The #43

For the record, I do regret having to cancel any possible trip to the UK next year.

When I had gone the first time, I had taken on the attitude that this would be the one and only opportunity I would have to do so. Every time I visited an ATM, every time I paid a bill that I had to mentally multiple by 200%, I told myself this. In the end, the total monetary cost of the trip was some $1000 including airfare.

While that doesn't seem like much, $1000 becomes an awful lot of money when you're staring down a minimum of $8500.

When I was still new to my Transition, an elder transwoman offered me this advice: "If you ever intend to have surgery, do not let anything get in your way. Don't try to 'save' others like yourself. Don't barrow or spend money that you should put toward surgery. It will break your heart to do so, but that's what it takes.

It's not that I don't want to visit again. I would love to. I would see all the people I met in person for a second time. I want to visit the British Museam again. I want to take the London Underground when I'm tired an exhasted. I want to walk down the center of the piccadilly in Manchester at midday, listening to a chorus of accent and idiom so different from my own.

But I can't. I made a promise to myself. And I'm sorry.