Ghosts from Yesterday

I'll get back to the details of my last post later.

I've been wondering lately how much I'm missing out on with the friendships I've given up on. Like the twins . . . at least B will be cordial with me and ask me how life is now that I've tried to reinstate contact, but R won't even acknowledge me. I'm sorry. I was 14. you're parents took the pastor's side. I assumed you wouldn't be allowed to talk to me. Or are you still upset about that whole thing? Could you really still be taking his side, law suit and all.

And Emily . . . we were pretty much best friends in grade school. Then she moved away. We both grew up, but I guess we did it a little differently. Ok, yeah, I'm a little fucked up. I swear a little more than I probably should. I'm tattooed, and a little banged up around the edges. I don't subscribe to the same brand of Religianity that you do anymore. You always talked about Mountains and Valleys. They were you're favoriate analogies. Well, alright, I've climbed to the tops of my "ups" and I've slammed and broken through the bottoms of the "downs." I'm a little banged up around the edges, and that shows through a little more than some people are comfortable. But you know what? I'm still me. I'm still the Cooper you knew. I still breathe the same, and I still believe. I refuse to say "if you'd been through what I've been through, you'd understand" cuz I don't know what you've been through these past years. Maybe you've been through worse. And if that's the case, then just talk to me. I want to talk. I want to still be your friend.

And then there's those kids . . . yes, the pastor's kids . . . the ones I try so hard to dispise. Funny, how I have terrifying nightmares about my pastor. I mean nightfuckingmares. Like I'd punch my boyfriend in my face when I had these nightmares. But his kids . . . no, it's different with them. I keep having dreams about them, ever since this soldier from my past came back into my life. I dream about his son, and how he and I want to be together (in lala land only . . .) and his daughter, and how she sees me after years, and comes up to me, and gives me this huge leaning hug, and though we don't speak much about what happened, we exchange and deep, deep understanding through that hug. When it comes to them and what I might be missing out on by not holding on to that friendship, I cringe. "FUCK NO!" my entire being cries out. But out of all of the people in my life who left, the ones I least expected are showing back up, and they are showing back up hard core. I have to wonder about these . . . .

Yeah, this one won't make much sense yet

A month is too long for me to go without writing.

I'm running out of energy as the days go by, running around from work to other responsibilities, and I'm feeling myself losing focus. Already late for my desired bed time, I'm just going to blurb on here, things I want to say, in short sentences, to be expanded on at a later date.

I went to see Derek for lunch. I never say what I need to say. I believe I am a strong person, but when he's involved in my life, I surrender my power to him, and I turn into a weak, weak coward. And he keeps telling me not to think so much. He knows if I think at all, I'll truly realize how bad he is for me, and walk away without ever looking back. He seems to think he's going to marry me. That would be hell in the end, I'm sure of it.


Moving right along . . . I want to discipline myself to find control and balance over my body. I want strength and focus and the ability to relax all the centers of my body at will. I believe if I can do this, I will likewise be able to focus and control both my anger and my sex drive -- probably my two biggest downfalls, if I'm being honest. If I can, at will, tune down and redirect my anger through breathing or stretching, perhaps my mind will take the moment to focus and get a grip on reality and I will therefore be able to make better decisions -- decisions that are less self-destructive and bloodthirsty. I believe gaining control over my body could in turn make me a better, more balanced person.

I'm so afraid of getting hurt again. I want to want you, but I'm so afraid you won't want me back, or that you will, then you'll take my heart, rip it out of my chest, and leave me more broken in pieces than I already am. I can't take much more of that. I'd rather be alone forever than hurt like that again.

Now I'm tired, and I have early responsibilities and my thoughts are already out of control. This is day one of beginning to try to focus and clear my mind and control my body. Maybe sleep will even come easier if I can do this.

Community Ramblings

I'm currently trying to improve my grammatical skills. As an English major, I'm embarrassed to admit that I cannot define for you what the hell a gerund is, and though I can construct a sentence alright (at least to my liking), it would take me a few minutes to figure out what the direct object is, or what a present participle is. Verbs, adjective, adverbs, nouns, subjects, etc . . . those parts of speech, I have down. But the details, the little nuances of the written language that I find incredibly annoying to learn -- I'm at a loss. So, I'm breaking out the freshman-year English composition book and starting from scratch here.

Or at least that was what I was doing before I started blogging (what a wonderful way to procrastinate and waste more time, this Blogger world).

Ok, so I'm new to the whole blogging thing, and while I started this for the purposes of recording my thoughts on faith, I admit to not really doing much of that. Maybe it's because I'm in one of those moods I get in when I come home for summer break: back in my home town, away from the amazing communal life of college, and I feel like I'm missing something. My parents, as much as I love them, drive me up a wall with their conversations about God and the emerging church and what not, and their attempts to find something, some kind of spiritual group or something.

Just the other day, my mom was going on about a family we're friends with who left the church when we did. They have three children -- their eldest is my age (19) and the two youngest are in middle school. They struggle with the youngest two much more than the eldest and (very possibly rigtfully so) believe it is because the kids have nothing to teach them morals outside of their home -- no youth group, no church, no sunday school, not many adult Christians who can mentor them, and a public school known for troublesome kids. Their parents and mine and others like mine complain (ok, maybe that word is too strong) discuss how it's not fair that the kids have nothing like that. Alright, fine and good, yeah, the church we were all apart of sure as hell screwed us all over damn good as students. It would take many pages to describe in detail exactly how the foundation all of us students (junior high, highschool, early college) were taught to stand on was torn out from under our feet in one fell swoop. A lot of us were left to flop on the deck for a while, and some of us are still there, five years after the fact. But I'll be honest -- as much as our parents complain about how we have nothing, the only communities they've tried to reform have felt "adult-only" and pretty much left us kids out.

Alright, I'm realizing I may sound bitter here. I admit to being a little. However, I think this whole thing has afforded me an interesting opportunity in the long run. Here I am, at 19, and I'm free from the chains that used to bind me to organized religion. My parents, in their 50s, are just being freed from half a lifetime of this bondage, and the struggle shows. Their roots in the IC (institutionalized church) go much deeper than my own. I have the opportunity to "search for more" at a much younger age than they do. I am going to see a lot more change in the IC and possibly religion and even spirituality than my parents ever will.

So why don't I give a damn? Ok, argue that I obviously give a damn, or I wouldn't be writing about it. But I since I've left home, I haven't really felt the need to find a community again, not like I used to hunger for one. And I don't really feel the desire to go sing pretty praise and worship songs. Though not religious, I still consider myself very spiritual and Christian, and God has never ceased to be a part of my life. Have I lost my desire to be fed?

