1:30pm – On the drive back to the hotel last night, I realized yet another thing that has tumbled through my mind for quite some time now. As I drove from the surgery center north along Scottsdale Rd., I saw all of these people eating out and having a good time. There were couples – young and old – as well as plenty of single people. They were all having a good time, socializing with one another – and just enjoying life.

Enjoying life – what does that mean to me? Up until now, I basically floated along the path that was most likely expected for me. I had one girlfriend in college for about 5 months, and only a few brief encounters with another woman around my early 30’s. I’ve never been in a real relationship – I still have so much of life yet to experience. It’s sad – I’ll be starting life basically at 34. It’s hard for a little girl waking from her 30-year slumber to find she’s closing in on middle age – rapidly. It sucks. But at least I have something to hopefully look forward to after SRS. A new life? A new beginning? Or just a new chapter? What do I do with my current life – meld it into the new one? What do I do with my memories – times shared in a different life. Can people see the old me? Do they see the new me – a reflection of the person I used to be? I’m still me, but people may not understand that the person they knew before was just a shadow; a caricature; an approximate replica of the person – the little girl – hidden away inside the mind of a boy. I think people that know me now realize this was the best decision for me. They may not all agree with that decision, but I’ve had no one argue to my face that I’m worse off as a girl than I was as a guy. Those that meet me now sometimes don’t recognize that I was ever a man. Even some T’s are amazed that I’ve only been full time for basically 5 months. I guess that’s what a year and a half of living part time will do for you. It’s definitely made it easier for me to move straight into full time.

10:39pm – It’s my last night in Scottsdale and I’ve crashed back at the hotel. It’s amazing – this week has totally flown by. Tomorrow, I fly back to the Bay Area, back to home, and eventually back to work. I’ll turn 34 in a few weeks, watch fall return to the Bay Area, see the start of a wet winter, then return here for my own SRS. What then? I still need to figure that out. Amber and I discussed that tonight – what happens after SRS? I compared it to a marathon that I previously ran. I trained for months in order to run it, then once it was over I took a little time off to recover. But after that, I just sat around wondering what to do. I didn’t have any goals established beyond the marathon.

Anyway, Amber’s recovery is still coming along quite nicely. She’s up and about, hardly losing a step. Yeah, her mobility is far less than before, but she can at least walk around easily. Her bruising is finally showing through, spreading down her inner thighs. It looks worse than it actually is. She is also quite swollen around the groin region, enough so that her skirts and loose clothing still do not quite fit.

So, my journey here is almost finished…this time. I’ve been able to share in part of Amber’s experience and help her through recovery. I’ve also been able to learn a ton and see what I’ll be going through next year. It’s an amazing experience. She still has a week of new experiences to live as her packing is removed on Monday, her catheter and plug a day or two after that, and, of course, almost continual dilation. She has a couple of other friends visiting on and off, so hopefully she won’t get that bored.

I’ve also left a book at the recovery facility. There is the Red Book at Cocoon in San Francisco that allows people to write about their FFS experience, and I figured it would be nice to have one for SRS as well. So, now there is a Purple and Green book at Greenbaum. Everyone that was still there before Amber’s surgery wrote in it, and the secretary at the nurse’s station said she would pass it along. I left a note in there telling people that they’d better write something because I want to read about it when I get back here.