That I’m not contractually obligated to smile at people. And that I should tell men asking me to smile to fuck off.
how to love myself
It’s something women and trans people are DEFINITELY not taught to do. Women are taught to tear themselves apart, trans people are taught even worse.
I am so lucky that I got to have examples of successful, powerful, trans people during my transition. I might not have gathered the courage without them.
Between the community on and offline I knew I was doing the right thing and that I had the same chance of happiness that anyone has.
That’s great!
This one hits hard. And even after learning self-love, it still comes and goes. Self-love is certainly a verb and not a noun.
Like LadyButterfly said, there’s just so many negative messaging and expectations directed at women. I don’t think I’ll ever measure up. Still, to quote a popular Millennial maxim, I am cringe but I am free.
Figuring out that just adopting every external expectation is impossible is liberating.
But then you need to figure out what standards you do want to strive for, and that’s hard work too. Still better to have the goals set for yourself than the contradictory standards that are handed to us by family, advertising, and media.
The power of saying no. I’ve always felt like the little white lie was great as a social lubricant - e.g., “Oh I’d love to come to your housewarming party but I’ve already got plans that day” when you know full well that you’re available but you just don’t wanna go.
But after a while, making excuses and remembering them later gets to be stressful. Especially for me because I’m horrible at lying lol. So I’ve learned to say things like “Thanks for inviting me, but I’m gonna sit this one out.” It’s a polite but clear ‘no’ and now I don’t have to keep up a fib going forward.
To be fair, sometimes people don’t like being told no, but I’ve been surprised to see that they’ll usually accept it gracefully.
i have a friend like this I’ll invite him to something and he’ll be like “that sounds fun! But I think I’ll pass” and honestly I respect it. If he doesn’t want to do something he shouldn’t have to make up some excuse.
My family (just my dads side i guess?) is horrible at taking no for an answer. It took me most of my life to realise they needed to be firmly (and quite literally) told to fuck off in order for them to take a NO seriously. Learning that is probably the only reason i still have any kind of relationship with my dad, i don’t care to interact with the rest of them.
“No” is a complete sentence.
Not to rush into relationships. That we can choose who to have relationships with and what that looks like. We aren’t indebted to anybody for any reason whatsoever in terms of relationships, and they don’t have to look like what others expect or even what we expect unless we have had that discussion explicitly.
We also wish we knew we were many things to do with our identity earlier: Demi*, relationship anarchists, polyamorous, transgender and transspecies, plural etc.
We also wish we learned how to love ourselves, probably the most important one of all, but we’re just learning now.
*demisexual, demiromantic, demikinky, demisensual and demiaffectionate.
As a tall girl (like, really tall), where to buy clothes that had long enough sleeves to fit. I was confused for a long time because there isn’t a single clothing store to my knowledge in the U.S. that actual sells tall sizes in the store. So I was buying T-shirts, dresses, and unflattering mens’ clothes. But a lot of those stores do have tall sizes, just on their website and in limited quantities. All my friends are shorter, so no one in my life knew this, and generally have been skeptical when I tell them that no brick-and-mortars actually have anything that fits.
Another thing I’ve learned is that I should be slow to jump on seasonal clothes, and that you save money in the long run by spending more on clothes, or by buying vintage clothes that existed before the brands enshittified. Most of my favorite tops are vintage Eddie Bauers, LL Beans, and Long Tall Sallys that I’ve carefully picked up from Poshmark over the years, and they’ve really stood the test of time.
have you had any luck at Torrid? that’s one of the few IRL places I’ve found that have clothes that fit me 😅
Torrid is my go-to place for heels. I’m sadly too tall for their tops, but there is this sleeveless wrap cardigan I have from Torrid that I love.
Aghhggh I have the same issue, I’m perma-uncomfortable. for a while, like 15+ years ago I had jeans custom made for me and it was bliss, but custom clothes are just not really feasible for me now. Tops are also a struggle so… I would have to investigate if I can use the platform you mention in my country (orrr learn how to sew but I know that 'aint gonna happen).
Are you comfortable being more specific about how very tall you are? I’m just under 6 ft (180 cm) and I’ve had far fewer issues with too short clothes than I expected.
Am I just unaware of proper fit, or not as tall as I think I am?
I’m 6’2". Most standard long sleeves fit awkwardly below my wrists and sit above my hips.
We get 700,000 hours.
We get 4,000 weeks.
We get 1,000 months.
Enjoy or utilize every single one.
I so wish I had learned about asexuality earlier in life. I could’ve stopped myself from hurting a lot of people I really cared about and myself.
I’m still learning to manage relationships around it, but at least I have the language now.
That the water that comes out of the tap isn’t filtered and recycled back into the water system.
Could you clarify?
Like, I thought water that comes out of a house faucet and goes into a drain was filtered and disinfected and would come back out the faucet again. Or someone’s faucet. I didn’t know until recently that water from the faucet comes from a natural fresh water source, and once it goes into the sewer system, it’s just…forever dirty and undrinkable.
They don’t put sewer water back into municiple water where I live, but they do usually use it for irrigation or some other non-drinking use, where it will eventually evaporate which is the ultimate filtration because it will fall as rain and return to our natural water source, (groundwater).
Nah, thats not true at all.
Water that hits the sewer system goes through incredibly intense sanitation and filtering out of all the filth before going into the ocean as clean water, where it eventually evaporates and then rains back down into drinking catchments. Cycles round and round
But it doesn’t go directly from the sewer processing plant back into your home pipes, which is how I believed it worked for most of my life. Is what I’m trying to say.
ah. Oh god . Thank god that doesn’t happen.
