23 june 2025
today i shaved my arms for the first time in a long time. i want to say the it feels more like me (because that is poetic and makes it sound like i am becoming more comfortable with myself), but i'm not sure if it's true.
for a long time i gave up on it, and i also want to pretend that's part of some better smarter narrative. but i was just not wanting to do the work, and probably a little more depressed too.
the thing that sorta frustrates me to admit is, for a while it really wasn't that bad. whenever i don't shave it is annoying and prickly, but i was long past that and it wasn't much of a tactile concern anymore.
the thing i'm trying to figure out now (and i'm still not really there) is why i did it if that sensory aspect wasn't true.
for a long time i was telling myself that i didn't really care about the gender expression of it and it was just because having hair is gross to my brain, but clearly that's an incomplete things, it does feel nice to rub smooth skin on my face and i hate seeing the hair get lit up in the light, but there's probably more of a gender aspect than i want to admit here.
idk if i'm ready to deal with that. i've been telling myself that for years now, actual years. this is stressful stuff to try and figure out, and a fundamental part of that is how brave i will have to be in order to do something different with myself.
a friend of mine said that she read a book and was convinced that not transitioning was a fate worse than death. i think about that a lot right now.