Reach Out Your Hand If Your Cup Be Empty, If Your Cup Is Full May It Be Again

Quickly and ineloquently now, or I'll never get anything written again:

This has been hard.  Moving to Thunder Bay alone and trying to make friends has felt like the first day of kindergarten (dropped off without even knowing the name of my teacher or what door to go in), the first day of highschool ("Hey 2%!  No not you, you homo!), and the first few months of my first year of university (only queer person on my floor, only person who didn't drink, only person who gave a fuck about learning).  You get the idea.  It is lonely work to put your emotional and social resilience to the test.  I've had bizarre interactions that made me wonder if I was in that sci-fi story where people are punished by being 100% ignored by everyone around them (BONUS if you can tell me the name of that story because it is driving me CRAZY).  Then slowly, occasional run ins with kindred spirits -- don't come on too strong or you'll scare them away...  Really awesome supervisors that I would love to socialize with but can't because of the dual relationship problem.  Then being invited somewhere but genuinely having too much work to do.  It's bonkers.

Then I met this lady:

And a bunch of her awesome friends at Sounds of Superior Chorus (a subset on the international association of Sweet Adelines).  They welcomed me with open arms, wanted to get to know me, and gave me cookies!  It was like being greeted by 35 of the words most awesome grandmothers and aunties!  And they sing 4-part harmony as a chorus, basically barbershop for large groups of women.  AND they need "tenors."  These are the super-high doo-woop voices.  I am happy to oblige.  I'm also not saying a word about having been formally trained as an opera singer.  I just want to have fun!
And I am!

This awesome woman called me out of the blue to tell me that she thinks it must be hard to be in my shoes here all alone and would I like to do some fun stuff with her and her daughter?  She ended the phone call by saying, "I just can't wait to become friends with you!"

Naturally, I was immediately overjoyed.  Then I got nervous!  What would the other shoe be when it inevitably dropped?  Geriatric sex assault?  Grannie fight club?  Run of the mill religious cult?  As it turned out, she's just kind of awesome.  Tonight we went to "Empty Bowls" - a fundraiser for the local shelter system and food bank.  We had a ton of fun.  And I met her awesome daughter who is also super sweet and we talked at length about how she wants to make Thunder Bay a "kinder" place.

The both put up with my selfies.

And I get to meet up again tomorrow night to sing.  One of our numbers is a barbershop arrangement of Queen's Your My Best Friend.

Seriously, this is what I needed.  Everything is not perfect, but I know that one night a week I get to hang out with some pretty awesome ladies and sing my little heart out.  And no one is pressuring me to do a solo or show off that coloratura thing.

Tomorrow I have to do a giant psychoeducational group at the Regional about stress reduction for cardiac patients.  I want to tell them to just join Sounds of Superior.

Again, forgive my inelegence.  I just wanted you to know.