Little tangent here, but I swear it has a point. I've been reading other blogs lately, and I ended up linking to this one, written by a mom of little ones. She talks about community, and how we all really need to need it, but it's actually our society today that's kind of destroyed it in a lot of ways. No longer to we meet together in groups to perform daily, normal activities and live together and help each other like our ancestors did. In this way, we're different than any other culture or time. Communities of old were just natural. They just happened from the lifestyles of the people. Almost makes sense that trying to force a community doesn't work so well. Things fall apart, people stop showing up, it's not natural at all. A forced leadership develops, causing more problems than not, with one or a few people's being "in charge" or "in authority over" the others, which only adds to the force with which things will eventually fall apart.

This is going to sound like another tangent, but it all comes together, I swear. Since I started college, I've been a believer that campus life cannot POSSIBLY be healthy. Stick a bunch of us together right out of high school, give some ID's to buy alcohol, and give us nearly NO supervision -- chaos errupts all over the place. How could it not? Drugs and drunkness and pregnancies and abortions, etc.

BUT, though it isn't something that has occured naturally, campus life is probably one of the most communal things I could be a part of right now. Strip it of the drugs and alcohol and rampant sex, it breaks down to peers who live together, work together, eat together, play together, support each other, fight with each other, make up, advise, laugh, cry, and grow up together. And yes, we make mistakes together. But though I've made my mistakes, and I carry more scares on my heart now, I've also grown up more, loved more, and healed more with these people.

Is this why I'm not craving the community that was once falsely errected for me at my church and youth group? (And is it also why I'm somewhat miserable during the summer when I'm away from that tight knit group?) Maybe for now, this is what I needed -- I broke away from my IC, left my home town, and became a part of a community, and during this time, I've healed from most of the pain from the fall of my IC. I've grown and I've learned.

But two years and I'm out.

So, what the hell am I supposed to do then?????

Notions on Beauty

I needed a journal last night, and found one I had barely started. Though the pages themselves were mostly blank, the journals was stuffed with scraps of things I had scribbled on during "the dark years." I continue to be amazed by the depth of some of the things I wrote when I was was 14, 15, 16 years old. My pen explained what was on my heart in so much more detail, in so much more beauty.



One scrap in particular rambled about pain. I wrote about pain as not only producing beauty, such as beauty from pain, beauty from ashes, but actually holding some beauty in the heartache itself. I talked about purity in it's stark-whiteness, and how void of beauty that could seem in contrast to the bright screaming red and deep sorrowful blues of heart ache. Is it possible that the mourning and screaming of the heart at a death bed, as a life in pulled from this world, could be just as beautiful as beautiful as the screech of life being lurched forward in this world at birth?

Now, I know in a sense, this sounds very morbid, maybe even a little sick. But aren't we as a people obsessed with both life and death, pain and pleasure? I argue that there is a beauty, not from the pain, but actually in the pain itself that captures us so, wraps us up in the ups and downs (particularly, the downs).

I look back now at the lowest lows I've been too. At the time, it sucked ass. I wasn't happy, I hated life, yadayadayada, but now, in hind site -- I can see a beauty there as well.

Doors

So I'm feeling a little like I'm on speed currently. I did something to my neck a few days ago, so my doc put me on steriods to help it heal faster, which helped a ton with the pain and movement, but I haven't been able to sleep more than a few hours for the past few days.

I've been running from the memory of my church for a long time now -- five years. I wanted everyone out of my life, I hate talking to my family about it, I want nothing to do with what happned and what was -- even who I once was. That girl I used to be -- the good-two-shoes, private Christian school girl, all modesty on the outside, all jumbled up on the inside, the honesty hidden behind pages and pages of doctrine -- the thought of her makes me nauseous. She's so far from where I'm at now. And even though I'm a little more scared, and maybe I've been hurt a little bit more and carry a hell of a lot more baggage now than I did then, I like myself a lot better this way. It's honest.

What I find ironic is how my summer is turning out. I spending more time with people from that era of my life than I spend talking to people from the college era of my life. And it's strange, because these friends of mine, they're all people I never really was friends with back then. It's this group of guys who were a few years ahead of my in youth group. I was always, to them, my brother's "little sister." A lot of them were somewhat rebellious then, or at least that's how I saw them. Looking back, I think they were all just really a little more honest about life than the rest of us were willing to be.

So I'm hanging with their girlfriends, I'm at their apartments, I'm talking to them online and on the phone. One in particular, I'm actually very intersted in. Things tend to turn out in my life far differently than I every expect them to. Sometimes life surprises me by opening a door I didn't think would possibly open, even if it's exactly what I wanted. Other times, I slam doors closed behind me only to turn around and find them standing wide open, unlocked and pulling me back through. And I think I'm just going to let this one happen.

neither of us want to be alone

I keep trying to write tonight and it's just not one of my spectacular writing nights. Not that I ever really have those. There are just days I really feel like I should sit down and write because something wonderful will appear on the page before me, but I usually spare myself the trouble by finding something better to do.

Usually, being at work keeps my mind from wandering to things it shouldn't. Being busy is good for me. But today, it really didn't help. I sat at the Intel 3 processor, waiting for it to load my next Sears lesson on harrassment and daydreamt about everything. Derek, his arms, his smell, his touch, our first time . . . smoking, drinking, running, lifting, smoking . . . school, future, money. . . So I but a pack a cigarrettes and a bottle of Dr. Pepper to mix a ridiculous amount of pepperment schnapps with.

But the cigarettes are still wrapped tightly in a blanket of cellophane, and the schnapps is still hiding in the mess of my bedroom somewhere near a suitcase. I crave a substance -- any substance -- to take the edge off life and to let me sleep. Fuck the dreams, I still need sleep. I'll still see all that blood in my mind regardless of the dreams. It was splashed across my own skin too often to forget so easily. So I take the craved substances and I sleep and they help me forget.

But not tonight. As much as my body tells me yes, give me those, I need the pills, I need the smoke, I need the drink, give me . . . give me . . ., I don't want that to rule my life. And I'm beginning to be very curious to what life would be like for a day if I could put aside the cigarrettes, the caffeine, the alcohol, and whatever else I might have at the moment, and just felt life, with the edge still on and all. How would my world look?

Pet Peeve of Mine: God's "Calling" on Our Life?

I was on my facebook today, and this girl I know through a wedding we were in together had posted a note a few days ago asking for people to sponsor her for a mission trip to East Asia. Ok, all fine and good, whatever. She goes on to talk about how two years ago, she made a commitment to do this for the year after college, and even though she really is afraid and doesn't want to anymore, she can just feel that this is what God is calling her to do, so she's going to be a good Christian and do as she's told, even though she doesn't want to. This calling on her life is just so strong and it must be what God wants for her. Right?

So I get on again today, and her status has changed to something like "If you saw the note about me going to East Asia, disregard it :) God has changed his plans!"

Ok, so call me crazy, but does God really change his plans like that? I was never really under the impression that he made plans and changed them the way we do.

I get so frutrated with things like this, cuz really, the way it looks to me, either this girl Laura is too afraid to go and she's not doing what she needs to do or she was never really being "called" to East Asia to begin with.

