When we hear that someone has become disillusioned, the response is usually one of sympathy and condolences. I wonder why that is?

To be disillusioned is to be free from illusion or to lose naive faith and trust. You believed something to be good, valuable, or true, but have now come to realize that it was only an illusion – something that looks or seems different from what it actually is, or an idea that is based on something that is not true.

In the 1999 movie, The Matrix, real life was dangerous, bleak, and often hopeless. However, the majority of people lived in an illusion of plenty and freedom not even realizing it was an illusion. Some knew, yet chose to continue living in the illusion because it offered an experience of fulfillment and comfort. Morpheus gave the protagonist, Neo, a chance to choose when he said,

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.”

I’d like to think I would always choose the red pill, though I can’t say for sure. I certainly don’t want a rosy life that’s comfortable and “perfect” but not genuine. I want the truth. I want the raw. I want the real.

Valentine’s Day 2020 is almost upon us. It is the first anniversary of the conclusion of my one year weekly blogging project, Transparent Trans Parent: A Journey of Faith, Family, and Forgiveness. A red heart holiday to celebrate a red pill life.

The past three years have been the hardest, most challenging, most fulfilling, scariest, most exciting years of my life. Three years ago my twins were halfway through their senior year of high school. Three years ago, I called them by their given names and referred to them as my daughters. My girls. I was certain that God would provide a miracle of some sort – through my commitment, through my prayers, through my sacrifice, somehow – that would bring my first transgender twin to see that there was a different plan, a different way, a different choice to be made. I would “let go,” all the while knowing that my inner vision of the future would eventually come to pass. I just had to wait…for an indefinite period of time…hanging on to hope. Nevermind the constant, nagging cognitive dissonance. I had to keep holding on to my belief that my “being obedient” and my “trust” would ultimately bring about the results I believed were correct and moral and godly. At the same time, I had to hold on to how much I love my kids, and how much I want to be there for them, and show up for them, and be proud of them, and brag about them like other people do about their traditionally successful, “normal” kids.

I was attempting to swallow the blue pill. It was too big. I didn’t have enough water to wash it down. Crushing it into a cup of applesauce didn’t seem to make it any easier. I wanted to retain the illusion that my life would be as I had imagined and expected it to be. I wanted to keep hold of the idea that there was a formula for following God that would net the promised outcome. I knew that there wasn’t actually a formula. I knew that there was no promised outcome.

But, come on, doesn’t everyone believe to some degree that there’s a recipe for Christian prosperity? If you’re obedient and good and faithful and committed, God will bless you.

He’ll provide for your financial needs. He’ll keep you and your family safe. He’ll help you do the right thing even when you don’t feel like it if you just trust Him enough. When you don’t trust enough, you just need to pray a little more, give up a little more of yourself, and believe. If you’re not being blessed, there’s a reason. Maybe you need to learn a lesson, and you don’t learn the easy way. Maybe you’re being disciplined for a moral failing, or for selfishness, or for not truly loving God more than you love anyone or anything else. There must be a reason.

We settled the twins into the dorms at their respective colleges. I felt so much relief at sending them off to find their own ways. Our first transgender twin was more than a day’s drive away. I knew he was safe, but I didn’t have to be a part of the daily interactions, daily choices, and daily conflict we had experienced at home. I could trust God from afar and give it up to him to fix and control. It was much easier to hold on to my discordant convictions at a distance. Our other twin, who had not yet identified to us as transgender, was attending college only a couple of hours away and was my bright little spot of hope for a daughter to relate to and nurture.

The thing with taking pills is that usually one dose is not sufficient. I had finally been able to get that first blue pill down my throat and was able to keep it from coming back up. It seemed to be working. Our empty nesting got off to a wonderful start. I wasn’t even crying every day.

It was working, until it wasn’t anymore. I was hit with the second wave of illusion-attacking bacteria, and it was even more powerful than the first.

My only remaining daughter came out as transgender 3-½ months into freshman year…

with hardly any warning…

the one who had worn a sequined gown and heels to prom not six months earlier.

Time for another blue pill.

This can’t be happening. Not again. What am I supposed to do with this? This is not okay. This is the one I know how to talk with. I had so many hopes and dreams for visits to college for a weekend or a day. We’d commiserate. We’d go shopping. She could help me get through things with her quirky twin.

