Brain Spew in Lieu of Wit

It's been a very emotional week. I finally made it out of the depression of the past two months and I had a bit of a pain flare-up at the start. I'm still catching up from all of the chores that fell by the wayside while I was depressed and I'm frustrated that I haven't been making more progress. I found out yesterday that my paternal grandfather (Grandpa) had a stroke on Friday. He's recovering, but it's dug up a lot of complicated feelings that I haven't really given myself time to mete through. Bosco (my beautiful Great Dane) has some skin condition that's causing his hair to come out in patches. We've been fighting a flea infestation for a while now, but the skin thing is new. My day job is only getting me 20-30 hours a week and I'm trying to do the freelance thing, but the hustle is so hard when I'm fighting my brain and body. I am seeing improvement, overall - I'm healthier than I've been in a long time, my credit score has vast...

I've been trying to find a neat way of presenting this post, but I don't know if there is one.  So, I've kind of imposed order on my rambling. Here's hoping it makes sense... *** I came out as genderqueer on social media last week. I didn't tell anyone in my life face-to-face until afterwards. I'm 32 and my relationship with gender has never been straightforward. I had to untangle a lot of competing narratives and internalized misogyny to reach this place of self-acceptance. While it is far from the case for everyone, I had to come to terms with femininity being valid before I could fully realized my identity as a genderqueer person. I have never been femme. As a child, I was oft described as a tomboy and many family members lamented my resistance to dresses, skirts, and ladylike behavior. Unfortunately, this quickly evolved into being "different from other girls." I'm a geek, one of the guys. I spent a lot of time trying to hide my body un...