i’ll bring you flowers, in the pouring rain

on healing, depression & friendship <3

So I’ve spent the last month healing, but not necessarily from the things I had planned to. My body has been healing of course, from the gender-affirming surgery I am so very privileged to have received - and what a fine job it has done. I have felt next to no pain other than the emotional - very me.

The much-feared post-op depression did not come. Not quickly, anyway. My care team marveled at how spritely and self-sufficient I was straight out of the hospital, cautious not to let my visitors do too much of what they were there to do. I couldn’t sleep, exhilarated by this new beginning and just very bad at the sleeping on your back thing. And when I looked in the mirror, I truly couldn’t remember what I had looked like before, so much so that I had to keep checking in with Soha for reassurance that anything had changed at all (my partner is very patient). Sure, one of my nipples is decidedly bigger than the other, but I feel like it’s giving “not gay as in happy but queer as in one of my nipples is decidedly bigger than the other” which is fun. Recalling the actual years of heavy grief and trepidation leading me to this surgery felt quite surreal, for on this side of it, it couldn’t be less of a big deal.

been trying to learn how to do more things with my hands in an effort to chat less shit so will be sharing these watercolours of some of the flowers i received while healing starting with these tulips from soha

After the drains and stitches had been removed, the opioids had worn off and the care rota came to an end, things got a little more dicey for sure. Extreme swelling made home under my skin, and I have been flooded with waves of dysphoria as the shapes on my chest try to figure themselves out. I naively thought dysphoria would be gone after surgery, and in some ways it is, but for the rest, it’s a waiting game (I am not very patient). The doctor told me, the more I think about them, the bigger they’ll get (lol), so for the rest of the healing period I find myself humbly re-entering my cocoon of dissociation. It’s just as I left it.

Ushering myself into the state of vulnerability that major surgery requires, beckoning in a moment of need, had me asking many questions, with one standing particularly tall among them all - who are my friends? Who are the people who show up in these quiet moments, who center you, love on you, choose you, protect you, who make you feel like care might just be abundant after all, like caring for you could even be a gift? Who remembers you, checks in on you, wants to see you win, comes closer? Who brings your partner food so they don’t have to cook, stretches too-small vinyl gloves over their hands to touch your blood, sends a surprise hot pink mastectomy pillow to your house, drives you to the beach to feel the breeze, brings you flowers, sends you a designer cupcake, a care package, reminds you you deserve it all?