Monday, March 17, 2008

Mistakes

This is post is a bit off topic concerning the church, but I feel it has something to do with it in my ever so twisted way.

I’ve been seeing this guy as of late – since September. He’s three years older, a senior at my school. I started seeing him because the room situation I was in was pretty impossible. My best friend and I decided to room together for a second year, even after the first year didn’t go so well. I got sick and she broke her foot, and the tensions in the room were unbearable. We fought all the time. So this guy, I’ll call him Derek, showed back up in my life and offered me a place to stay. I’d stay with him four nights out of the week usually, snuggling and kissing and talking. It was a bad idea, I knew it then. It used to be against what I believed in a way. I used to believe sleeping next to someone is something that should be saved for marriage. Actually, I think that now, but between September and now, I thought differently. Well, as is no surprise to myself in hind site, you can only sleep next to someone for so long before going to far. I lost my virginity to him in November.

It’s been a whirl wind since then. I felt guilty at first, but I think it was mostly old voices in my head telling me I shouldn’t be doing this because I wasn’t a good person. I shot those voices down pretty quickly. Funny, my church and youth leaders always made sex outside of marriage sound very unfulfilling, but honestly, I had a lot of fun with him. I felt really close to him. We began to care about each other more and more.

I know now it was wrong, it was too fast, it wasn’t as real as it could have been. We’ve been on and off for about a month now – since I thought for a few weeks that I might be pregnant. I compromised so many of my beliefs for this guy and took the morning after pill, basically just not admitting to myself what it was doing. Now, I really am opposed to it, since I’ve done research since then and know what it does. But it freaked us both out and he suddenly stopped having time for me. I needed him and he wasn’t there. I grew so angry. I finally got his attention when he glimpsed my anger (I usually don’t let people see it at all). He came over, we talked, we talked a lot. We came to the conclusion that everything had happened so quickly, that we cared a lot for each other, but right now, we aren’t ready for this kind of relationship. I think sex should be so much more than it was for us, and I had lost sight of that. He doesn’t know what he thinks. Three years my senior, and I’m telling him he needs to grow up, find himself, figure out what the fuck he wants before he can ever be with a woman. And I need time away from him, I need space, I need to be free to date, maybe find a guy who really respects me.

It lasted a week before we were back in bed. Then we talked. And I took my number out of his phone, told him it had to be over for a long time, told him I needed him to get out of my life for a while, told him I loved him, but I can’t do this to myself. I’m trying to figure out too much right now, concerning myself, concerning God, concerning family and where the hell church might ever fit into that, and I don’t have time to be in this kind of dysfunctional relationship with him. I walked out. And now he’s everywhere. I can’t get away from him. He doesn’t live in the same part of campus I do, and he’s hardly ever been to my dorm, but now he’s here all the time.

I think things like this are tests sometimes. I need to focus on God and my life for a while, and now I can’t get away from the guy? I’m honestly grieving the loss of my virginity, because I know it was a mistake I shouldn’t have made, a mistake I wouldn’t have made had I been thinking clearly at the time. And he’s everywhere.

I don’t pray as much as I used to, but I feel like every time I lift this up now, every time I ask God to help me out with this, to make it easier so I can figure shit out, I run into him, I see him somewhere, he calls me . . .

I’ve screwed up. I know that. I finally am realizing my screw ups again, and I’m realizing it outside the realm of churchianity. I’ve learned that there are reasons for these boundaries God’s got for me outside of “the pastor said the Bible says not to do it.”

And, oh, sex, it is so worth waiting for. I can honestly say that now, from experience, for whoever might be reading this – just wait. I wish I felt comfortable enough with my mistake to tell my little sister, to be honest with my family and tell them I get it now. I’ve ended up learning most things the hard way now, because I left all my beliefs and the basis for them so long ago. For anyone who doesn’t have to learn something the hard way, take my word for it, it is worth waiting for. It is special. It is fulfilling at the time, but I can only imagine how amazing it would be if I knew the person was still going to be there in a year, in a month, in a week, tomorrow . . . I never knew with Derek, and now, I need him to be gone, and that hurts more than anything – that I’ve grown to care about this guy, maybe mostly through the sex, but I care nonetheless. I’ve been more intimate with him than anyone else, and it’s time to say goodbye for good.

