Hello, and welcome to another edition of Ame’s Hammy Jamming!
As customary when I kick these posts off: I am Amethysta (Ame), I can act a bit like a ham, and I will be writing this post with little preparation other than thinking about the last month of my life. To wit: Ame’s Hammy Jamming.
I started this series of articles last year when I felt depressed. Ticking over the accomplishments of the month before helped me see I had made progress, and I felt better for having written it.
The past two weeks have been troubled. I think my state of mind could appropriately be named “depressed.” I wrote above I have little preparation for this article, but that isn’t completely accurate. This post took my entire life — up to now — to write.
You, the Reader, are part of my life, part of why I write. I hope reading what I think and feel establishes a connection between us. I want to be connected to you.
I don’t want the connection for your sake — as if I have information for society to take, to believe, and to become homogeneous. I want the connection for my sake — to feel a part of our world and our community. Thank you for taking your time to read something I wrote.
The Amethysta Brand
In the last Jamming post, I mentioned I launched The Amethysta Brand. I created a Substack publication as well as accounts on Instagram, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube…I think that’s it. I even made a lovely coffee mug on Zazzle with my tagline: “Making Transgender Normal Since 2022.”
While I would love to report The Amethysta Brand has been wildly successful, with tons of followers, a book deal, and options for a movie…the truth is more humble. What I realize from doing my own marketing, however, is that I did not define success before I began marketing. That realization in itself led to many other thoughts, one of which I will write later this week.
I am about to begin a series on Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way,” which you can follow on Substack. That may sound like a non sequitur, but realizing my creative potential was supposed to be the purpose of launching a brand. I think I’m growing in how I visualize not just my own success, but what it truly means to be successful in modern society.
Transcurrent Explosion
Speaking of success, a great conversation I had yesterday made me realize just how awesome the Transcurrent Explorers Discord server is. In case I haven’t mentioned it enough times, Transcurrent Explorers (TCE) is a community I started last November to provide a place where anybody could explore gender identity. I believe I had very little to do with the level of awesome TCE has reached today, which is why the conversation yesterday was fascinating.
Sometimes we set events in motion that end very differently to how we expected. That is the case with TCE, which has far outstripped the (rather low) expectations I had at the beginning. I went into it thinking I would be forced to put my face on camera and my voice in speakers, which would cause me to grow into my role as a transgender woman very quickly.
It turns out the growth was only OK, but something much better happened along the way. I made some great friends and true connections. TCE has blossomed into a real community where I am challenged and have grown in ways I hadn’t even considered.
TCE has become more than an exploration of gender identity, although identity is still an aspect. We now have a Dungeons & Dragons campaign going (we are doing “The Wild Beyond the Witchlight,” which has proved to be a blast). After three sessions, seeing the characters become real people in the game world has (for me, at least) helped me think about what it takes to manifest our identities in this (slightly less lustrous) real world.
I won’t tell the group just yet, but I bought three other adventures recently (I can stop anytime… There was a sale on Amazon…?), and I hope I can play with my friends for years to come.
Role-playing games are now “cool” (thank you, Stranger Things), but I did not expect to learn about my own identity playing them. Perhaps the people have acted as an unexpected catalyst; all I know is that I am growing as more than a transgender woman.
Finding peace in transition
Of course, I love to give an update about my transition, so here goes. I’ve been depressed the last couple of weeks, as I mentioned. I believe that stems from having gotten to a place in transition where I don’t have very large problems to attack any longer.
I wrote about my body in my journal last weekend. That sounds innocuous, but the event stood out because as I wrote about my body, there were no feelings of disgust. There were no feelings of discomfort. Writing about my body triggered an almost-positive feeling — I realized it could be a pleasure to take care of this body that has gone through so much.
I abused myself in many ways — with substances and self-mortification, for example. I have never loved how I look. I hated my face, hated my body, hated almost everything about me, and I could go on and on about my flaws. That is, perhaps, a common transgender experience.
This past weekend, I wore a purple knee-length skirt and a plain blue top. I saw myself in the mirror a few times during the day and thought to myself “…I look good.” It was praise grudgingly given, because so unfamiliar.
But I think I look all right. After 52 years of looking at myself in disappointment, I can look at myself and like it.
I will celebrate my 53rd birthday later this month (the word “celebrate” might be a bit forceful — after about 50, we tend to tolerate birthdays as opposed to celebrate them). It will be my first birthday as Amethysta. I can finally look in the mirror, see The Reflection, and see myself.
To get back to my point, the large problems — clothes, hair, makeup, voice, legal name — I’ve addressed most of what I needed to. I still would like to round out my wardrobe, there are plenty of colors I want to dye my hair, and expressing myself is a lifelong practice, but overall, the really hard problems are under control.
Most people would expect me to be content, not depressed. I’ve done well in the eight months since I began transition. My problem is that I equate productivity with self-worth. As the tasks that seemed insurmountable eight months ago reach completion, I am getting antsy. I don’t have anything to work on. Even though I found many ways to be myself (and some of them actually worked), what I focus on is what does not work.
I’ve given myself homework for the next month — maybe I can provide a status update in the next Jamming article. My homework is to discover how to live. I don’t mean how I have lived — in continual crisis mode, with every day filled with more tasks than I can reasonably accomplish without burnout. I mean just…to live — in society, with you, in peace.
I like myself now — certainly more than I have liked myself in the past. I need to care for myself. I didn’t complete the prompt I wrote last month regarding self-care: I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to live just a peaceful life.
Until next month — thank you for your support, your praise, and your love!