If I take another blue pill, maybe I can convince her not to make the same choices as her twin. Maybe she’ll listen to me if I approach things differently than I did before. Maybe she can use the preferred name she has chosen, which is gender ambiguous, and live a less than typical female life, but still remain a girl. My daughter. My insightful, thoughtful baby girl.

Initially I was able to get that second blue pill down. I was confident that I could share my hope and insight with my girl. She was just confused and drawn in by new ideas, in a new environment, and emboldened by her twin. I could be strong and help her work through it.

Then the blue pill began to upset my stomach, and it was all I could do not to lose it. She wasn’t listening. In spite of my desire not to be at odds with her, I created conflict. Daily tears began again. I wanted peace, but how could I figure out how to live my faith as I believed it to exist and keep my relationships with my twins intact? I didn’t bring that second blue pill back up, but it wasn’t effective. My illusion was still partially intact, but there were pieces breaking and falling away.

Striving each day. Trying to be who I thought I should be. Wishing I could live up to the faithfulness that I believed God expected of me. I just didn’t know where to go next. I didn’t want to keep trying to swallow the blue pills. Maybe there was another way. Maybe the medicine to keep illusions in place came in a different form – maybe a time release capsule, maybe a milder liquid version, maybe even a non-invasive transdermal patch.

One day while crying in the shower, I hatched the idea of writing a blog about my experiences, where I would research the transgender phenomenon and try to understand my kids, my faith, and myself. Over several weeks of time, and many showers filled with thoughts and tears, the idea took shape and grew into a full-fledged intention, complete with a time frame, a frequency, and a name. A creative name at that.

I had a lot to say. I didn’t feel like my voice or a voice like mine was out there. I thought maybe I could help someone. I thought maybe I’d learn how to solve the cause of my twins’ gender dysphoria. Maybe they’d respect that I was trying to move towards the middle and understand them. Maybe they’d respond by coming towards the middle themselves and decide I might have something valuable to say. Maybe there would be a way to hold these disparate ideas and values together successfully after all.

On Valentine’s Day of 2018, I made my first post. The blog was live. It was really exciting to see my words in print and have people read and respond. Initially I only shared it with a select group of people to help protect me from negative feedback and hateful responses.

I never even opened the comments section of the blog because this was not a space for other people to vent and hear their own voices and arguments.

It was my space to search my heart, to research ideas, to stretch myself, and give a voice to the parent in the middle. Not the one who jumps on board immediately to their child’s assertion of a gender identity not matching their biology. Not the one who is ready to disown their child because they are making choices that go against long-held and sincere beliefs.

Rather, the one who hurts for the loss of daughters, still thankful for the existence of her children, but feeling confusion, pain, and bewilderment. The one who wants to understand, to see what faith and truth really say. The one who has to figure out a way to find peace in the midst of chaotic life that is out of her control. The one who allows the pain to be felt, but who also allows the anger to subside. The one who speaks her mind, who corrals her thoughts, who is unafraid to be real.

The first six months of posts poured out like an endless torrent of water. There were so many thoughts and words and emotions churning inside. They begged to be freed and given structure and form. I was reading as often as I was writing. I was studying and researching, not just about gender, but about sex, faith, the Bible, genes, doubt, the armor of God, love, Eastern religions, judgement, theology, Christian doctrine, science, and on and on. I was pouring gas on the fire in my frantic mind, trying my hardest to figure things out. More than that, trying to figure out how I could learn enough to reach my kids, especially the second one to come out. I’m not sure I even knew that’s what I was doing, but somehow hope was still alive that this was just a phase.

The interesting thing about the blue pills is that they can really only work when you don’t question, and you don’t research, and you don’t search your soul.

The more I studied, the less I knew. The fire in my brain grew bigger and brighter. More pieces of my illusion were melting, burning, and falling. I held on to a glimmer of hope that someday a congruent female identity would be restored to my twins, but I was moving towards letting go of the thought that my family would look like I thought it was going to. That’s where I was heading, though I was still in too much pain to accept it yet.

That wasn’t the only illusion that was beginning to crumble.

