“Well it’s a bittersweet symphony this life…”

A month or two after I’d accepted my trans-ness, but before I’d come out to anyone, I drummed up the courage to “dress up” and go to a drag show for charity an hour or so from my home. I basked in the freedom that night, but at the same time I felt so alone. As I drove home, the mash-up of conflicting emotions gelled and became anger–at the world, at God, at myself. Then this song came on the radio. I turned it up as loud as it would go, yelled the words at my windshield, and cried until the sobs were coming so hard I had to pull off the interstate.

The video is such a metaphor for what life felt like then.

“Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve, from Urban Hymns, 1997 (Lyrics)