I feel like people use "the call of God" to justify something they're doing, to ask for money, or to make it seem like they're doing something for a bigger purpose for the rest of us. Does God ever really put "calls" on our lives like that at all? It all seems so incredibly fake to me.

Maybe I'm way off base, maybe he does do this, maybe this is what Laura felt, but really? Does he change his plans just like that? Does he really go, "Hmm, nevermind, I'll send you here instead, even though I already told you I wanted you here."

Wallow

"Well you have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you've won."

Lyrics excerpted from the song "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard.


I think I might actually just need to dwell and, as they say in the Gilmore household, "wallow" about Derek for a while, like Nic suggested. At least just take a night and cry it out, get it out of my system.

I've struggled with mild depression for a few years now. It seems to go with all the ups and downs with my religious beliefs and my faith. Since the my exchurch fell apart in front of me, I've struggled. I've left that, yet I still struggle, and the emotional wreckage that the whole ordeal caused is still part of who I am. Unwilling to go on anti-depressants because of the the job stipluations that would cause me if I ever decided to work in the criminal justice field, I've tried some over the counter stuff to self-medicate, and while it worked for the time I really needed it, I recently stopped taking it cold turkey. I did this partly because I lost the bottle in the move back from school, and partly because I hate being on stuff like that for very long. The problem with quitting mood supplements is it can drop your mood before you return to normal.

Me, being the "strong" person I always thought I had to be (partially personality, partially what I was told), decided I wouldn't wallow or dwell on Derek, I would just be strong. As a result, I refuse to cry, talk about him too much, think about him all the time, dream about him every night, and keep checking my phone every five minutes. This needs to stop, and maybe the night of just letting myself dwell on it and wallow in the pain will actually let me let go by letting the grief just kind of run it's course.

We shall see.

Nicotinecrayon, here I come . . .

Grammy and more dreams

My grandmother is in for a visit. She's a little senile these days. I love her, but she drives me crazy. I was sitting in the living room, on a big cushy couch, just trying to read a little bit, and she keeps talking. She was going on and on, talking about the characters in her fiction books as though they are her neighbors and everything in the books is actually real (please god, don't let her ever pick up a sci-fi book) and telling me how her robotic Roomba vaccuum cleaner is confused, because she let someone else borrow it and now it doesn't know who's house it's at. "And just when I was finally getting it trained." She's a bit of a riot, really.

So I keep having these dreams full of Derek. The more I seem to be doing better without him during the day, the more I dream about him at night. I was all excited yesterday because of this guy I know from school. He graduated last year, but was back for a semester to take a class I was in. I didn't know him well enough to talk to him, but I had this baby crush on him the whole semester. I got to talking to him a little bit over the next semester. I talked to him online last night, and he's coming into town to visit some mutual friends and wanted to know if I'd be around.

Honestly, I know it's not going to go anywhere. I was just enjoying the flirtiness of the conversation, and realize to ensure that I'll respect myself, I probably shouldn't see him this weekend. I don't see it ending well.

But regardless, it got my mind off of Derek, and I really needed that. Alas, I dreamed about Derek the whole night. I dreamed he was in bed next to me, I dreamed it was our first time, I dreamed that I fell in love with him right there, and I dreamed that I rolled over and there were two other girls in his bed. Ouch. Yeah, that's kind of how it felt.

*Sigh* I really wish I could just move on from this easier. I wish I could just heal. I'm having hard time believing that there really are decent guys out there who could catch my fancy anymore.

I'm gonna try to just keep focusing on myself these days, keep getting me back to where I need to be with life. I need to get organized, I need to get happy, I need to get busy enough that I don't have time to dwell on the heartache anymore.

And yet, part of me wants to just lay in bed all day and do just that.

Baskets of Eggs

Occasionally, I get these really bad tension headaches that start in my neck and work their way up to the front of my head. I had one of these last nigt, and complained about it long enough, my mom pulled a bottle of left-over narcotics from when I was really sick a few months ago and was having similar headaches. I didn't know there were any left. I tend to have an addictive personality, so my family will usually hide drugs like that from me after I no longer need them.

I took a pill and a glass of water, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Narcotic induced sleep bring some of the most intense and real dreaming I ever do.

Last night, my dreams took me on a bit of a journey.

To begin with, I was in a car with Derek, my ex, and we were on our way to go camping. God, he looked good. He was in and out of my dream all night. We stopped at Walmart to pick up some stuff, and while he was chatting with a friend of his, I noticed a male friend of mine over in the refrigerated section putting eggs in his cart. I walked over to him. I never saw his face, but it was the same elusive male friend that was in one of my previous nightmares, mentioned in a previous post. I looked through the cartons of eggs in his shopping cart and noticed that almost every egg in every carton was cracked. "No, no, you need to look at them first," I told my mysterious reappearing dream friend. "Here, I'll just help you." For what felt like hours in my dream, I pulled out carton after carton, examining each egg very carefully before placing the good ones to the side until he had a full carton of eggs.

I don't know why I did this. I know it may sound stupid, and I know the dream was very drug induced.

But I just find something interesting about walking away from the man who hurt me to spend hours and hours with another man, helping him pick something that was whole and unbroken.

Dreams that Still Haunt Me

I had a dream that still haunts me and reoccurs from time to time, often with some different forms, or I'll just see flashes of the scene, but it still comes and goes, as it has for years.
In the dream, I walk into a sanctuary. The pews are stained so dark, they're black, and everything is covered in a layer of dust. The place has a smell that is a mixture of an old church (anyone has to know what that smell is) and evil, like rotting blood or dead bodies. The ceiling is open all the way up, and the same dark stain coats the rafters and the walls.

I stand off to one side, to the right in the back, under the choir loft. Someone is standing with me, but I don't know who it is. I never look. I believe it is a man, but I don't know who he is. I get the impression that he's from my more recent life. He's from my now. He doens't know of my past, and he doesn't understand what is going on.

There is another man standing center stage, rage pouring from his being. My family is standing in front of him, namely my parents, and this man, this pastoral-like figure, is pure evil and full of fury. I stand in the back, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything, while this evil man brutally slaughters my family in front of me, letting their blood spread all over. The figure next to me doesn't understand anything that's going on. I want to scream. My body shakes. My body shakes when I can't cry. My body shakes when I'm furiously angry. I look down at my legs. My thighs are splitting like ball park franks with huge horizontal slices that bleed profusely. I'm trying to pull down my skirt over the wounds, trying to cover them up and hide them while watching my family being killed. Figure next to me is confused. He's looking at my legs, taking hold of my elbow, saying my name. I don't know what to say to him. The pastor's eyes are full of evil fury and he looks at me.

I wish I had had this dream three years ago, even two years ago. I wish this didn't still haunt me. I had this dream about three months ago. It's one of many like it, though this is the most detailed dream I can remember anymore.

