Music of My Heart

A very good friend of mine has been burning discs of music for me that I might catch up on some of the different genres she and my other young friends grew up on. I missed a lot of what went on in popular music from the middle 70's into the nineties. It wasn't because I wasn't listening to music. It was because I was listening to the Contemporary Christian Music, or Jesus Rock of those days.

I've been thinking of finding a Pandora channel of Jesus Rock of and on for a week or so. Somehow the emotional turmoil of my therapy session and I'm not sure what else had my emotions feeling like a tossed salad last night. This morning is better, but the waters of my heart aren't yet calm. So I decided I'd find some music on Pandora to play in background today. I first tried the iconic Keith Green. The music they had lined up for that channel was performed by the artists I wanted to listen to but it was mostly classic hymns and choruses arranged in a more contemporary vein. It wasn't what I was looking for. I then found a Randy Stonehill channel. It didn't take more than a few bars of the first song to remember how invested in this music I was. I choked up. I am still invested in this music. The Music of My Heart.

It started with Randy's "I've Got News for You," and Phil Keaggy's "When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God." I didn't hear Ray Boltz (one of my all time favorites) or Jennifer Knapp. But they played the Newsboys' "Shine." Most of this channel is later than I remember starting listening but it moved me and made me smile. I remember these songs and how they moved me before. They moved me again today.

And it was good!

You Can't Hurry Love

My 2ndDaughter, Debra, was listening to a song this afternoon that reminded her of me. She'a been very aware and sensitive to how much I've struggled with being alone, how much I've wanted a partner, how much, sometimes, I'd just like to have a date. I know that Debra has cried for me from time to time. So, this afternoon, she sent me an email telling me she'd been listening to Phil Collins' version of "You Can't Hurry Love."

Her love choked me up.

Chokes me up.

Constantly.

And her email made me smile, too, because I remembered sending her snippets of 60's songs to help her have a different perspective on her dating journey early on. And telling her to pay attention to my advice because she would eventually have to feed it back to me. I did a search of our chats over the years to see if I had sent her the same song. It wasn't there, but it started me reading our first chats.

Back before I was "Momma" or even "Mom."

I was "Shannon" or "Hey, girl!"

We talked about my divorce and my name change.

We talked about her nails. She has always liked her nails painted even before she was out at work and always wore them for the weekends.

We talked about my orchie and her surgery.

We talked about dinner, and PFLAG, and church.

It was a very heart-tugging moment to read those chats this afternoon. We have shared so much and grown so much in the 3-plus years we've been, first as new trans-women, then very good friends, and then Mom and Daughter. Growth is rarely painless. And we've been there for each other. I know that she is concerned about me. I worry about her. It is because of her that I have come to know I am a mom and how much I love being her mom. (Well, Annabelle has helped a lot, too!)



Debra is my best friend. She is my Daughter. I am so proud when she calls me momma.
And I choke up.

Trust

Life takes us to unexpected places;

Love brings us home.

Years ago, I would have said that I was trusting… too trusting. I have been very quick to trust the promises and statements of people around me. Sometimes, I still am a very trusting person. I do not look at people I think of as friends and family and immediately distrust them about things. About "things."

I would have told you that I was very trusting about promises of friendship, love and support. I don't know now that if that was ever really true. I don't know when my trust of those I loved started to be eroded or if I never could completely trust my family, my friends, the people I loved.

I know that, now, it is very hard for me to trust anyone very deeply with my heart. I don't know if I will ever really be able to trust my children with my heart again. I do know that it hurts my 2ndDaughter a great deal that I don't completely trust her. She knows that my feeling is that everyone I have ever loved has left me. She promises that is not true for her. And my heart trusts her a little. I try to do the actions of trust for the rest of it as scary as that is for me. Sometimes I am not so good at the actions.

And though I love Poppa dearly, and I know He loves me, it is still sometimes hard to trust him for His Promises. I trust Him and the One Who Loves me that He will never leave me and when my body dies, my spirit will be with Him. But all the prayers I've prayed over my gender and my family and the family He chose for me… well… He has answered a lot of them, just not the way I had in mind.

