a lot of my kidpix art is cathartic, or therapeutic, or what-have-you. This one especially.

In the weeks leading up to my top surgery (radical breast reduction, if you wanna be specific) i couldnt stop doubting myself. questioning my decisions. wondering if id regret it as soon as i woke up after surgery.

it just kept running through my head:

Please tell me im doing the right thing.

I just needed someone's assurance, i guess. that this was the right thing. this is what i was supposed to do, what i had to do.

Because i knew if i regretted it, or if it wasnt right, i only had myself to blame. and that was a really tough idea to stomach.
That years of wanting, and planning, and saving, and researching, and doctors appointments, and therapist appointments, and surgeon consultations, and ten years of my life all working towards this singular goal —

That maybe it was wrong.

It was hard enough having to defend my decisions to people. To my surgeon, to my parents, to random men on the internet who wanted to know how fuckable my body would be to them, to my parents, again,

All the research. the explaining why i was doing things a certain way. why i was doing it in the first place. assuring my parents that no, i didnt hate myself. no, it wasnt their fault. i dont know whos fault it was. nature vs nurture. plenty of women get top surgery and breast reductions. nevermind the fact that im not actually a woman, but whatever. No, i dont really care if i have nipples. No, really. I just dont. Yes, i get erogenous sensation from them. No, i dont plan on breastfeeding. I dont plan on getting pregnant.

("nobody plans on getting pregnant", apparently. which sends a wave of stale discomfort through my body that I can't quite explain and that i decide not to dwell on.)

No, i dont care about losing them.

(even though maybe i do, but i cant say it out loud, because if im anything except 100% sure of going ahead with this, maybe i shouldn't be doing it. But not going ahead with it isnt an option. I cant go on like this. Staying this way isnt an option. Maybe i dont know what i want. Maybe i dont know what's best for me. Why am i mutilating myself like that for no reason at all?)

This idea that i had worked and fought so hard for this to happen, and I'd then realise that i had been wrong. The thought made me sick. It was constant. The pre-emptive regret curled like cold slime somewhere in the base of my throat.

This thing i had been so excited about, my dream, became a sort of lazy waking nightmare. I told myself it didn't matter what other people thought. But it did. I was surprised by the way it hurt whenever I had to defend my choices.
It was hard to explain that my current reality was so painful and unhappy that anything would have been an improvement. That i didnt care that much about the destination; i just knew i had to get the fuck out of what was already happening. I guess its easy to forget that some people dont feel like theyre being constantly betrayed by their own body. Its hard to capture the unfairness of it all.

The seeds of doubt had been planted. So my mind ran with it.

I actually sat down to make this canvas quite a few days after the initial idea for it popped into my head.

Even though it started as this cathartic dumping of my thoughts and feelings, and the hope it would bring me some peace or clarity- I came to that conclusion on my own. I sat down to make this with the feeling that it would be okay. That everything would be okay, in the universal truth sort of way, but also that getting top surgery would be okay.
That it would be great, actually. That this was going to make me feel happy and safe and myself in a way that I had only dreamt of before.

And we cant know anything for certain. Because there is still the possibility i wont be happy, that i might regret it when i wake up, or years down the line i am a different person and i wished my body was different, maybe the same way i wish it was different now.

But i also know im not happy now. And that i would regret it more if i did nothing at all, and never tried to make it better. And maybe it's wishful thinking, but i dont think my future self would begrudge me too hard for my choices.

I guess its about making things a certain way. Like shaping your own destiny. Gritting your teeth and steeling yourself and just fucking doing it because you cant just keep doing nothing, because it isnt working. The world goes on. The earth will keep spinning.

This is the right thing. It has to be.