notes on psychoneuroendocrinology

Today is my first day on estradiol, a pill form of estrogen.
After breakfast, I laid in bed, trying to nap,
I looked at my room in a new way,
saw new things I have never noticed,
the shine of the gears on our bikes,
the red of the curtain shining on the white stripes of the sheet
we hung to block the light,
I listened to sounds far away,
feeling a bit like Anne Rice’s newly born vampire,
with new senses, or senses that feel new at least.
Now I’m sure that there’s some component,
or a big component,
that is just me being hyper aware, expecting change,
but I feel different already.
I’m reluctant to even say it,
to sound like I’m overstating it,
to sound just crazy,
but this feeling I have, all over, especially in the muscles in my face,
is not just in my head.
I’m full of excitement
at the potential for change.
I want to ride my bike and feel my body.
I want to take a shower and rub the water off of my skin.
It comes and goes, after the dog park, it wasn’t so strong,
there’s a slight feeling of nausea too, reminding me that it is a drug.
Last night my friend warned me that birth control pills make her nauseous too.
Almost all day I remembered to speak at the top of my voicebox,
and my eyebrows want to sit higher on my face,
all around my eyes, my muscles feel awake.
Cixous said that woman must write woman’s body as an insurgent act,
can we imagine constructing and shapeshifting as a kind of writing,
and therefore as a kind of insurgency?
Perhaps the trans person must write their hormones,
as a transversal act.
While I don’t think I’m becoming woman,
I’m full of joyful excitement for what I am becoming.
Everything is new.

june 28, 2008