checkpoint

book/content/gender/surgery.tex

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+\null
+\vfill
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+  Saturday is for mechanics.\\
+  Sunday is for terror.\\
+  Monday is for acceptance.\\
+  Tuesday is for purging.\\
+  Wednesday is for anxiety.\\
+  Thursday is for sleep.
+\end{verse}
+\vfill
+
+\newpage
+
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+  It is surprisingly hard to think something real\\
+  when every indication, every word, all you feel\\
+  tells you that that must not be the case.\\
+  There's no easy way to make yourself face\\
+  that which your emotions continually deny,\\
+  no matter how true you know it to be.\\!
+  \vinphantom{no matter how true you know it to be.} But why\\
+  must all these contradictions claim events\\
+  that mean the most to us? What prevents\\
+  them from taking the unimportant? The small?\\
+  Is the import just to big? Can we not fit all\\
+  of the thing in our heads? Are we too weak?\\
+  Is the life-changing too vast to explore, to seek\\
+  out every corner?
+\end{verse}
+
+\begin{ally}
+  Have you considered that your constant seeking\\
+  \noindent may be the problem? That your anxieties leaking\\
+  \noindent all over may be what's preventing you\\
+  \noindent from recognizing what's actually true:\\
+  \noindent you can do things for yourself. It's allowed.
+\end{ally}
+
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+  It also doesn't help that there were so many delays.\\
+  The scheduler losing my application, and me counting days\\
+  after those who consulted after me got their dates;\\
+  The mishap of the letters, and me rushing past gates\\
+  and their keepers; countless thoughts of countless regrets ---\\
+  regrets which hadn't yet happened --- as mom frets\\
+  that maybe I will wind up hating my new body.\\
+  And why not? Why not fret? Surgery! How gaudy.\\
+  I fight with myself enough over how this surgery\\
+  is plastic, how I'm just doing something sugary\\
+  to somehow make myself somewhat more appealing.\\
+  How trite. How selfish. How lame. How revealing\\
+  of my bottomless shallowness.
+\end{verse}
+
+\begin{ally}
+  Your saving grace being, as always, dysphoria:\\
+  \noindent more than any cough or cold, more than your chorea,\\
+  \noindent it provided you with a problem. Something fixable.\\
+  \noindent It gave you a tangible solution to something integral\\
+  \noindent that plagued you.
+\end{ally}
+
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+  That I had something I could concrete at which to point\\
+  that would be fixed by this act, I could thus annoint\\
+  it as somehow more worthy, something worth doing.\\
+  If I could go through some process of ungluing,\\
+  excise this thing from myself I might become whole\\
+  in some way never before imagined.\\!
+  \vinphantom{in some way never before imagined.} Ah, but the toll.\\
+  There must always some arbitrary price to pay ---\\
+  Self-actualization must never be free --- and hey,\\
+  Everything in society must come with a reason.\\
+  To come up with letters, proof, for that season\\
+  of change must serve some sort of divine end.\\
+  To wait eighteen long months, to refuse to bend\\
+  to others' whims\ldots{}
+\end{verse}
+
+\begin{ally}
+  You got your letters, you got your date, you did it.\\
+  \noindent You did your labor, you did your time. They let you fidget\\
+  \noindent and twist in the wind. Hell, they did it to you twice.\\
+  \noindent Your letters only good for one year, you had to ask nice\\
+  \noindent for a second set.
+\end{ally}
+
+\begin{verse}[1.01\textwidth]
+  Yes.\\!
+  \vinphantom{Yes. } To preempt your 'why', I followed my own advice:\\
+  If I feel the same when I'm depressed as I do when I feel nice,\\
+  It's a thing worth doing. Eighteen months is time enough\\
+  to let at least two depressive cycles call my own bluff.\\
+  When they did not, when I panicked at having to reapply\\
+  and still pulled through in time, well, no need to justify\\
+  my actions any further. That's when it all became real.\\
+  That's when I was in. That's when I could tell just by feel\\
+  that I was ready for this change. I wasn't \emph{ready} ready,\\
+  but I was ready enough to come off as rock steady\\
+  when I called the surgeon's office. I was visibly confident,\\
+  even at the pre-operative appointments, totally cognizant\\
+  that I didn't deserve this.
+\end{verse}
+
+\begin{ally}
+  Whether or not you deserve this is not up for debate.\\
+  \noindent Not because you do or don't so much as because the hand fate\\
+  \noindent dealt you. You had the job, you had the insurance, the means.\\
+  \noindent You made the call. You took the step. You passed the screens.\\
+  \noindent \textbf{You} did this.
+\end{ally}
+\newpage