I know I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: I love music. Mainly I love music that has great lyrics. Any kind of music – if the words touch my heart, I can listen to it. It must be so fulfilling to be a songwriter. I have always loved music and as a child it allowed me to slip into my own little world.

My mom and dad had this big stereo and I loved listening to their records. I would put on Marty Robbins and act out all the songs, like “Big Iron,” “El Paso,” and “The Strawberry Roan.” I also loved listening to Connie Frances, but my favorite even as a kid was Hank Williams – not Jr., but his dad. I loved the lyrics and related to them even then. Believe it or not, my favorite song as a kid was, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”  Weird, right? Just goes to show that I have been me for a long, long time.

I remember when I was a kid my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, “A town and country singer.”  My sister started laughing because I meant country and western singer. My mom was sweet; she didn’t laugh. I have always loved music, but unfortunately I never learned to play an instrument. And now that I’m an adult, I am still drawn to words and music that speak straight to my soul.

As I was leaving radiation today, I started listening to a Neil Young CD. I love so many of his songs but one particular line in the song “Unknown Legend” just blows me away. He sings,

“Somewhere on a desert highway, she rides a Harley-Davidson
Her long blonde hair flyin’ in the wind
She’s been runnin’ half her life, the chrome and steel she rides
Colliding with the very air she breathes, the air she breathes.”

I love that last line. I think it is amazing: “Colliding with the very air she breathes.”  We all listen to music and it speaks to us in different ways. I have always loved that line. When I think about the lyrics, I can see myself where I am today.

I have spent half my life or more running and colliding with the air I breathe. Running from what?  I am not sure, but I think from myself. Many years ago, I was sitting with my “Aunt” Frances and I told her I could not help thinking that what I am—gay—is wrong in God’s eyes. She looked at me and said, “You are one of God’s children. He loves you.”  That made me feel so much better about myself, and after that I never really had questions about God anymore.

I think I have lived a lot of my adult life shielding the people in my life from really knowing me. I often think of an Anne Bancroft line from Torch Song Trilogy: “You cheated me out of your life and then blamed me for not being there.”

To some extent, I think this is what I have done to the people in my life. I have cheated family and friends out of knowing me and out of my life, then somehow blamed them for the distance this created. I was so freaked when a friend from my hometown of Waynesboro, Mary Dee, started taking herding lessons here in Athens. I have always wanted to distance myself from Waynesboro. Once I left, that was it for me – it was history.

But reconnecting with Mary Dee has been a real healing process for me. She has been such a true friend and so supportive during my battle with cancer. And really, so many of my friends from Waynesboro have surprised me with their love and support. Thank you all, and I am so sorry I cut you out of my life without giving you a chance to really know me. I have had the rug pulled out from under me so many times, I guess I believed that is what would always happen if I allowed people to really know me.

So where do I go from here? In the last post, I talked about the joy I get from really knowing people. Yet I have been hiding who I am from others because of my fear of losing people. There is a reason for this fear: I have lost people in my life because of who I am. That has scarred me and led me to put a wall around my heart. I think this is also part of the reason why, in relationships, I try to rescue people; if I save people, they will need me and not push me away. But that is not what relationships are about.

It is hard for me to believe that through this cancer treatment, I found writing. And through this writing, I am finding myself. I guess this writing is my way of knocking down the wall down around my heart and letting all of you really know me. Your response, and your support, have been amazing. Thank you.