even taking pictures. The thing is I need to get moving, not only physically but most importantly, mentally.

I wanna do better, I wanna get better and I know I have to do better, not for anyone else but only for myself. And I will.

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I failed and it’s okay

So in my last post I said that if I didn’t achieve the goals I set for myself, it would be depressing. I take that back. I forgot that I said that failure is a part of growing and with this failing I actually learned a lot.

I’ve been really hard on myself, I’ve created these false expectations for myself and I was trying to achieve the expectations that other people have for me. I guess that’s the thing with expectations, we just shouldn’t have them. They create anxiety and this unnecessary feeling of stress and disappointment.

On a happy note, even though I failed to achieve “simple” goals, I realized my focus was on the wrong place. I thought I was doing what was better for me instead of doing what actually makes me happy. I don’t have everything figured out but I do know I’m finally walking in the right direction, I can just sense it.

So lets just remember that its okay to fail, that expectations aren’t everything in life, and we need to start listening more to ourselves and to figure out us more. To really know what we want in life, so we don’t end up surviving and we can start living.

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Setting Goals

So I haven’t been feeling great lately, to be honest, I’ve been feeling like shit. I’m aware that I could be feeling like this because, I’m going through menopause and puberty at the same time, I’m realizing my relationship ended, I lost the safe place I thought I was going to have, I can’t organize my head, I don’t know what I wanna do in life, and I’m feeling guilty that I’m loosing all this time but I just can’t get myself to do anything. So of course this has to stop.

In the book Progress Over Perfection by Emma Norris I learned that if I wanna achieve something I must break down big goals into more manageable goals, so I set 2 weeks goals because I know I need to start small. I hope that by sharing this will help me achieve those goals because now someone out there will know if I failed or I achieved them.

I know failure is a part of growing but in this scenario it would be depressing if I don’t achieve my goals. They’re honestly way to easy. I just need to turn them into habits so I can achieve my bigger goals.

So let me tell you what we’re working with.
– Body, to reduce my dysphoria, I’ll do a 20 minute exercise. Monday through Saturday.
– Mind, I’ll read at least 10 pages of a book every single day.
– Spirit, I’ll meditate at least 10 minutes daily.

I know I can do it, I hope I really do it. See you on February 28th.

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My First Birthday

On January 26 I turned 26. I’ve never been fan of my birthday, but this birthday was different.

To begin with I totally forgot about it. Actually me and my family totally forgot about it hahaha. We thought it was “next week” when it actually was “in 3 days”. So to begin with it felt like it was going to be different.

I’ve never liked celebrating my birthday and this year was not any different, but something felt different and I didn’t know what it was. Amira then surprised me with a vegan cake, Paola gave me a hand written letter and my dad sent a picture of me to the extended family group chat that it said “Happy Birthday Nico”. When I read that, my heart stopped. I felt this joy inside of me I’ve never felt before. It was this validation I didn’t know I needed.

Remember that validation comes from within.

But that’s when it hit me, it’s my first birthday being my true self and damn it felt awesome. Everyone who wrote to me on that day were wishing me a great new start and a great new life and I never felt that way before. I was receiving so much love, I didn’t even knew how to react. I truly felt that it was my Birth Day because as cheesy as it may sound, I felt reborn.

Now, it’s not like I’m looking forward to my birthday because to be honest, who want’s to get older? Not me. But now I don’t feel this negative feeling I used to have towards this day.

From this day on, I’m starting to celebrate my life. At least this year I’m celebrating every single day because I’m getting one step closer, thanks to HRT, to who I really am.

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Bathrooms

Before I start, so you won’t have any doubts, I use the men’s bathroom. Why? Because I am one. Now, you have to have in mind that I came out during the pandemic so there was no reason for me to go to a public restroom. Until now.

So I had to come to Houston to do some paperwork so chill, I’m not on vacation in the middle of a pandemic being irresponsible. With that being said, I have to confess that as soon as I was on the airport I was constantly thinking “Hell, what am I gonna do if I need to go to the bathroom?!”. I didn’t realized that I would go and that’s it, there’s nothing more to it. But I was hella scared.

The first couple of days I would hold it in until I was home. I would avoid drinking water so I didn’t have the need to go in the first place. But on the 12th I had an appointment with my therapist, Dra. Harumi, and my mom dropped me off at a Barns & Noble’s Cafe. Harumi asked me about how my experience has been, since it’s the first time I’m in public and presenting as Nicolás. The first thing I said was “BATHROOMS! I just can’t find the guts to use them” she asked why and I told her that I’m just scared someone’s not gonna like the fact that I’m in there and they’ll do something about it. Long story short she gave me the task to go to the bathroom and then tell her my experience, and so I did.

This may sound stupid but at first, my heart was pounding and I rushed into a stall. As the time passed I just started realizing that nobody cares if I’m there or not. The people that go into bathrooms they just want to go to the bathroom and that’s it. Plus, Harumi told me that I would only look like I nervous boy. Hahaha I need facial hair.

Now, idgaf hahaha I go to the bathroom like it’s nobody’s business BECAUSE IT’S NOBODY’S BUSINESS! Took some time to get there, but now that I’m here, drinking water once again feels amazing.

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Feelings

I have a weird relationship with feelings. To be clear I haven’t had my one month on testosterone yet and you know what they say: Taking testosterone is like having menopause and a second puberty. So I guess my relationship with feelings will get even weirder. 

As of now, I’ve been trying to understand everything I feel, the “why” and “how” I feel it. I tell myself, if you have to cry, cry. There’s no reason for us to shut down and hold it in. I believe something that’s really helpful is identifying what you’re feeling. Put a name to it, or maybe associate it with a face or taste or sound or even smell. If we did this, it’ll be a lot easier for us to explain how we’re actually feeling.

Imagine trying to tell your partner or parent or even therapist how you’re feeling, if you don’t even know what you are feeling. 

Something I could think of is to always carry a journal with us. Apart from our everyday journal that we should have, let’s have a small notebook where we could write if we feel sad, mad, anxious, etc. We could write how this feeling came up, how it makes us feel, if we can associate with something, if we feel it in a specific place in our body, if we feel it inside or outside, is it like an annoying fly or a spider running though our body. Let’s just try to identify it. Maybe this could help us express our feelings better.

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