This feels vaguely like climbing, stiffly and slowly, back behind the wheel of a truck I left by the side of the road years ago. I wonder if I can still handle this rig.

Hard to believe, but it’s been nearly a decade since my last post. In that time, we’ve had Covid, and social upheaval the likes of which I have never seen before. And, not to complain or anything, but no matter how pressing the issues of the day are, those guys in power and media always manage to find the time and energy to throw transgender people under the bus in their spare time.

I am not very much politically inclined, though I do allow that as events unfold, more of us may very well find we have no choice but to get involved.

For now, though, I just hope this is only a phase we are going through – a pendulum swing of sorts. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I’ve just been living life. Just an ordinary gal doing her everyday thing. For all the wild parties and special trips, blogging and social media, for all the impossible heels and latex dresses, for all the clubs and bars that populated the earlier days of my transition, this is pretty much the epitome of everything I wanted as I grew fully into my womanhood. Realness. Normalcy. Peace. With those nine or so years added to my register, I am less of a spring chicken than I ever was, and that too makes for a more sedate Janie.

And y’know, it made me start reminiscing about all I’d been through as I undertook my epic transformation, things before even, but mainly the inner process and the incredibly wonderful people I met along the way – people I would have surely missed had I not been on the path less traveled.

One evening, I kicked off my slippers and cozied up to the fireplace and started writing down those thoughts… and they just gushed out of me! Any time I had a moment, I’d sit down to write and the words would just flow. Before I knew it, I had accumulated the bare bones of a book.

I looked at myself in the mirror with amazement, not really believing how I had come to the point where I could realistically see myself as an author. But what I was writing was good! And there was so much more potential to be unlocked and I could see clearly just how to do it!

I’m sure there are thousands upon thousands of aspiring writers out there that are thinking the same way about their own efforts, and all but the tiniest percentage of us, myself absolutely included, will ever find a publisher.

But at this age, I have a dream – and that’s no small thing! I am energized by this and I have already started visualizing what my next book will be.