I don't understand it, and I'm not too sure I'd even want to. What I do know is at some point, while we were in the process of leaving my XC, someone spoke to my mom and said that the congregation would rather see my family's blood in their aisles than have us back in fellowship. I know that makes the dream seem pretty obvious. But it's been five years, and I've moved on from so much of it, you'd think I'd be able to get to a point where I at least wasn't still having the dreams.

Do spiritual wounds, such as the ones so many of us carry, ever really heal? I don't think time heals things like this.

I'll be honest, I've tried to leave and ignore so much of it, so much of my faith even. I closed my eyes to spiritual things a long time ago because I was so weary and beaten down, and so young, I just didn't want to deal anymore. I left my town and the life I've been living has barely lined up with the perfect little christian girl I was before. I honestly don't regret most of it . . . but I thought once I wasn't immersed in that church anymore, in all the evilness that was there and all the lies that were being told, I thought once I was free from those bonds, the dreams would stop and I would heal.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Where is the Fulfilling?

I was reading barb's post today where she was talking about how her kids have been hurt through the church, and how can she now help them when she doesn't feel like she has anything left to measure the acceptable/right/true things anymore (ok, big summary, but i'm exhausted, and right now, i think that's part of what she was saying). I don't usually respond to posts, but I couldn't help but respond to this one. As the child of a family that has divorced itself from an abusive church, I had every rule that had been handed to me on a silver platter, neatly wrapped and packaged at the time, knocked out of my hands with one hell of a blow. There weren't even pieces left to pick up.

So I took a hard swing to the side. From perfect Christian girl to falling apart college girl, I had all the sex and alcohol and drugs I could possibly want at my disposal. I didn't hit it as hard core as I could have. I mean, I've only had sex with one guy I thought I loved, stayed away from most drugs, and I drink . . . ok, a fair amount.

I just think it's kind of ironic how both my church and this opposing lifestyle I've lived for the past two years have both left me with deep wounds that won't seem to heal. Both have left me lonely. Both have left me wanting for something more.

If neither of these extremes work at all in the quest for truth and love and something real, then what is the balance? How can I have a rule that doesn't make me want to vomit with legalism? How can I obey them blindly with out being a pharisee? How can I advise my baby sister not to walk the same road I have without being a hypocrite? How can I give my heart to someone else someday without feeling like I have no standards left to judge a guy with?

I feel like I lost all I believed in, except for Jesus. (I have to admit, I hate calling him that . . . when I talk about God, I'm usually referring to the Jesus part of that God. Jesus was just a name that was overused for me, and it's become almost a cliche, stupid thing to say . . . saying "Dear Jesus," is the same to me as "Dear Santa" . . . but for the purposes of this blog, I'm going to try to just suck it up and call him that). I never stopped believing in him.

Everything else, I'm building from the ground up now. I don't know where to draw the lines, how far left or right they should be, or if I should be going about drawing lines for myself at all. I've hit on the unfulfilling. More broken and prime for change than ever, where is the fulfilling?

Flashback

If I could go back five years and talk to myself . . .

I'd tell her she didn't have to try to be so strong. I'd tell her pastors aren't trustworthy just because they're pastors. I'd tell her not to put so much faith in her church family, because it wasn't going to be there for her when the shit hit the fan.

I'd tell her that she was going to be hit with a lot of pain, and that she was going to be expected to act like an adult towards actual adults who acted like children, but that she was still a child, and she didn't have to do it. I'd tell her not to worry so much about protecting my family, and to get the help she needed.

I'd tell her to say all the things she meant to say when she wanted to say it and not hold back.


If I could go back four years . . .

I'd beg her to get help then, and save herself a lot of secrecy and pain and scars.

I'd tell her to get out of that church right then, to leave the youth group. It's not abandoning because they abandoned you.

I'd tell her to find other friends, friends who maybe weren't Christians, or friends who didn't go to church. I'd tell her these friends would be fine, and they'd probably end up being the best and truest friends she'd ever have.


If I could go back three years . . .

I'd tell her to take more pictures, because I don't remember her anymore. I don't remember what she did or didn't do, I just have scars to prove that 16 happened.


If I could go back two years . . .

I'd tell her go ahead, college is right for you right now, don't be so afraid. But be careful. And keep praying (she stopped praying).

I'd tell her not to be so afraid of her gifts. You're not weird, but you're also not better. Just relax and pray.


If I could go back a year . . .

I'd tell her to forgive my pastor sooner, to tell her parents she didn't want to talk about the lawsuit anymore, and to tell she's not someone to dump on, she's only 18. I'd tell her to off Dori and Todd, tell them they hurt her when they told their daughter, my best friend, that we were bad people. I'd tell her to speak her mind to Jeff and tell him what she thought about what happened.

I'd tell her to never hang out with Derek. No, don't ever go over to see him. Don't give him you're number. Don't play with that fire.


If I could go back six months . . .

I'd say, yeah, get that tattoo, it'll look good.

I'd say don't go back to Derek. Don't get in bed with him. You're just lonely right now. He's dangerous, he's fire, he'll burn you, he'll push under your skin. You won't keep saying no. And once you don't say no, he'll never let you go back to saying no. He'll leave you lonely. He'll leave you broken and when he says he'll call you soon, you'll never hear from him again. He'll just bruise your heart up so it's too tender to entertain the thought of ever letting anyone else really care for it.

I'd say speak kindly but firmly. I'd say care for the relationships you've got, care hard, care strong, don't waste away your time with someone who doesn't love you.

I'd say don't let people walk all over you.

I'd say take care of yourself as best you can.


If in two years, I can come back to now, I hope I say . . .

Don't count your regrets. You got out when you did, and you'll be ok. Your heart will heal, and it doesn't matter if he ever calls you or not, because you're stronger than that, and you don't need him. There's something better for you coming soon enough. Just be patient, you'll see what I mean.

Take care of yourself. Don't give yourself away again. Don't let your lonliness determine the condition of your heart and who has access. You won't always be lonely.

Keep writing, it's what you love most. Keep playing that guitar, you'll love that, too. Be open to new friendships. Keep the ones you have.

You're stronger than you think.

Perhaps I should feel vindicated.

Five years since my fourteen year old heart was crushed by my church. Five years since my narcissitic pastor was finally fired, after years (possibly a couple decades) of abusing his staff and raising a church that followed him in blind faith. Five years since the shit hit the fan and he was kicked out, only to get another job a few states over, in the same denomination, as he sued my family and put us through a nightmere of pain.

He's held that job. My fear was always that he had excelled. I wondered what his kids must have though. His daughter, who was a good friend of mine, and his son, who I came very close to dating right before everything, probably still think terrible things of my parents and I -- we brought him down, we were the reason he was fired, it was our fault.

But it's happened again. For the third time, this man who caused so much destruction, has been shown the door. What's more, he is barred from the denomination for good.

