Tori: No. Just no.

I'm really flattered you guys haven't forgotten about me. Every so often I read a comment asking about me and it makes me want to write a big post updating you on my life. But the sad truth is there was not a lot to update you on. Working, dating, living, being me... I felt for a while it was nice to step back and stop using this blog to explain to myself that it was okay to be okay with my life, that nothing about it was new anymore and it was good to get comfy and go along with the ride. I said it was the sad truth, but it's also the awesome truth. I've gotten to a place I've never felt in either of my lives.

Alex-- that is my boyfriend Alex, not Greg's current body -- is exactly what I've needed in my life. He's really stable. After a long settling-in period, we got really comfortable with each other, learned each other's needs and wants and now we're jsut so... I don't wanna say perfect, but like I said, stable. It's just so awesome to have someone to throw my arms around at night.

I realized over the Holidays that I love him. We were having dinner with my family, and I don't know, he was just kidding around with dad and I was just watching him, being so cute and I thought "I love this guy. This is real."

Then I got scared. I haven't said that to anyone in years, and it was not like this. I contemplated saying it to Buddy, but we were way off base on that. There were risks here, too, though. It was laying my feelings bare to a man who means the world to me, and it was admitting to myself how badly I needed him in my life. How much of a woman I wanted to be for him. Before I could say it, I tried to forget I ever wasn't Tori. I thought that would make it easier, but it was impossible. There's still baggage there. There's still this feeling that I'm lying to him just a little bit, even as every day passes and makes me more Tori and more his.

So I dove in and told him. Christmas eve. It was a beautiful night and we were out for a drive and we stopped at a gas station. He got out to fill the tank and I was sitting in there waiting for him, when something just grabbed me and made me leave the car and walk over to him. The look on his face before I said it, so clueless. I just took a breath, watched the steam come out of my mouth and said it. "Hey. I love you."

It was a really gutsy move, since if he didn't feel the same way, it would have wrecked the ride home, maybe even Christmas.

He just smiled and said "I knew that. I love you too."

I felt my legs turn to rubber. I nearly fell on him. Even remembering that moment now takes my breath away. I threw myself into his arms and we kissed. He pulled the pump from the tank and we hurried home.

And for a while it was bliss. Waking up in the morning thinking about how in love I am will do that.

Then in January I got this e-mail.

It was a long e-mail. It was apologetic. It had a lot of details about the last few years and why certain things happened the way they did. It was from Willy Taylor, and the gist of it was "I'm going back to Maine this Summer, and if you'd like, you can have your real body back."

Uh.

My "real" body?

I was gobsmacked. My life is so full of hanging threads, I thought this would never come up again. I just assumed Willy had gone off with my old body and was happy with it. But somehow, now, he's decided he's ready to "give it back?" Like I should be grateful for the chance to be that person again? Like being Cliff would be better just because he as a penis?

I didn't even think of it. I didn't even reply! Every time I tried I just got so outraged my fingers couldn't stop shaking. I don't want to go back, but that doesn't mean the hurt has gone away. That feeling of utterly sinking away from myself after he first told me he wanted another year with my body (which turned into TWO by the way) will always be with me. And even though it allowed me to become the person I am now, it still hurt like hell and he can't make that better. It wasn't even malice. It was just insensitive. I don't know what I'd even say, other than "No thanks."

How dare he re-open that wound? After that e-mail I went back to where I was a year earlier, second-guessing everything, falling out of "character" with this cloud of "Cliff-ness" hanging over over me. Every time I seemed upset about something since then, Alex could sense I needed to be comforted, but he never pushed too hard for information. He's there for me. He's so good for putting up with my nonsense. And so trusting not to ask questions I don't wanna answer.

I don't know what the future holds, but my present is well in hand.