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