Passion by Betsy

Passion: an intense desire or enthusiasm for something.

“Passion is energy, feel the  power that comes from focusing on what excites you." — Oprah Winfrey

I have a passion for a few things: First, for certain people; namely, my loved ones—my partner, my children and g-children.

My second passion is for music; namely, classical music of the baroque, classical , and romantic styles and a little contemporary.  I am very limited in my ability to perform music.  I do like being a part of a choral group and have been doing this for much of my life.  But listening is stirring and inspiring and I usually never forget something I have heard that has touched my soul.  I use my ipod  when exercising.  Nothing like a Schubert or Brahms quartet to keep me moving and working hard on the stationary bicycle, elliptical or rowing machine. I do mix in some fast-paced Abba for variety most of which I find very energizing.  My music does excite me and gives me energy. Often fellow exercisers ask me what I'm listening to.  When I tell them, they give me a very strange look as if to say, “Don't you know about rock? You poor thing.”

My greatest passion is for sports. That is doing not watching. I am a less than mediocre spectator fan.   I don’t pay much attention to which teams are winning or losing.  Occasionally, I'll watch a tennis match on TV or even a football game.  But given the opportunity I would a thousand times prefer to play, compete or do most any activity that requires physical action, motion, and either some skill, or a desire for adventure.

My deepest passion?  I had to search my soul a bit for this.  Now in my later years, I have become aware that I have a deep passion for the truth.  Perhaps that is because earlier I spent a good portion of my adult life living a lie.  After all, until I came out, that’s what I was doing. Since we do not know the truth about most things from mundane items that come to us through mainstream media, to metaphysical questions such as what lies beyond this life—since we do not know the truth about these things, I have become very conscientious about separating fact from belief.  Since this is all my brain is capable of at this point, I leave it there.  

I would like to mention one last point about passion in general.

As I was giving this subject further consideration, I came to the conclusion that passion and obsession are very closely related.  To illustrate: I DO NOT have a passion for writing, which does not always come easily. But the use of the English language and the application of its rules of grammar is near and dear to my heart.  This goes back to my high school days when my English teacher Miss Dunn who taught me for all three years of high school English, exposed us to very little literature.  Mostly we studied grammar and a little writing.  Most in the class thought the 3 years of grammar was rather boring, but I loved it.  I guess I have the kind of mind which loves to analyze and that’s what we did.  We analyzed sentences most of the time and learned rules of grammar and word usage.  I, therefore was quite horrified when I realized that I had made a glaring grammatical error in last week’s writing and I actually read it using the wrong part of speech and didn’t even notice.  The realization hit me in the middle of the night—the night following our session here--as I lay in bed. I thought,”Surely I didn’t write it that way.”  So I jumped out of bed at 3:00Am and checked my paper.  Yes, I had written it that way and read it that way.  Very upset with myself, I had to wake Gill up and tell her.  “I can’t believe I did that,” I said.  Later, thinking about passion I decided I do believe I have a passion for properly applying the  rules of  English grammar….Or is it a passion?  Some would call it an obsession.  So, where do we draw the line between passion and obsession? I believe that passion is actually obsession when one says to oneself, “I wish I could have let that go.”  To put it another way.  When one becomes dis-eased over what she THINKS she has a passion for. (Oops! Did anyone notice that!  I just ended a sentence with a preposition.)

© 24 Oct 2014

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change).  She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years.  Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning.  Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren.  Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.