Recently, I realized that My 2ndDaughter's parents are still on Poppa's mind. That they might be reunited with their Daughter. This is what I want for her; this is what I pray of Poppa for. But I fear it too. I fear that there will be no place for me in her life any more. I wrestled with Poppa over my prayers for her family's return to her and my fears. Now I pray that Poppa do right by my 2ndDaughter and it will be right by me, too, however it turns out. But it is hard for me to trust Him to bring me through that moment when it comes without a lot of pain. But I will do the actions of trust.

All my dear friends know how much I want a partner to share my life with and they all tell me that there is someone out there for me. It is something I pray for. But… but… I have come to not trust that this is so. There has been very little in my life since I started living authentically as the person Poppa planned in the beginning for me to be to encourage me that there is someone special for me, that I can love and trust and she love and trust me. He has given me wonderful people to be Mom to and I love them dearly, but they are not my partner and they would not want to be my partner… the good fit is as Mom and Daughters.

So I have to trust, to have faith… "the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen."

Goals for the New Year

I have never been a person to make resolutions. I'd break them before the ink was dry. And I am not really a goal-oriented person. I tend to just go with the flow; more often than not shooting rapids without a paddle.

But this year needs to be different. There things in my life I have at least some control over that I want to happen for me. And so, I have given some thought to some serious goals that I want to attain this year. Many are intertwined, some more closely than others. This is my list.

Improve My Health…
Get my Diabetes under control and my A1c under 8%
Lose 30 lbs.
Improve my wind.
Improve my balance and flexibility
Get scheduled for my Gender Confirmation Surgery

Improve My Golf…
Improve my balance and flexibility
Improve my wind
Play a round of golf under 90 for 18 holes
Play in at least 2 tournaments

Walk 9 holes.

Get a Job…
Find a volunteer position
Get regular work
Find a job with medical benefits

Other Goals…
Find a church home
Develop a workflow with my photography
Sell at least 2 pictures
Go back to Yellowstone

Are you happy...

One night, many years ago in w different life, when I was putting my 1stDaughter to bed.in her crib, she asked me, "Are you happy and proud of me, Daddy?" And I told her, "Oh, yes! I am very happy and proud of you!" I tried to always make her know that I am very happy and proud of her.

Some nights, when I go to bed I fond myself wondering if I make my dear ones happy and proud of me.

Tonight, more than my dear ones, I want to know if my Poppa is happy and proud of me.  I want nothing as much as I want to hear Him say to me, "Well done my good and faithful Daughter!"

You're my Mom!

I am sometimes (often? most of the time?) a very insecure person.  I don't understand what I mean to a lot of the people I love.  I have a very hard time thinking I am special.  And yet I have all these marvelous people who love me and think that I am truly a rare find!  But I don't understand it at all.

I have tried to be a good mom to my Second Daughter.  It is a challenge, not because of her, but because I do not want to let her grow up and be who she is.  I want to hold on to her and to be involved in everything she does.  But she has grown up and has earned her freedom and a life to call her own.  I am not doing well with "empty nest."

And when she is with me, when we are together, I don't understand why she wants to spend time with me.  I am a wet-blanket and nothing like as fun as her boyfriend or some of her girlfriends.  And when I bemoan my lack of understanding, she tells me, in exasperation, "You're my Mom!" like that explains everything!  I stand there without any comprehension of what it means to her for me to be her mom.  I don't know why I don't understand.

Tonight, I got a clue...

I was the oldest, the first-born, of three brothers.  I do not remember feeling special to my mother.  I was never able to make her feel proud of me.  Nothing I did was good enough.  I could not make her show me her love.  After Poppa knows how long, I became just this child, confused and alone, who lived in the same house with my mom and dad and my brothers.  I felt no real connection to anyone but my next younger brother (who happened to be Mom's favorite.)

I have no experience of what it means to love my mom.  I have no reference point when Debra tells me, "You're my Mom!"

Dealing With Anger . . .

  . . . Finally!

