By Emma
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Remember the Seinfeld episode when Jerry's father kept yelling "Serenity now!" when he was upset and about to lose it? Very funny show.
I'm not very religious and don't attend church.. I was raised Episcopalian, attended a church school for 6th and 7th grades, and my parents often had us recite the Serenity Prayer or the Lords Prayer before dinner. I think the prayer was for my benefit... I remember how earnestly I repeated the words in the Serenity Prayer, hoping that my emphasis would gain me that serenity that I wanted so much. It never seemed to work although I suppose we might speculate on how I would have been had I not said those words at all.
These days the Serenity Prayer has come to mind a few times. I think it's a wonderful prayer and says so much in only a few words:
Lord, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Each of these four lines says so much and they are hard to achieve. I would like more serenity. I think I'm getting better at accepting the things I cannot change, such as:
- I was born male.
- I am transgender.
- I cannot control my wife's acceptance or behavior toward me.
In the third line I'm starting to understand why my therapist (and even my wife) have said that I'm being courageous. I didn't really believe it, but I suppose I am demonstrating that:
- I'm coming out to myself and acknowledging my being transgender.
- I'm coming out to my therapist (which was damned hard).
- I'm coming out to my wife.
- Heck, I'm even coming out here. That was hard at first. I worried a lot about saying the wrong thing, or creating misunderstandings.
I suppose that by listing the things in the acceptance and change buckets one develops the wisdom to know the difference. Maybe the thing to do is to consider things that I'm now not able to distinguish. I'll have to think about that a bit.
Be well,
Emma
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