I should feel vindicated . . . shouldn't I?

I can't help but think of him differently now, five years out. A victim, perhaps, to an evil so intense, so supernatural, yet so close to our own breath.

This pattern of churches is quietly sweeping the nation, is it not? Most who have not actually had this destructive-like church experience that I, my family, and many, many others have may not believe it or hear about it, unless it happens to them or friends of theirs, but it is happening.

What is it? Why is it happening? Maybe I speak too strongly when I say this, but from where I'm standing, so much of this looks almost cult-like anymore. Regardless, the focus has left Christ entirely and has shifted somewhere way off-base, to a religion that is sold and pastors or elders who are worshipped instead of God. It's like the real meaning has been lost in the shuffle.

My question is why is this happening? Why has it become a pattern?

I hate to talk about "spiritual warfare" anymore because of my past experience with this term and the "forces" that it refers to. But I feel as though I almost can't escape it in regards to my ex-pastor.

Is it possible to be blinded by forces outside ourselves? To be so misdirected, we think what we are doing is right and honorable, even if we see the same actions as wron in others? Is it possible that something, some being, in a realm outside our own can have that kind of influence on us? Is it really possible that there is a battle so huge, that it is actually effecting the churches across our nation in the same way?

Or is the problem with my pastor merely a diagnosable narcissistic personality disorder? Is the similarity just some kind of trend, something that would have eventually happened in any church at this stage, like it should have been expected?

change

"I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see you clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
So i drew a new face and I laughed.
I guess what I be saying is there ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanities
And just go with the seasons
It's what we aim to do
Our name is our virtue."

This is an excerpt from Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours." I love this song. The part above just makes me smile. I hope to be like that again someday.

I'm struggling with trying to "find myself" again lately. I'm back home, trying to find some swing of things to get into for the next four months (that seem to drag on forever, and it's only week one). I'm realizing that though I long to be back at school right now, I'm much safer here. I think more clearly. My mind is not fogged by the haze that is college -- the alcohol, the music, the intense stress and hours upon hours of studying, the smoke, the mj, the boys (oooh, the boys), and the wasted times. Of course, much of what I'm leaving behind right now is what I miss the most. I do absolutely love being a college student. I'm thriving, really I am.

But like I said, I think more clearly when I'm at home. No, I don't feel like I can really spread my wings here, but I have a better sense of who I am. I'm stronger, I know myself more, I stand up for myself and for what I really want. I'm not as uncertain about things. Standing here, I see the world as an adventure I can't quite reach. Standing at school, I see the parties as an adventure, but a very different type of adventure that I don't really want to fill my life up with.

I have so much history here, so much painful history, and I'm actually looking for an out of town job for the purpose of avoiding as many people from my exchurch as I possibly can. But I'm also much closer to the raw mess of what became of my heart during those times. I've avoided that rawness, that honesty, for the past few years, because it hurts, it hurts a lot.

I think it's the raw flesh of my heart that is most easy and willing to change. Anything to get it out of the state it's in. Well, I've tried "anything" at college. And it's unfufilling. And now, I'm hurt from that as well.

But I'm ready to grow up a lot. I'm tired of trying myself and falling. I'm tired of trying to find the arms to hold me and make the pain stop. I'm tired of the drugs and alcohol that numb the pain only as much as the last. I'm really ready to put this behind me this summer and let what happened in the past be in the past and start looking toward the future and what I need for my life right now. I want to find the adventure I need and take it. And I'm accepting that if I'm alone for that, if I'm not in the process of joining my life with someone else's during that adventure, that's ok. I'll be ok alone. I really will.


Conclusion: I think my heart had to get trampled on a little bit to get me here. here is where the pages turn. Here is where I change.

Derek

"Hunny, I think Derek's going to have to hurt you real bad for you to finally leave him." We were standing in the omlet line at the caf, two finals down and one to go when Jordan said this. She had just recently broken up with her boyfriend of four years. She was speaking from experience.

"I know, I know," I said, looking at the floor. I've been trying to break things off with Derek for a long time. I love him, I really do, but I've compromised so much of what I've always believed for him and I just couldn't do it anymore. He had a lot of problems, a lot of baggage, and I don't know where it all stems from. At twenty-one, he's been an alcoholic for probably at least four years, and while I connect with him intimately, he's been with a lot of women, and I could always feel that he wasn't all there when we were having sex.

Hours later, finals finished, I walked into my room to my roomate, Kelly, sitting on the couch with that we-need-to-talk-and-i-don't-want-to-be-the-one-to-tell-you look on her face. I knew immediately that it was about Derek and it wouldn't be good. Kel had just left her friend's room, after she had announced to Kelly that she's been sleeping with Derek for months, and how bad she felt for me that I didn't know.

I took off. I drove for hours on roads I didn't know. I cried. I screamed.

I went back to school and confronted Derek. I raised my voice and he nearly cried. I wanted to cry then. I wanted him to see my tears, but I was just furiously angry. I left and told him I didn't want to see him anymore, that I couldn't see him anymore.

How desperately I want to see him now.

That wasn't even a week ago. Since then, I sat down with my parents and confessed to them everything that happened with Derek. They took it surprisingly well.

At this moment, I'm hurt, I'm angry, I'm heartbroken, and I want him to hold me so desperately. I want to lie in his arms and cry. I want to kiss his face, his neck, his chest. I want to hold him and tell him that things can be better, that he can change. I don't want to accept that it's over. I want to think that in a year, in a month, in a week, he'll call me, tell me he's changed, and he'll be what I've always needed him to be.

But I'm realizing some things now. For him to change, he needs to first hit rock bottom. He needs to see himself completely broken. He needs to see how he broke me and other girls in his past. He needs to see the opportunities he's walked out on, and be completely and totally ripped apart. He needs to have two options: give up and die, or get help.

I pray he hits bottom soon. If he doesn't, he will never change, no matter what I or anyone else says. He will never be the man he can be if he doesn't fall.

Sometimes, I think he's close. The things he'd say to me while I held his aching head to my chest when he'd had too much to drink . . . he's coming closer to the edge than he ever had before. I hope he falls soon. I want him to fall and I want him to fall hard and soon, so he can start getting back up.

God, I pray that you break him, I pray that you break him so much, that he can actually see you for the first time. I pray that you break him hard enough that he has to hope and have faith. I pray that you put people in his life who can help him when he breaks, and I pray that you help me stay out of it. I pray that he chooses help, and that he chooses you. I pray you help him back to his feet. I pray that you change him.

Let him see who he hurt. Let him feel the pain, let him feel all of it, and let him be overwhelmed enough to call out your name. Let him be angry at whatever happened to him, but don't let him turn to alcohol or replacement pain.

Don't let him just continue as he is right now. Break him God, please, break him.

Then heal him, please, heal him.

And heal me.

I'm worth more than the level I stooped to this year. I'm worth more than a guy who treats me like meat. I'm worth more than sex. I'm worth more than my body.

