The long awaited life-update, with added abstract analogues!

It's stupid o'clock, I've got to face four hours of public transport soon enough, so I decided to update my blog. Mostly out of guilt. I've tried a few times the past few months to write something. Evidently that hasn't gone well. My main problem being that I've gotten stuck down the back of an emotional sofa, and this is an analogy I'm going to roll with. Yes, really, I'm going to talk about metaphysical furniture.

Imagine your favourite seat in front of the television: the place you automatically bee-line to when you want to sit down and do as little as possible. Even though you are actively being inactive, going to that spot is a preference that you have made and therefore an activity you engage in. Over time, if you are anything like me, you start to build up a nest of things around that seat; favourite mug within reach, charger cables coiling round your feet, half a packet of crisps that you set down beside you because you know you will be back here to finish them, and so on. The more you make this spot your own, the more it becomes like you. Even the seat itself starts to bow where you have dropped your backside day-in and day-out. Over a really long time, the seat barely operates as a seat at all, and every time you sit down you slowly start to slide backwards and downwards whilst the amount of conveniently placed knick-knacks grows and grows around you. You are now part of that piece of furniture, shaped into one another, until something important crops up and you heave yourself up again with a groan and complaint as you fight gravity and stupor.

So yeah, my life is like the sofa. Over the past few months I have established myself a base line of emotion that I deal with day to day. Until very recently I had my crappy job, the height of stress that I only endured a few hours every week. My frugal lifestyle, penchant for takeaway food excluded, afforded me a comfortable lifestyle on minimal income. My spare time was split between maintaining social harmony in a shared house, following my hobbies and spending as much time as possible smiling. It sounds pretty good really. It was. I made zero demands and life made very few demands of me in return. The comfort of familiarity though also made murky the levels of repetition around me and not just in how I chose to spend my time. Eventually it dawned on me that my range of emotion had pretty much been boiled down to either contentment at the continuing status quo or mild aggravation at inconveniences that briefly interrupted the snail-trail. I rarely asked for much, but quietness had not afforded me excitement.

It almost sounds like I am having a sudden urge to invite chaos and stress into my life, and no doubt there is some terrible masochistic gremlin within me that does want that, but specifically I feel the challenge of escaping the deadening of my senses. I'm not after a dangerous life, but if you sit still for long enough you disappear. I am being eaten by a sofa and I have been too comfortable to notice.

So, how does this relate to the blog? Well let us be honest this is a blog designed for me to pour into my worries, fears, speculation and doubts, with the ultimate aim of coming out better for it. In return, you guys read it and hopefully get something out of the shared experience. That is where my problem is rooted though: I have had no experience to share. Months have gone by and I have been me, but only in as much as a cardboard cut-out is me too: sharing my likeness but most certainly lacking depth. (The cut out and the sofa are two different analogies. I can't think of a way to connect the two but apparently I mostly associate with the inanimate... which sounds about right really...) I haven't even dressed in an effeminate manner for all this time. I have a proper beard and everything! This version of me doesn't very much feel like me, but like so much around me it is 'ok' and infinitely just so.

That is an interesting point though: if my gender was a problem before my slow-poke ways settled in, is ignoring it more of a solution than my worrying was? It certainly has been more peaceful this way! I know though, with both a heavy heart and a contradictorily positive mind, that if I let it be then the problem will grow and become a silent burden. You can only sink so far into the sofa before you hit the springs, after all. The rest of this year will involve a lot of change for me in general and maybe, just maybe, I will enjoy the roller-coaster and come out better for it.

You never know, you lot might even get to read about it!
xx

Professionals and employability

This is quite possibly the dullest title for a post yet, but bare with me!

Today I heard a piece of advice that I have had many times. This time stemming from the existence of this very blog: "Employers may think twice if they know you are transgender/non-heteronormative persuasion. It might be something to keep to yourself."

It's something sagely offered to me by those older than me and with the best intentions, and it is not something given out of fear alone. Fact is that if you have two candidates with equal qualifications vying for the same job, then the deciding factor is no longer going to be about just the CV. I tried to find some numbers on this but resources are a bit thin. I guess I'll just have to rely on a general consensus that bigotry can effect professional opinion despite legal protection in place in the UK. Agreed? Shall we continue? Righty-ho.

Anyway this reminds me of the important decision I made way before I started this blog. Something that seems foolhardy, and possibly a ridiculous basis for an emotional rom-com where I am tested but ultimately resolve to keep my nerve.

"If an employer judges me for my gender issues, on a professional level, then I do not want to work for them."

Of course this is an easier statement to make when I am not looking for work. Work is not the place you usually make a valiant stand against society: it's the place you go to so you can afford to eat and have a roof over your head. Perhaps that is different if you absolutely love your job, but I'm a part-time shop keeper. My job is quite regularly "ok" and not a lot more (though I am perfectly grateful to have employment!)

Still, back on point, should I keep it to myself? My answer is both yes and no, frankly. I've been operating on a 'don't ask don't tell' philosophy and it's been a comfortable-enough ride so far. My gender does not effect my job in anyway except for pronoun usage. Being as I am, being referred to as male is not a problem. Those who do ask, I tell or at least give a condensed version just to explain the jist of it. I do imagine though that, should I start transitioning my physical gender via medical intervention that this might be a different case...

And it's at this point that I must end my post rather abruptly. I don't know the hypothetical hurdles of my situation in the future! All I do know, is that I am what I am (try not to sing) and that is what employers get. If nothing else I can hold onto my own personal belief that I have standards and I expect employers to meet them just as much as employers should have expectations of me. That seems right, and the day I give up on being me because of what other people want, is the day when getting a pay cheque is the least of my concerns.
xx