Hi everybody!
I'm finally back from my three months in Norway. I meant to post that I was going, but ended up without good internet access for a while. So, I apologize for worrying anyone. But I have good news.
I. Am. Feeling. GREAT.
My fiancee's grandparents unexpectedly gave her a great birthday present. Namely, a plane ticket for me to come to Norway.
I had loads of fun meeting my fiancee's extended family. And my fiancee and I got even closer and confirmed to ourselves that we were really happy living together and wouldn't get on each others' nerves except with little minor stuff.
I just want to take a moment to gush about my fiancee. She's sweet, incredibly funny and witty, brilliant, interesting, creative, protective, and loving. She's a role-playing gamer with a huge collection of White Wolf books, and she's also a freelance RPG writer who has a few writing credits to her name and is likely to have a big one soon (which I can't talk about yet). She's the best RPG writer I've ever seen, hands down, and that's not just bias speaking. And while I'm not focused on appearance, I have to add that she's tall, pretty, in good shape, and has the greatest smile ever. Oh, and of course, her hair is long and always dyed blue, cause you gotta have blue hair, right? Her usual outfit is black jeans, a black leather jacket, a girly shirt underneath, some Goth jewelry, and a genuine honest-to-God surplus Red Army beret that she bought from a cheap tourist shop in Berlin. (She wanted to mock the Soviet Union in the most capitalist way she could, and thought she bought a cheap knockoff, but recently realized it was actually the real thing.)
So, basically, my fiancee is fucking awesome. That fact alone makes me feel happier and more confident. But that's far from the only thing.
In the process of going there, I got a passport with the right gender on it, a driver's license with the right gender on it, and badly-needed eyeglasses. Seriously, I had no idea how bad my eyesight had gotten until I finally got glasses. I'd stopped reading as much because it was a strain, but now I'm back to my old book-hungry self. (EDIT: Also, the glasses look good on me and convey the image I want to convey.
)
While I was over there, my voice improved greatly and is now rather consistent. I lost ten pounds and got in much better shape. I broke a lot of bad habits. I solved a lot of mental hang-ups, anxiety issues, and lingering depression. I got a better haircut.
I also did _really_ well at socializing with her family and other people, gained a _ton_ of confidence, and bought a whole _pack_ of _underscores_ to use when explaining it.
After a while, I just got used to that stuff. It became normal. I stopped noticing it. I started wondering if I was imagining things, if I hadn't really lost that much weight, if my health hadn't improved that much, if my voice was really any different.
And then I got back home to the United States. And I finally had a familiar benchmark to measure my progress by. The results were amazing.
My parents immediately commented that my voice was different. They also noticed I'd lost a lot of weight. When I walked around on all this strange American flat ground*, I felt superhuman compared to how I used to feel when I walked here. Turns out walking up and down hills every day kinda has an impact.
Oh, and I'm no longer constantly craving unhealthy foods. Which is weird, because that's the majority of what I ate in Norway. But Norway's junk food is healthier than ours, and I think it helped me kick my sugar addiction.
I feel like I've mostly completed transition. I've gotten my life back together. My brain is working right. My offline social skills have gone from "terrible" to "noticeably above-average," and the same can be said of my health.** I went to Norway feeling frustrated that my life was still on hold, feeling like I couldn't quite grow up. I came back feeling like an adult. A confident, happy adult.***
So, I'm doing great.
*They don't have flat ground in Norway. It's against their religion or something.
**Okay, well, my health is above-average by the standards of the not-so-healthy southern rural area where I live. It's probably not all that great compared to more healthy places.
***It's a good thing that I feel like an adult now, because I turned thirty while I was in Norway. And now I don't have to be embarrassed to admit that, because I no longer worry that I come across like a fifteen-year-old.