I ask that you make me stronger and wiser because of this. Give me new strength and new focus. Help me keep my mind off of him unless it is in prayer.

I want to seize opportunities and return to who I used to be before I compromised so much.

Be with me. Be with him. Keep us both.

Help me forgive him.

Taking Care of Me

This is where I dont want to be honest with myself. This is where things start to hurt. This is where I have to deal with consequences I don't want to deal with.

Roommate #1 called me yesterday and said those dreaded words: we need to talk. I got back to the room, already pretty much knowing what it was going to be about. Roommate talked to her friend. Friend said she slept with my boyfriend not too long ago. God, I sure know how to pick them don't I?

I was furious. I haven't been that angry since the last time I saw my pastor (wish that was a joke, but I'm serious). I got in my car and just wanted to go anywhere fast, so I drove for about an hour. Boyfriend was working on his senior project. I was crying behind the wheel. I speed all the time, but I never got pulled over til last night. I think it may have been somewhat of a blessing that I did get pulled over, cuz it got me to slow down. I smoked a pack of cigarrettes in the next few hours, and that got me to stop crying. I cleaned my entire room from top to bottom, and called my cousin. She told me to get tested, to break up with him, to take care of myself. Boyfriend called me when I finished his project, around 1 AM, so I went over to see him. Sat on his desk and asked him how it went. Asked him when he was leaving. Asked him how long he had been sleeping with her.

Silence.

I asked him again.

He looked like he was about to lie to me.

Don't fucking lie to me.

I didn't want to hurt you.

You fucking lied to me. How could you?

It was just once, last semester. I didn't want to hurt you.

Just once? Roommate said it's been going on all year.

Silence.

He denied it. But I don't really believe his denial.

Fuck you. I can't believe you. I need to get tested. I thought I was pregnant with you. I was faithful to you. I trusted you. I compromised so much for you. Fuck you.

Silence from his end still.

Fuck you. I'm done. I'm out. I don't want to hear from you anymore.

He just stood there. I thought he was going to cry. But he and I are too much alike. Neither of us can cry at moments like that. He just looks like he wants to die. And my legs and hands shake.

I think I'm too empathetic. Boyfriend has a lot of problems. I'll admit it now, I think he's an alcoholic, or will be very soon if he's not already. There's something in his past he's not facing, too many things he can't remember doing, scars he doesn't remember getting, nightmares that plague him. He drinks too much to forget things, and when he gets drunk, he does stupid stuff. Lately, he's been sleeping with Jess. Ouch. Major ouch.

I don't want to make excuses for him. I don't want to say what he did is ok. I refuse to be treated like that. And I know I should have known better, because Boyfriend has slept with a lot of girls. But I kind of see it as his problem, not as something he's trying to do to me. I see it as his form of cutting, his way of detatching, of keeping everyone at arms length and never letting anyone inside. I see it as something he needs to change, something he can heal from, but I'm not sure he'll ever get to that point.

I loved boyfriend. But I was proud of myself last night, because I stood there as he slumped in a chair and stood up for myself. I told him I was better than that, that I deserve better than that, that I refuse to be treated like that. No one deserves to be treated like that. I told him he's never going to be able to be with a woman and love her unless he changes and lets someone in. He said he knows. I said I hope he does change for his sake, but that I was done. I told him I really cared about him. He said he cared about me too, and I said I didn't want to hear that right then. He said, I know but I do care,and I want you to hear that.

I don't want to have sympathy for him. I didn't want to last night either. I leaned down and kissed his head. I put my arms around his neck. He reached up and squeezed me really tight and I sat down on his lap and he held me for a long time. I said I wish we could fix this, but we can't. I wish we could make it all better, but I'm out. I loved you, but I'm out. I don't want to leave this room becaus I know it's goodbye.

I stood and took his hands, pulled him up. Hugged him really tight. Sometimes I wish I could just cry, but I couldn't. He kissed my head. He kissed my lips. He pecked my lips. He kissed my lips. He kissed me deeply. I pulled away. He said "See ya." I said, "No." He looked sad. I walked out of there and didn't look back.

I was so angry last night. This morning, I'm terribly hurt. And I'm terribly scared. I'm getting tested soon, I feel like I need to be. I feel comfort in that he said he's been tested recently, and that he's fine. I'm still going. I want to call him, ask him to come over, I want to cry in his arms for a while, beg him to change.

I think I'm the one changing right now though. It's been a long time since I've stood up for myself with a guy and said I deserve better and want better. As bitchy as it sounds, I think I'm probably the best he's ever had, because I cared about who he is, I was faithful to him, and I would have kept treating him right.

I'm going to be alone for a while, do some writing, make some money, and spend time with my friends. I hope in a few years I run into boyfriend, and I hope at that point, he's grown up and changed a lot.

I'm scared for him though, cuz I really feel like I'm going to be reading is obituary in two decades when he drinks himself to death.

But I have to take care of me now.

My "new" church

It's finals week at my school, and I really should be doing lots of work, writing papers, and studying right now, but I'm so burned out, and I just want to write something for myself right now.

I'm moving back home on Friday for four months. I remember this time last year. I was exhausted and burned out like I am now, and just wanted to relax. The problem was I had in a sense "run away" from my home town a year early, skipped my senior year of high school, because I had to get away from everything that had happened with my church. Two years ago, my family was still undergoing a lawsuit via my oh-so-lovely narcicistic pastor, the people from my church treated my parents like shit but were sickly sweet to me (as though I was too young to know what was going on or to draw conclusions about things on my own), and I felt like I was suffocating. I went a very small Christian school that was overflowing with either people from my exchurch or people who knew people from my exchurch. At that point, I was so bitter against institutionalized religion and churches, and the Christian school did nothing to help with their intense legalism. I applied to college a year early, minus the high school diploma or GED entirely, and got accepted to a decent private college with almost half the tuition covered in academic scholarshihp and my teachers and principles told me I was doing the "wrong thing, going against God's will for my life and making a mistake." I was done with them at that point. I left that institution as well, hurt and disappointed in the Christians I had trusted for so long.

I know now that I could not be here if it's not what God wanted for me. I have excelled where I'm at now, and I'm doing what I really want to do.

Going back home last summer was hard. The only job I could get meant spending a lot of time waiting on and serving the churchies from my XC (exchurch), and I had to work with one of the students (the son of an elder) as well. I was miserable and depressed and angry. My parents continued their habit of dumping everything on me: their frustrations about the lawsuit, their depression at the loss of so many friends, my dad's pain over the loss of his closest friends. They told me what people were still saying, what people thought we should do. Told me that Jack, an elder who I trusted so much, and who even stood by us through a lot, thought we were doing something almost evil by having left the church and holding a very small Bible study in our home. I was told I needed to get back into a church, "find God again", whatever the hell that means.

