My uncle whom I haven’t seen for many years told me this weekend past that I had “that pregnancy glow thing going on”, and that he could see it even if I couldn’t.

I don’t, you know.

What I do have is the feeling that, for the first time in a long while, I am happy.
Last time he saw me I was a barely-past teenager and discontented for all I was worth. I was in a relationship that I had an inkling was going nowhere two years in (yet I stuck it out another five!) with a boy stuck in a man’s body, I was desperately poor, and it looked like I was going to continue on that way indefinitely. None of my dreams or hopes for my future looked like they’d ever be achieved.

I have achieved and done so much since then. I now have a partner whom I can see myself growing old with, we don’t have a lot of money, but we have enough, I know I’m capable of supporting myself through work, I know just how well I can live off the money I can make, I’ve lived alone here in Australia and in a sharehouse in London, and I FINALLY got to see Paris, probably my oldest dream.
And I know it’s not forever, and sometimes I still cry or feel a bit panicked, but overall I feel happy. Life is good.