It is wild to me how much my priorities and sensibilities around my identity, transition and transness in general have shifted and changed over the past three years.

It really is like puberty all over again and things I wrote 6 months ago feel cringey and naive today

One of the biggest changes are my insecurities. Words had such specific, direct and powerful impact early on, because I did not feel secure in myself.

Today I honestly don't care most of the time and things like gendered language etc. have become very relaxed and unimportant.

I don't feel like I need to prove or justify my gender identity, my non-male ness, my transness etc. They just *are*, whether people see/understand them or not.

I'm just *me* and my gender and transness have receded to being an important but limited aspect of my life.

Where my gender feels, my dysphoria, my anxieties and my excitement to finally be myself dominated my life in every aspect in the first years, they have become things that are mostly just in the background. They inform my life but they don't play an active part in most situations

These days, that stuff honestly feels kinda boring most of the time. I am ready to move on to other things. I want to create more art, I want to read, I want to cook, I want to travel, I want to make meaningful connections with people who live different lives than mine.

I find myself returning to my old life in some ways. Returning as a different person, deeply changed by the experiences of the past 3 years, far happier, healthier and more confident.

But in a lot of ways, still the same person with the same interests and core values.