At my therapy session last week, I brought up something in my current life where I could see me acting out in anger. I was curious and worried where it came from.  It had to do with a relationship with a man and . . . while I don't have an attraction or an antipathy to men, in this one context I could see myself taking out my anger, punishing, a man.  It isn't pretty in my imagination.  It isn't who I want to be.  I don't believe it is who I am.  

I wanted to explore where it came from.  I wasn't so much interested in dealing with my anger, just understanding where it came from and, hopefully, keep that demon bottled up.

I've been seeing my therapist for almost four years.  She is an excellent match for me and a lot of the things I have worked through she has been a huge help and support. But!  But, it took me well over a year to express my sadness and sorrow and grief to the point where I could cry in front of her.  I am sure she was wondering when or if I would ever get to my anger.

When I was younger, a long, long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away ...  up 'til I was about 15, I had a very volatile, very violent temper.  I didn't get in to more than a few physical confrontations with people, but I broke a lot of things in my anger and rage.  The last real outbreak of my anger, that I can remember, was with my Dad.  I started a physical fight with him.  I wanted to hurt him and hurt him bad!  He was 44 at the time, in fairly good physical shape and in reasonable command of his body.  I was fifteen, bigger than he was but I really didn't know anything about fighting with another person.  The result was that I couldn't do anything to him but kind of wrestle around.  Mom came out to break up the fight.  Dad said we were just funnin' and laughed it off.  My mom looked at me and said, "I don't think so."  Dad never really laid a finger on me, but he cut me to my heart with the way he dismissed and made a joke of my anger.  That was the last time I really let my anger out.  After that...  after that, I would be obviously angry on occasions, but I wouldn't say anything or do anything outward -- I would just steam inside.  My anger would be very hard for me to let go.  Over time, I've come to bury it deeper and deeper.  I would just eat it. (and eating is one of the things I do when I'm angry -- there's a reason I'm 40lbs overweight)  I tried to be an "adult" about it and rationalize my anger.  I would very rarely take it out and look at it and own it or find the legitimate things about what I was angry about and deal with them.

Ephesians 4:26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. So says Poppa's Book.  I don't know that I've heard of where it says how to  "be angry but sin not.."  but the point is, being angry is a legitimate emotion.  Where things are wrong are in rage and in not processing the anger.  In my head, I knew, know this verse, but never, Never have been able to own my anger and deal with it in a way that is healthy for me and healthy for those around me.  I just don't really know how.

And my anger scares me!  Scares me to death!  I don't know where the anger ends and the Rage begins.  I don't know when I'm being angry over nothing or over little things or when I am angry about a principle that is important to me.  I am afraid I might do physical harm to people I love.  I am afraid I might irreparably damage and tear relationships that are precious to me.  I am afraid I will end up alone.  For these reasons, I pull into myself, away from people and try to just let things cool to a place where I can function with people again.  But I do not deal with the anger.

And I have a lot to be angry over. Some of it reasonable, some not so...

I am angry that I didn't do what I could to transition in college when I first thought of it.  Or again when I was in my thirties.  I am angry I threw away the opportunity to be a young and reasonably attractive woman.  I am angry that I threw away a chance to have a life-partner.

By keeping the secret of my gender (even from myself in a lot of ways), I froze out people who I wanted desperately to have a close relationship with.  That especially includes my Ex and my Children.

I am angry that my Ex abandoned me.  I deserved better -- "In sickness and in health, till death do us part."

I am angry that my First Daughter and Son abandoned me.  I  deserve better!  I gave up my girlhood so they could get through college before having to really deal with their Dad's gender.

I am very angry that one of my mentors when I first came out threw away our relationship.  

I am angry that a woman I had thought my best friend (after my Second Daughter) has cut me off.

I am angry that another really good friend doesn't talk to me anymore.  She thinks I've abandoned her but she left the relationship a long time before I stopped making the effort.  I am angry that I don't know how to reach out to her.

I have all this anger and more and I do not know at all how to tap it to let the anger go and be healthy.

My therapist was almost bouncing that I started to express my anger.  And assured me that our sessions are a safe place for me to express my anger.  But I need to learn how to express it in my everyday life in a way that is honest and authentic with the people I love.