Hi everyone.
Yes, I did leave a note in the "I'm back" thread. <!-- s

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--> It's been so long since I've been here, that I've been reading through all the new posts. I just thought with this that I'd give a heads-up as to where I'm at, now (before I forget, again).
Basically...I can't really recall the last time I was here, but a lot has happened, and I'm not sure how much of it I should really divulge (as the Internet is Forever). I've made a new acquaintance IRL that reminded me of this place, I suppose I can say. <!-- s

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--> With myself, I've hit an area where I'm not totally trusting of the "faith" aspect of human existence.
That being said, the plurality is something that is unavoidable. However, the way this is seeming to work out is that I have at least two entities who are seeming to be parts of each other, and one of those writes under three different variant names. I have a strong inkling, paying attention to what I've been told to pay attention to before, that there's some past-life history in Asia. I do not know, however, if the Asian past-life influence is seeming to come from absorbed spirit friends or spirit guides, or whether they're native to the being who started out in this body -- of if it just happens to be cultural training from this life, of which there no longer is memory.
I'm not at this point specifically identifying as Otherkin. This is owing to the "lack of faith" thing that I mentioned above -- I had another fairly messed-up experience in the online plural community (yes, *another* one) -- and I came to the realization shortly ago that I had the capability of using the concepts of spirituality and religion to avoid dealing with things that needed to be dealt with in actual-life. Such as the gender-identity portion of all this, and the identity-building that it seems most people completed a while ago, which has enabled them to move on past that point (and do things like interact intimately with other people, which is hard when you aren't acting as who you are, and don't fully know who you are).
But the gender-identity stuff is a major building block of that "knowing who I am", and I'm still, really, developing it. Luckily, I have some support on that front, right now. At this point, I'm thinking that I'm probably not going to take testosterone (body's female, remember), but I may eventually go ahead with social transition. That's, *may*...because what I am is not fully either a man or woman, and that ties into the plurality thing in such a way that I'm not sure I could ever go full-time as either a man *or* a woman. What I'm thinking of is eventually transitioning to the point where I have obvious muscles, probably curves (depending on whether they disappear or not), keeping my chest, and mixing-and-matching the gender cues of my hair, glasses, clothing, shoes, and makeup. It would be nice if my voice were lower, but I can't do that without risking tons more body and facial hair (in addition to head hair loss), and I don't want that *now*. <!-- s

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--> So I'm not really sure if, being at this kind of "androgynous" place, I'd really need to socially transition (change my name and pronouns) -- but it could be fun. <!-- s

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Religiously, I've diverted from the line I was at, the last time I was here; back into using a relatively Buddhist worldview. However, I'm not Buddhist in the sense of agreeing with the Four Noble Truths or Eightfold Path or practicing the Six Perfections. Hell, I hardly meditate. But I'm consistently interested in the Buddhist stuff, even when the study makes me irritated or angry (largely at things like hypocrisy, justifications of hypocrisy, dishonesty, ignorance, and obvious riddles/obscurations that I've seen, which is basically due to the fact that Buddhists, generally speaking, have the flaw of being human). So I have been considering the possibility that I'm dealing with having once held a Bodhisattva ideal, but at this point being jaded instead of naive. <!-- s

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I have also been considering the concept of having been interested or involved in Daoism, which would explain the "demon" and "darkness" things I'd been talking about before -- but I haven't been able to deeply investigate this as of yet. It's just that the two lines -- Buddhism and Daoism -- coexisted in a particular place and time...unfortunately, this would be in China, which I'm scared to travel to (being not-straight and not-mentally-standard, plus there's that thing where China recently outlawed reincarnation [to give an excuse to arrest the Dalai Lama if he traveled to China, I'm guessing], which would also be a mark against me, since I'm talking, at least in part, about reincarnation).
But, ages change, dynasties rise and fall. I'm sure that at some point in the future, it will be safe again. Just -- not now. <!-- s

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Ah -- being called away. Will be back.