For years I had hoped to find the core of my faith: the thing that would be true for every person, in every geographic location, at every point in history. What was the gospel truth? Really? Not a stock answer which a good person of faith could easily dole out, but the raw truth that transcended every plane of existence? That search took on new urgency as I questioned who I was, if the mom I thought I was, or thought I wanted to be, or thought I should be, no longer existed.

I was still a person of faith, right? I was growing and changing, but was my faith still really there? What did I believe? Who was God? I’d always been taught that the Bible was God’s word, and I still thought I believed that, but what did that really mean? What did it mean that the Bible was inspired? The Christian doctrine and Old Testament classes that I took as part of a lay ministry program at our current church of attendance inspired more questions than they answered. They made me realize that there are many ways to view things, including the Bible, Biblical history, and how the Bible should be read and interpreted.

I had believed that there was one right way to believe, and that I was fortunate enough to have been born into a family who knew that one right way. But here were God-fearing, loving people of faith who didn’t believe that one right way. They still believed, though. There was ample faith present. There was something else present, too, or maybe more accurately, something that tangibly wasn’t present.

Certainty.

These folks – those attending the classes as well as the teachers – held their beliefs loosely. They were studied people who were well-versed in their subject matter. They were people who had traveled extensively to learn and teach and help and minister. They just allowed for the fact that there was so much that none of us knew for sure. Faith didn’t equal certainty.

Doesn’t that seem like a simple notion? Duh, of course faith doesn’t equal certainty.

Yet I feel as if that is how many churches teach and preach. Maybe it’s just semantics, and they speak words that sound as if they know for sure what God is saying and how to interpret it, but they really aren’t that certain.

Even so, for the congregant listening to the teaching, if it comes across as certain and absolute, it’s highly impactful. Even if the preacher’s intent is not to speak as if they know the mind of God, people trust spiritual leaders. They often believe what they’re told without questioning. Damage happens when things that are not able to be discerned with certainty are proclaimed with certainty. Certainty is an enemy of faith.

My identity as a mom had crumbled. The illusion of a happy, healthy, unified family of father, mother, son, and twin daughters was destroyed. My identity as a holistic person of faith and evangelical Christian was being strained and cracking under the pressure. Certainty of the one right way to believe was the second illusion to begin falling apart.

If my children were no longer my main focus, and living out my faith was no longer clear and compelling to me, who was I? Where did that leave me? Unhappy and unfulfilled. Sad and hopeless. It left me married to a really nice guy, in a really nice marriage, with a really nice house. Yet, I still felt alone and disappointed. In the deepest part of me, I did not feel loved and accepted. I felt misunderstood and vilified.

At a level of teamwork and fun, with many great memories and stories, we were a great couple. However, at a deeper level of love and acceptance, non-judgement and kindness, we were far from great. We had developed habits that increased rather than mitigated each other’s insecurities. Bitterness and resentment were just under the surface waiting to come up for air. I didn’t know how to get through this. Everything I thought I knew seemed unreliable at best.

I considered what it would be like to be a person who could just walk away. Just pick up and leave everything and everyone they knew. I was unhappy. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to escape my pain. I didn’t want good. I wanted great. I didn’t want my faults and differences to be tolerated, I wanted them to be accepted. I wanted to be real, to be loved, to be precious, and to be taken care of. I had lived my first fifty years of life trying to live up to an impossible standard, trying to attain the life I believed a good Christian girl should desire and deserved. I was ending up with none of it except a good marriage where I felt accepted for my positive qualities, but unworthy because I was so much more, or so much less, than those positive qualities.

Maybe I could just be a person who walked away. Leave my job. Leave my home. Leave my children. Even leave my husband. Just start over somewhere new where no one had ever met me and didn’t know anything about me. I could make it all up. I could be who I wanted to be.

I knew I was supposed to just pray, just trust, just believe. But I didn’t want to pray. I didn’t trust God. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I craved being real. I didn’t want to wish I wanted what God wanted. I didn’t want to wish I could be happy but know that I was falling short of living up to what God desired for me. I just stopped wishing.

I found out there were people who seemed to love God, whose lives were not spotless, whose beliefs were different than mine, but who treated me with understanding and kindness. They saw God differently than I had. All along I had been taught that you should be wary of people like this because they might derail you and take you away from right belief which would take you away from God and salvation and eternal life.

