My Gifted Life

Last fall wasn’t ideal. With a bad side effect from the medicine benztropine, confusion and more, I ended up losing time from November through March. I have very few memories from that time. It took until March for them to identify that I needed to stop the medication. The confusion which had take hold in just a few days in November was almost immediately better, but took a couple of month to fully clear. Meanwhile, we were paying for the live in home aide, at something like 9,000 a month – don’t get sick!

I said goodbye to my home health aide a little over a week ago. I almost immediately got into a bit of a funk – I had grown used to having someone living with me. While the first caregiver had been good for my French skills, the second required them as her English wasn’t ideal. But we got along well and she did a good job.

I still find myself thinking about being transgender and how it would have been nice if I hadn’t had to transition. I’m realistic, it isn’t as if could go back, and if that were possible I would probably end up dead or at best surviving as a very depressed person. Being a girl is fine, but it isn’t a greener lawn, it’s just a different lawn. The grass isn’t always greener, at least without a lot of watering.

I’ve started lessons on driving with hand controls. The first lesson went very well, and I have another lesson a week from Saturday. I’ll get to work more in traffic and do some parking. Most driving skills are transferrable but it takes time to get used to using a spinner knob and get used to the accelerator brake control. A little more than a month from now I should have the controls in the car and be able to get around with my car.