I started pulling away from everything and everyone. By the end of the summer, I had a few fights with my parents, explained a lot to them about who I am now and where I'm coming from, and things got better. Regardless, going back again is still stressful and I'm scared.

Completely honesty here: I'm a Bad Christian. I've done a lot of things I know I probably shouldn't have done since I left my church and school and hometown. I don't go to church and don't want to. I don't participate in any kind of Bible study or Christian group. I smoke. I drink. I lost my virginity to a guy who didn't love me then and still doesn't, I swear quite a bit. I refuse to say that this stuff doesn't need to change. I refuse to say that I didn't make mistakes and that I don't regret a lot of it.

But I flat out, completely, 100% refuse to say that I do not have a relationship with the God I've discovered since I left. This God guy, what I've discovered about him is that he's always there. He's been there when I've blackout from all the vodka, he was there when I crawled into bed with the wrong man, he was there when I sat on the stoop of my dorm in the middle of the night and asked "where are you?", he's here with me now. And somehow, I don't know how, but I think he likes me.

I used to hide behind this "good Christian girl" image, and oh, was I ever the good Christian girl. Bible cover and promise wring in tote all the time, I didn't do anything wrong on the surface. I wasn't me. I wasn't being true to myself. I was doing everything I was told I was supposed to do. I was "having visions" and saying the right prayers and being thankful and all, but it wasn't me at all. I had this fake like relationship with him that wasn't honest. Deep down, I was angry, especially between the ages of 15-um, now. I had this ugly, ugly anger inside me, stemming from all these "you should do this, pray like that, God won't like you if you do this, he'll be angry if you do that", all this goddamn hypocracy. I couldn't handle it.

Now, still uninvolved in any kind of organized group that meets to talk about God at all, I think my relationship with him is possibly more real than ever, even if it is just kind of starting out again.

I think in a way, maybe I was lukier than my parents through all of this. I had to grow up faster than I should have, had to leave a year early (I'll never forget my dad on the phone with an elder who finally realized we did nothing wrong; the guy asked my dad what he could do to make it better, and my dad said "give me that year with my daughter back;" break my heart), had to deal with adult situations at a young age that shouldn't have been put on my plate. I should be angry, I should be better, hell, I should be fucked up.

But I'm 19 years old and I'm free. The bondage that was my church, those chains are off my hands, and everytime someone tries to slap them back on, they won't stick. Yeah, I'm still bitter, and it's hard to move on, but I'm still free from the lies. I know that I don't have to be who I used to be to be loved or even liked by this Godguy I know now. I don't have to pretend.

And I think I've finally figured out what all the "rules" I was taught in church were all about. The "no sex, drugs, alcohol, etcetcetc," I don't think it's really about this superstitious ''God won't love you anymore" or "you'll just make him angry" thing anymore. I don't think it's about "do better, try harder." It's more about me. Ok, that sounds selfish, I know. But I think Godguy was just trying to keep me safe.

Cuz the sex is great, but right now, I'm alone, and since I've had that, I feel like I lack that more than ever. If fulfills and feels great at the time, and it feels great as long as your with the person. But no long term committment means lots of pain. It means being alone for the bad shit that comes with sex, like the pregnancy test you have to have your friend help you pick up cuz you're boyfriend is out of the picture. It means seeing someone and hurting, because they knew you more intimately than anyone ever has, and now he's knowing someone else that intimately, and you're alone.

And the alcohol -- while, again, fun at the time -- just makes you sick and depressed the next morning. It means pictures you don't remember being taken and people you don't remember meeting or kissing or dancing with.

And the drugs just become another thing to be dependent on. Another replacement for all the bad shit you went through before.

The smoking just replaced the cutting and makes me cough.

And I know I was told all this, and maybe I just wasn't listening at the time. But it was so wrapped up in the shoulds and shouldn'ts of my hypocritical Christian culture that I hated the rules. Cuz the same people who were telling me I shouldn't do it because God said I shouldn't were the same people who were cheating on their spouses and relying on that bottle of whisky to get through the day. And the guy who told my parents how to raise their children, it was his daughter who barricaded herself in a building after running away and tried to hurt herself and would only let me in.

So, yes, I learned all this the hard way, and I will never claim to be a perfect Christian or person, and hell, I'm still trying to figure stuff out right now, like how to give up new addictions, and what to do now that the boyfriend is calling again. I've made mistakes and I'm dealing with the consequences.

But I am free. Really I am. The friends I have found are some of the coolest people I know. And none of them is perfect. We're all pretty fucked up. But most of them know this Godguy in some way, even if they don't call him by the same name I do (what does a name matter?) and their honest with themselves and with him about who they are, about their hurts and pains.

And it is here that I've found my church. No small group needed, no structure at all. Nothing organized. Just the people God has led into my life for the moment, and honesty, and him. I realize in two more years, when college is over, I may lose all of that and be back at square one with church.

But for now, this is all I need.

Two Mes

I’m in my home town right now, house sitting for my parents while they’re away for a weekend. I have three weeks of school left, then I’ll be back here for the majority of the summer, working and taking some classes. I’m dreading the thought of being back here. In some sick way, as unsafe as I feel at school right now (a slowly ending relationship, rocky roommate situation, just some rough friendships) I feel much more unsafe here at home. It has nothing to do with my family. I feel perfectly fine here, it’s just this town, the memories.
I feel like there are two different “mes” sometimes. There’s the Me from school – Cooper. And there’s the Me from home. The people who know Cooper don’t really know this other me. This me feels weaker than Cooper. She feels weakened by people, and she’s afraid to get a job, because she’s going to have to see these people who hurt her so badly. And if she has to see them in a workplace, she’s going to have to be polite, instead of screaming at them like she wants to.
I stopped by the ice cream place I worked at last summer when I got into town on Friday, and this kid who works there used to be a part of the junior high youth group at my old church when I was leading it. He wouldn’t even give me my fucking ice cream before saying “Why did you leave us? Come back and visit, everyone wants you to. Why won’t you come back.”
“Dan, it’s a long story, I can’t come back. I miss you guys to, but I can’t.”
“I know it’s a long story, but it’s not like it was that big of a deal. No one cares anymore. Just come back.”
Ok, so I know this kid didn’t do anything, and I know he’s just young and he was way too young to know what was going on when it happened, but it was all I could do, not to grab him by the collar and say, “Look, you don’t know. Yes, it was a big fucking deal, and no, people haven’t forgotten. I won’t ever come back to that place. I wouldn’t even if it hadn’t been for people telling me they don’t want me back. You have no fucking idea how bad that place hurt me, and how much it still hurts and how much I want you to stop talking to me about it. I can’t work with you anymore because you won’t stop fucking talking about it.”
But there were people at the window, and I this kid’s parents were around, so I just said, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Took my ice cream, and left.
I’m so tired of dealing with it. You’d think, after 5 years, I would be able to move past it. But the me who still lives here still hurts a lot.
There are other somewhat interesting things about the me who still lives here. She doesn’t date, or at least doesn’t do anything at all with the boys she does date. She dated this guy last summer for three months. Never held his hand. Never kissed him. Hugged him the last time she saw him. But other than that, nothing at all. What’s also weird, is she doesn’t smoke much either. Cooper smokes. Cooper smokes half a pack a day sometimes. But the me here has maybe one a day, if even that, and that’s only during the semester when she’s home. During the summer? A pack lasts all four months.
The thing is, the me here wants to hurt herself a lot more. She beats a punching bag until her knuckles bleed, then she backhands it until her hands are bruised and it hurts to move her fingers the next day. The me who lives here still wants to cut. Cutting doesn’t work for Cooper. She tried it once, and it didn’t work.
I think moving away from here was very freeing and very healing for me. I gained a lot of strength. I don’t understand why I lose that when I go home. Maybe there are issues I still haven’t dealt with, maybe there’s too much I don’t remember. Maybe I just find it hard to accept that I can heal.
I really don't know what this summer is going to hold for me. I'm scared, I'll admit. I'm finding myself pulling far away from my relationship. I've been home a lot recently, and that always helps me put things in perspective as well. I'm realizing that if I do end up in a fulfilling relationship someday, it's going to have to be with someone who believes similarly as I do. Yes, Derek might be someone like that, because our views on God are similiar, but he has a lot of growing up to do yet. So right now, he's not that guy for me. So I'm pulling away, and that's scary, and I'm looking for a job that will have me working with people from my town, and that's scary, and I'm coming home to live with my family. And I have this little sister who looks up to me, and she's sad because my older brother and she were really close, and he just moved out, and I don't think I'm much of a role model, but I want to be here to love her and hope that maybe she's smart enough not to make the same decisions I've made. And that's scary.

