For most of my adult life, I treated my body the way you treat a five-hundred-dollar car. You put gas in it because otherwise you’re walking, keep enough oil in it to avoid an expensive noise, and spend a remarkable amount of time deciding whether that warning light really needs your attention today. You don’t want the thing to die. It has to get you to work, and you’d prefer not to spend your afternoon stranded beside the road. But you’re not particularly attached to it. There’s a dent in the door? Well, there was already a dent in the other one. As long as it starts, you’ve got more pressing things to worry about than how you feel sitting in it.
I wouldn’t describe that as hating my body. There were things I disliked, things I was embarrassed by, and reflections I’d rather not spend too long looking at, but mostly I just expected it to work. I fed it, washed it, took it to work, and assumed it’d keep turning up. It was mine in the same way the car was mine: I was responsible for it, and nobody else was going to deal with it if it broke.
Eventually, some of the things I’d been putting off needed more than another promise to deal with them later. There’s damage now that needs attention, and I don’t know how much of it I’ll be able to undo. Understanding why I let things slide doesn’t make the consequences disappear. I’ve become attached to this body rather late in the proceedings, and some of that is going to hurt.
I already wanted to stay alive before transition. I loved my family, had plans, and understood perfectly well that dying would put a fairly permanent end to all of that. What I hadn’t expected was to become curious about getting older in this particular body. Now I’m wondering what more time on estrogen will do, how my breasts might grow, what I could do with my hair. These aren’t things I’m waiting to get over so I can return to the important business of being an adult. I’m looking forward to finding out.
I’ve started making appointments I would’ve found reasons to postpone. I walk more, pay attention to what I’m eating, and try to notice when I’m tired instead of assuming I should just keep going. Some days it’s still fucking boring. I haven’t become somebody who enjoys every bit of looking after herself, but I have started wanting more for myself than getting through the day without anything breaking.
And apparently, once I start caring, I have opinions. I’ve spent money on tattoos because I love seeing them on my skin. They draw my eye to places I used to avoid looking at. I’ll move my hair or adjust a shirt to see how one sits against a curve that’s only just beginning to show. None of this helps the machinery run better. I’m spending money on the part I used to think wasn’t worth the bother, and then stopping in front of the mirror to admire it.
Bras have become another expense I don’t resent. Padding makes a shirt sit the way I want while my boobs get on with whatever schedule they’re working to. I’d like more, obviously. I’m delighted they’re here, but I’m not above offering encouragement. In the meantime, I don’t want to spend all that time treating my current body as something I can start enjoying once the proper one arrives. This is the one I’m getting dressed in today.
The upkeep can be a pain in the ass. Body hair seems determined to undo my work almost immediately, but I like smooth skin enough to keep doing it, usually with death metal on. I might as well enjoy the evening. That’s a good enough reason when I feel like doing it, and no reason to make it compulsory when I don’t. I’m not failing at being a woman because I couldn’t be bothered to shave.
Of course, getting attached has given me more to be disappointed about. It was easier to shrug off things I disliked when I wasn’t expecting to like much in the first place. Now I want less belly and hair that frames my face the way I wish it had years ago. I’ll compare photographs taken months apart and notice changes I couldn’t see day to day, then wish they’d hurry the fuck up. I can be ridiculously pleased with my breasts and wish they were bigger while I’m still looking at them. Some of this will take time, some might take money, and some may never happen the way I hope. I don’t get to choose how my body responds just because I’ve finally worked out what I want from it.
My partner is part of this too. I still want them to look at me and like what they see. I think they’re hot, and I’d like the courtesy returned. I want to put on something I feel good in, walk into the room, and catch them noticing. Being seen like that used to be something I tolerated more than enjoyed. Now I want to be there with them when they touch me, enjoying the body they’re touching instead of feeling slightly removed from the whole experience. It’s taken me a long time to understand how much I wanted that, even in a relationship where I already knew I was loved.
The car metaphor gets less funny when I start thinking about its previous owner, because of course that was me too. I’d love to ask her why she didn’t pay attention sooner, but I remember how tired she was. If the thing started in the morning, she had more urgent problems. I wish she’d done more, and I’m the one dealing with what she put off, but I couldn’t have given her this feeling just by explaining the consequences more sternly.
I don’t want to turn that belated interest into a new way of making myself miserable, either. A missed walk doesn’t need to become proof that I’m still getting it wrong. I’m not moving more because I owe anybody a thinner woman, and being healthy isn’t a measure of whether I’ve earned the right to enjoy my life. I want to climb hills, carry groceries, swim, travel, and keep doing things with the people I love. Some days that means getting up and going out. Other days it means admitting I’m tired and going to bed.
It’s still the same five-hundred-dollar car. The mileage hasn’t gone away, and finding out I love it doesn’t make the overdue repairs any less overdue. I’ll deal with what I can, learn to live with what I can’t, and decorate the living shit out of the rest. I’d like enough time to become an old woman who looks back at this and thinks she had a lot left to discover. For years I kept this body going because people depended on it. I still care about those people. I’d just like to be one of them.
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