Here’s to being single for a while. Here’s to finding myself again. Here’s to figuring out who this God I’m looking for is and how I can look for his footprints. Here’s to learning from mistakes.

God, help me figure this life out a little bit more.

Spirituality?

When I left my church, I kind of went into this crazy spin. I needed out of my house, out of my town, away from everything that reminded me of all that had happened. Throughout all of junior high and high school, I felt completely trapped in this world of lies and pain – I had no youth group, the pastor I had trusted for eight years was trying to sue my dad, my mom was having an emotional break down, and I was angry – so, incredibly angry.

Now that’s it’s been a few years, I’ve experienced so much more of life than I probably would have (or should have) if I had never left. I think I needed that in ways, but I’ve come to a point where I’m questioning so much more of my spirituality than I was initially.

I’m not sure where exactly God fits in my life right now. Church used to be everything for me and my family. I was there every Sunday at least twice, Wednesdays, and usually at least two more times through out the week. It’s where all my friends were, where all my mentors were. If I was doing something fun, it was there. If I was doing something involving leadership, it was there. Most of my church peers went to my Christian high school. I was ridiculously immersed in the church – both the positive parts and the crock of shit they teach you and believe.

Sometimes I feel like the God I believed in there doesn’t even exist. The God I know now seems to have a completely different heart and skin to him. Honestly, I think if the Church met God on the street today, at least the God I believe in, they would hate him, demolish him, kill him. I think in a way, they already have killed him with lies and rules and standards. I don’t fit those standards anymore. I like myself a lot more now.

But I was taught how to interact with the god my church believed in. I was taught how to believe, I was taught about the realm he lived in, and told I had insight and discernment into that entire world. I was taught how to pray – sometimes even how to pray to get what I wanted. I was taught how I had to respect those in authority and not question them. I know the last part is bullshit now. And I’m questioning the rest of it.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Dunkin Donuts Dilemna

I flared up in anger I haven’t felt in a while the other night as I sat across a table from an old friend I haven’t seen in years. Jenna kidnapped me from my studying to take me to Dunkin Donuts, and we ran into a group of her friends from a Bible Study she attends at a college down the street from ours. One of her new Bible study friends is an old friend of mine, Jesse. His mother was the secretary at the CMA, and he and I had gone through many years of Sunday school and youth group together. I’ve only seen him a few times since I left my church 5 years ago.
“So where do you go to church now?” he asked me.
“I don’t.” I looked at the table. “I haven’t gone back.” I looked at the floor. I wanted to just blow it off, but you can’t really do that with people like Jesse.
“Well,” he said, with that sick, holier-than-thou smile his father used to wear every goddamn day, “we’ll just have to work on you, won’t we?”
Jenna, in her oh-so-helpful-way, responded, “I’m already working on her. We’ll get her back.” I’m sitting right there, right fucking there the whole time. Bataboo, batabang, I’ve become these good little Christian college students’ project. They must fix me, because I need to be won back to the Lord since I’ve left “the fellowship.”
I got back to my dorm room an hour later, fuming. I vented to my roommate and just about threw my computer through a window. Nothing can excite the rage I try so hard to keep under control like someone pushing me towards church for righteousness sake.
I find that if that’s what I need to be righteous, I’d rather not be, thank you very much. It's so unfulfilling. I'd rather just have something broken, but honest, than this fake holiness and faith in an institution that's clothing the nakedness of what real faith is.
Jesse wants to take me out for coffee again so we can talk and catch up. I feel like I'm going to pestered the entire time with invitations to church events. Do I go and humor him? Do I go and try, for the thousandth time, to explain my situation: the abuse, the ugliness, the hypocracy, the damage? Or do I just forget about it, like I've been doing for so many years now, and get on with my life?

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Things I Remember

It’s been about four years now since I left the church I grew up in, three years since I’ve left the institutionalized church. At first, I thought it would just be for a while, just give myself time to heal or be angry or whatever I needed. Now that it’s been a few years, I think this is going to be more permanent than I thought it was originally.