But how had I been so lucky to be born into the right belief system? Even if Christianity at its core was truth, why was my evangelical column of beliefs the right one? What about the liberal denominations? What about the Catholic church? They couldn’t be right, could they?

I also got to know people who didn’t believe in God at all, and people who once believed in God but no longer did. They treated me as a valuable and accepted person. They showed compassion for my struggles. They challenged me to think past my preconceived ideas and the things I had once been taught were certain. I began to wonder if the broad institution of the Christian church was really preaching and teaching the right message. Salvation from eternal damnation. Belief in God to make you a better person. Undeserved grace.

Wait a minute, that last one still resonates with me. I’ll hold on to any little piece I can for now. Being treated with understanding and kindness and as valuable and accepted is like receiving undeserved grace. I didn’t earn it, but it was given, and it made me humble and thankful. It made me think of who I really believe God is, even though I don’t know if he is a he, or if she is a divine power without a form, or it is the force of the universe within all of life and creativity empowering each of us daily to experience all of the emotions that exist, all of the potential, all of the beauty, and all of the pain.

Finding out last-minute that our first twin to claim a transgender identity was scheduled for top surgery out-of-state in the summer between the twins’ freshman and sophomore years of college was breathtakingly overwhelming. I was ready to beg and plead in order to have that event be postponed. I didn’t want to be in conflict. I wanted to understand and help, but I desperately wanted this permanent action to be delayed. My cognitive dissonance was no longer able to be held together. I was being pulled in two directions, trying to hang on to a belief system that didn’t seem to fit anymore while desiring to nurture and sustain a loving relationship with my children. If I persisted in holding on to the discord, it would pull me apart.

I decided I could not be a person who just walks away. I never thought I would be, but I actually needed to contemplate the possibility in order to truly believe I had made my own choice. I had been taught that marriage was forever and that good Christians would never even consider walking out. If I just accepted that as an inevitability, I wouldn’t truly be choosing.

Yes, I chose to get married long ago. Yes, I made a commitment then. I was also a very different person who believed things were certain, who believed that there was usually only one right way for things to go. This new me had to be allowed the freedom to see all the possibilities, to consider what I would gain by walking away, but also to deeply contemplate what would be lost.

All through this time I kept writing, researching, and reading. My mind was still on fire. I slept very little and dealt with a lot of anxiety and stress. Our marriage was tearing. Just when it seemed like I had concluded that the loss would be too great if I walked away, and just when I knew that I would forever regret that choice and would therefore never make it, the loud ripping sound of our relationship’s fabric finally giving way brought everything to a sudden and tension filled halt.

Another illusion was crashing. At the time, it seemed like the marriage itself was crashing, and that was as scary as hell. Many sleepless nights of talking, arguing, crying, and yelling brought about little bits and pieces of understanding and the start of healing deep wounds. Insecurities were brought to light. False beliefs about ourselves and each other were revealed. Each spurt of progress tended to be followed by another crash and burn session, stirring up the embers of the conflict, only to have it burn its way out after another sleepless and soul-searching night. Why is it that those conversations have a way of happening in the dark of night when your mind and body betray you?

The cycle occurred many times. To be clear, the question about walking away wasn’t really about my husband, but the answer almost entirely was. It became apparent that neither of us wanted to lose the good that we already had in each other, but we both were willing to sacrifice the stability of the good in order to seek out the great we had never achieved and were apprehensive but excited to attempt.

The illusion that marriage follows one right way according to one right pattern crashed spectacularly, like a glass bottle exploding and shattering when it strikes the tile after falling from a great distance. You think you’ve cleaned up all the little shards of glass and then weeks later a sharp stab in your foot reveals a piece you missed that must now be swept away after getting a bandaid and cleaning up the freshly drawn blood. Illusions fall hard. There is collateral damage. What’s left is often fragile and unsteady.

Mid summer of 2018 was a time when all of the illusions had started coming down. My journey of family, faith, and forgiveness had brought about my disillusionment in all three parts of the journey.

I would never be the mom I thought I would be, and would never have the family I thought I would have.

