Dreams

Someone told me today that 29 was too young to give up on your dreams. The particular dream she was referring to was writing a novel. But that has never been a big dream. The real childhood dream was an odd one. It was to be a Consultant, or a GP, doing a worthwhile job. I wanted to be able to have  a nice life, have a large house in the suburbs or country, to drive a 4×4 and have 4 children in private schools. I would have a wife who didn’t work and an Aga, she would bake cakes and throw dinner parties.  I am currently coming to terms with the fact that this dream won’t come true. They job probably will, but the rest of it won’t. I’ve never had to come to terms with the fact that a dream won’t come true before. All my dreams have come true, but not through luck, They’ve come true because I’ve worked fucking hard to make them come true.

There is no point doing something just because it was your childhood dream. There is certainly no point ruining your marriage because your life doesn’t quiet match your childhood dream.

The bizarre thing is that I have no idea where this dream came from. I was raised by hippies on a council estate. There was no one there who lived that sort of life. I suppose I must have seen it in colour supplements or on TV. Maybe it was in a Joanna Trollope novel. But it was a dream. And a dream I’m trying to let go of.

But at the moment holding onto a dream is likely to ruin my marriage, so actually a dream isn’t making my life better at all. It’s making it considerably worse. I need to give up on the dream to get my life better.

Approaching Resolution

Slowly slowly things are improving with The Children Issue. The aching void of chronic pain has begun to ebb away, to the point where it’s nearly gone. It’s been a number of things, and all but one are depressingly shallow.

We’ve moved to a new house. A house we would love to stay in for ever and grow old in, This has reminded me how much of a full and active life we have now, and how happy we really are. I’m the sort of person that is always focused on going somewhere, to the extent that I often forget to enjoy the present. I just hope I don’t become one of those people who is so focused on the present that I forget to plan for the future. Life will be different without children, but not necessarily bad. Just being happy helps.

I’ve injected testosterone. It didn’t make the desire for children go away, but it does make some of the pain go away. The aching void of childlessness, the pain that was so great I didn’t know if I could bear it, disappeared within an hour of injecting. I would still love to be a parent, but with testosterone. I’d been a bit late with testosterone for a variety of reasons, mostly connected to the hassle involved in registering with a new GP, and having the ‘I’m trans’ conversation. I find the fact that testosterone made me want children less is confusing. I had believed that I could want children and still be male, but now I am starting to doubt that. I have had a hysterectomy so I know that there aren’t any oestrogen molecules hanging around and causing trouble. So it must be that testosterone makes me want children less. Odd. But it does explain a lot of things about the world.

And finally we’re discussing the possibility of weekend fostering. We haven’t applied, we’re just thinking about it. I don’t know what the outcome will be. I don’t even know if we’d be approved if we did apply. But just the fact that we’re thinking about it a nice thing.