So what have I done over the past four years? Have I healed? I’ve gotten angry, very angry, I know that for sure. I’ve gone through a year and a half solid of counseling, and a few random month or two long sessions when things got bad again. I eventually had to pretty much mentally separate myself from everything that happened in my church, and in doing so, I actually forgot most of it. I couldn’t easily tell you what happened or why my family finally left, why I finally left altogether. What I can tell you is it was traumatic, it was abusive, it was scary, and I came away feeling wounded and bloody. I can tell you I cried myself to sleep almost every night from the time I was fifteen til I made myself stop crying when I was sixteen and thereby forgot how to cry altogether. I can tell you my parents were both a mess, that they were depressed, and that my older brother buried himself in his relationship with his girlfriend, and my little sister was sheltered and still doesn’t understand why we are all so bitter and hurt. I can tell you about a three year law suit against my family that sucked our finances and our emotions hard core. I can tell you a counselor once told me I’m one of the angriest women he’s ever counseled.

But up until just recently, so many details have faded away, forgotten in the back, dusty corners of my mind. I suppose I pushed them there – I hated thinking about it anymore. I just wanted to live my life again, breathe again, laugh again, and take lots of pictures. So I did. That didn’t bode so well for me in the end either. I came to college, and while I love it here, I realize that what the world has to offer me now doesn’t suit. It’s left me feeling more empty in the end. The sex, the drugs, and alcohol, the nicotine and caffeine. None of it makes me feel any more whole. For a while, I felt like it was a little more honest than what I had found in the church, because at least these people were honest about being fucked up or fuck ups. But in the end, we’re all still hiding behind these masks as much as churchies hide behind their hymnals and podiums and pews.

I had to go back to my church a few months ago for a wedding. I wouldn’t have gone if they bride hadn’t asked me to be one of her bridesmaids. The smell of the place brought back a lot of memories that have haunted my thoughts for three months. Things are starting to come back to me that I haven’t thought about for a few years, things I couldn’t have recalled if someone told me they had happened.

But I’m starting to remember . . .

Random things, but important things . . .

I remember someone saying they’d rather have my family’s blood run through their aisles than have us in fellowship.

I remember the pastor’s sermons telling us we should be like the other brother in the story of the prodigal son instead of the prodigal son.

I remember trying to get help and being told I shouldn’t be angry, I should reach out to my narcissistic pastor’s children, I should be the bigger person because it was the right thing to do.

I remember in senior high, being told that the parents of the junior highers didn’t really want me to talk to their kids, basically because of who my parents were.

I remember when things were really bad, my youth pastor decided to have a “mediation” with in my youth group, because we all were siding with our parents and had become very divided. This mediation involved sitting me sitting in the youth center, listening to all my old friends talk about my family, and not being allowed to leave. It involved me crying as I left and no one saying a word to me.

I remember the church paying 10 grand for a professional mediation group to come in and assess our church. I remember going to talk to them and feeling validated for once when the guy told me they took the teenager’s words more seriously than anyone else’s cuz we were usually the most honest. I remember them ripping my pastor apart, telling the church he should never be a pastor again. And the church kept him for a few more months. The denomination has kept him for the past four years in a church somewhere else.

I remember how quickly I was dropped by my closest friends when the pastor blackballed my family.

I remember one day, Lexi was my best friend. And the next, she wouldn’t look at me.

I remember trying so hard to be the Good Christian Girl I thought I had to be to be loved and be “righteous”. It meant not being angry, not being bitter, and “letting go”. That plan failed as I withdrew all my feelings deep with in myself. It grew into an overwhelming rage that ultimately has injured me more than anything else in my life.

More than anything, I’m beginning to remember the people who stood up for my family and myself. I feel a loyalty to them that is unexplainable, even though for the most part, I don’t have much a relationship with them anymore either.

I remember a man who was a second father to me telling me he would do anything for my family, that he would try to make things right. He became an elder, and when they told him to brush my family under the carpet, he did.

I remember the dreams I used to have. Dreams filled with demonic figures, satanic figures, dreams that kept me up longer than my tears. Dreams that terrified me. Dreams that made sleep on the bathroom floor, sick, on more than one occasion. Dreams filled with violence and intense anger.

I remember all of this now. I had forgotten most of it. I don’t know why I feel like a veil is being removed now. Maybe I needed the years of forgetting it so I could heal a little bit. I think the real healing will begin now, as the layers are peeled back. I think I’m ready for it. I’m ready to be done with what the world has to offer me in sharp broken pieces. I’m ready to find something real and solid, something that’s not destructive like the church and faith I was in.