My faith was forever changed. It had always been something of which I was certain, and that I thought I should incorporate into as many conversations and relationships as possible. Now, I’m further away from church than I’ve ever been, but I am also the happiest I have ever been. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have faith, or that what I believe about God, love, and grace don’t impact how I live and who I am, but it does mean that there are lots more things of which I am uncertain. I also keep my faith closer to myself now. It’s mine, for me alone. It changes me as I choose to change. I have realized I have freedom to make my own choices regarding faith and not just fall in line with what’s expected of me. That freedom is broad and available to everyone, not just me.

My disillusionment with forgiveness breaks down the concept that you are unworthy and unacceptable just as you are. My children don’t need my forgiveness. They need my acceptance. I don’t want my husband’s forgiveness so much as I want his acceptance and support. I don’t believe I’m on a mission to bring forgiveness to the world. I believe I will show up and be real, accepting people as I go.

Later this week we’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day, an interesting holiday of romance that began as a feast day in the western Christian church venerating two Saint Valentine’s who were martyred.

The first, Saint Valentine of Rome, was venerated because he performed weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and cared for persecuted Christians during Roman rule. Second, Saint Valentine of Terni, who is said to have restored sight to his judge’s blind daughter and then wrote her a farewell letter signed “Your Valentine” prior to his execution.

Valentine’s Day, a day to commemorate caring for the oppressed, to honor sacrifice and pain, and to celebrate love and marriage. A perfect day to have begun my blog two years ago and to have concluded it one year later. A day celebrated with red hearts, red ribbons, red candy wrappers, and red balloons.

In honor of my commitment to living a life that welcomes the shattering of illusions, I will celebrate this Valentine’s Day with a red pill that brings truth to light no matter how challenging, uncertain, or disconcerting.

My twins are thriving. Their new identities actually seem to suit them. They appear quite confident and are learning how to adult with the best of them. They are kind and insightful, thoughtful and encouraging. The world is a better place because they are in it. I miss my daughters, but I love these two who are now my sons. Interestingly enough, I’m still just mom.

Our oldest son is getting married this spring to his best friend on the tenth anniversary of their first “date.” Their lives and story have not been easy or without pain either. They are non-traditional and have not followed the paths I would have chosen for them. However, I’m truly glad they’ve made their own way. There wouldn’t be freedom in following the path I chose for them out of a sense of obligation. When one does not have the opportunity to truly consider their options, the choices that are made will never mean as much as those that are made through acts of personal volition with no coercion.

I have my much desired daughter, complete with dark hair and eyes like mine, which none of my biological children share. She is beautiful, spirited, funny, kind, and loyal. She pairs amazingly with our son who is passionate, questioning, dedicated, artistic, and a champion for the oppressed.

Our marriage is well on its way to great. We are more spontaneous, more committed to kindness, and much more aware of how valuable the other’s traits are, especially those that are unique to only one of us. We complement and compliment each other in many ways. I am deeply known and deeply loved. I have not earned that love, but I receive it and am humbled and grateful.

I fail quite often as I continue to learn who I am now. It’s easy to fall back into old habits and patterns. The toppling of the illusions that I have carried has caused pain and a partial loss of identity. I can actually see why the concept of disillusionment elicits responses of sympathetic condolences.

However, the eventual product made possible is a heightened ability to be true to myself, to be compassionate with others, and to hold loosely what I believe.

My choices are really mine. I truly have freedom.

The removal of illusions has made me more accountable yet less full of shame and guilt. I am empowered to be discerning and to choose wisely, but also capable of foolishness and capriciousness.

I have all the potential.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is not being right.

The goal is growing and learning, enjoying and experiencing.

The goal is being in relationship and in community,

sympathizing and empathizing and supporting and celebrating.

Feelings are tangible and powerful for me. I have tried to stifle them for years, then to control them, then to allow them but try to use them for good. Now I’m just letting them happen, like the weather. If it rains, you either stay inside, bring an umbrella, or you get wet.

Sitting and crying in a deep rabbit hole of pure hopelessness, following the obliteration of my illusions, and after stopping the bleeding caused by the remaining shards of illusory glass, a ray of sunshine appeared and illuminated a small scarlet tablet at the bottom of the hole. It was only when I had given up all hope and felt so small and empty that I was ready to find the crimson capsule. I was ready to have a red pill life. Truth. Raw. Real.