An Unnecessary Judgment

Ah…the joys of discovering my own judgmental voice. Okay, I haven’t really discovered it, it is pretty much always present and I have gotten better about ignoring it, but sometimes it is hard to let go of that judgment I have carried for a long time…especially when it is directed at me.

I mentioned before that I love music, and due to a lot of external issues, I gave it up, or at least I gave up having it as a near constant part of my life. Last week, I figured out how to connect my Google Mini in my office at UK, which means I can just ask Google to play something for me and she takes off. I LOVE Google for that reason. No need to find a radio station, she just goes where she goes and I enjoy it.

I discovered Jason Isbell’s song “Be Afraid” on Sirius Radio. I love it and it’s message, so I have started asking Google to play it. Jason Isbell is identified as Alt-country, sometimes Americana. Today this request led Google to playing, Drive-by-Truckers, “Thoughts and Prayers” which I now also love. They are Alt-country or Americana.

Honestly almost every musician I really love and return to time and again falls into this category of Alt-country/Americana. These are the people I turn to in my most emotional states. Honestly, it is probably the genre in which I write most of my own music. That said, until recently, if you had asked me if I like country music I would have denied it…vehemently.

I do love Rock and Pop music. I actually have some standards that I listen to in pretty much every genre of music, but country…I return to it quite frequently…in secret.

Malcolm Gladwell, gave me a wonderful justification for my love of country music in, “The King of Tears” episode of his podcast, Revisionist History. I was going to type out my justification, but honestly, releasing the judgment means that I don’t need to explain it, just embrace it. I really like country music, I just do.

I have a lot of carried shame from being from rural Kentucky. Don’t get me wrong, I love where I grew up. I would return in a heartbeat. But whenever I talk to people who aren’t from the area, I kind of hedge a little. Being from rural anywhere in the US comes with judgment, it is assumed we are stupid and uneducated. It is assumed that we are conservative, and all the “ists.” Those judgments/assumptions aren’t just in my head. I have heard them come out of the mouths of people I respect.

I am a liberal. I don’t hide it. I often feel like to fit in among the liberals, I have to deny the part of me that loves being from rural Kentucky. And when I walk among a number of my rural Kentuckians, I have to ignore that part of me which believes in a more progressive society.

I often always struggle with a sense of belonging. I often feel like I walk on the edge of different worlds never really “fitting” into any one. As long as I am denying pieces of myself to “fit,” I will never feel like I am accepted.

Today, I am going to let go of an unnecessary judgment. Today, I get to enjoy alt-country or even country music, I get to appreciate the rural area I am from, and I get to be progressive.

(I will deal with my other pieces later).