Sex, Drugs, Alcohol vs. Church, Bibles, and Sunday School

I was out driving around town the other day, just cuz I needed to get out and away, and I just got to thinking about life. I have this boyfriend/whatever you want to call him who I've been a little on and off with lately. He tells me not to think so much. I thought about that. And I think I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want me to think.

Anyway, I was thinking about how the other day, I was frustrated and venting to my roomate, Mary, about how a friend of mine is trying to drag me back to church. She even went as far as to ask me when I was slightly intoxicated one weekend and keeps coming back with "You promised you'd go next week." Some of my friends treat me like I'm this vile person since I've left the institution of the church. Honestly, though I'm coming to terms that I have not made the best decisions the past few yeasr, I feel freer now that I'm out of the church than I ever have.

So I was venting to Mary, and I was trying to justify my frustration with Jenna, and I said something like, "Honestly, it's not like I'm this terrible sinner who needs to find god and cleanse myself, it's not like I'm . . . " And I was quiet for a second. So Mary graciously chimed in, "You're not what? Drinking, smoking, and having sex?" We both kinda laughed at the irony.

But it really got me thinking . . . I was so bitter, so incredibly angry when I left my church, I started thinking everything they ever told me was bullshit. And while they denounced this on the pulpit, as a student, I was beaten over the head with the idea of "do better, try harder." It was like this constant game of trying to excel to the next level, of being this perfect little Christian girl. Those friends of mine who were in my senior high youth group with me at the time shit went down, we've all "rebelled" in some way or another against this idea. I myself rejected this idea that I had to be a better person and do better things in order to be a Christian or have faith. I killed the god I knew, and started believing in a God who I think loves me anyway, who I think, looking back, was there with me everytime I made poor decisions, as much as he's been there when I've made good decisions. I think my friends and I may have hit on something, but I think we're still missing something pretty big too.

Because all the shit we do right now, the sex, the drugs, the smoking, the drinking, the boys -- it's all trying to fill a gap that was left behind in the "do better, try harder." I don't look at myself and think I'm this God-aweful person for what I've done -- though I realize I've made a lot of mistakes and very poor, possibly dangerous decisions. I don't think I'm going to hell for getting drunk, for wanting to feel a man's body pressed against my own, for destroying my body in all the ways I have . . . I think it was "wrong" (god, i hate that word) because I think all I've been doing is trying to fill a gap, and emptiness I struggle with. I used to fill that emptiness with "good deeds" or church or the bible, or this really selfcentered prayer I was taught. I'm not sure what was more wrong -- filling this hole with sex and drugs and alcohol, or filling it with these pharacitical ideas that I was a better christian than other people because I didn't do these things.

I'd write more, and continue these thoughts, but I'm halfway to being late to class. I'll come back to this. But in conclusion, I think I'm really starting on this journey now back to healing, or back to me.

Worship?

I've been struggling so much lately with the idea of where worship fits in my life anymore. For the longest time after getting out of the church, I would say that the part I missed the most was the worship. Worship at my exchurch was beautiful. The woman leading it had a beautiful voice, the arrangement was gorgeous, the band was good, the songs were young and easy to "get-into." Now, however, I'm questioning whether that really was worship at all, or if it was just a free concert with pretty, emotion filled songs that really meant nothing at all when it came to this God we were supposed to be acknowledging. I've been questioning it even more recently, as the woman who used to lead the worship and mentored me for years has left her family for a married man, an affair took place on the team, and from what I've heard, in the past few years, the entire worship service was so focussed on preformance and very little actual worship actually took place.

My question now? Do I even need any of this to worship? I believe that I had experiences there where I was in a meditative worship of the real God, not the fake god that place tried to show me. I really do believe that, but I think what was going on there prohibitted me from seeing this more than it helped.

Two years into college, five years out of the church, and I'm finding pressure from my Christian friends at school to go back to church, get back into worship, find God again . . . What the fuck? Do I need church to worship? Do I need church to see God? Do I need other people to lead me into worship? Explain that to me, when I can't even sit through a church service now without feeling great anxiety or disgust or nausea. I dread days I have to go to church. I've had to go a few times since coming to school for different reasons: record the college choir, a baby is being dedicated, a couple is getting married and I'm in the wedding. How am I supposed to worship there when I've never felt like it was true worship to begin with, and when I can't get my mind away from thinking "get me the fuck out of here now, please."

There's this patio out the side of my house where I always stand when I let my two dogs out. When things were really bad with my church for my family, when we were in the worst of it, and massive amounts of shit were hitting the fan, I needed to get out bad, but I was only 14,15,16, and I couldn't drive. So I'd let the dogs out and just stand there. I'd look up at the stars and I'd talk. "I can't do this anymore, I can't breathe. God, this hurts so bad. Where are you? How can I do this? Anything, give me anything to get out. Give me anyway to be free. All I can do now is cut, I don't want that anymore, but I don't see you, and it's the only thing that helps. God, fuck you. How could you let this happen? You can't possibly be who they think you are if you're hearing this. Do you hear me. Fuck you. I hope you hear this. Fuck you." Sounds terrible. Sounds sacreligious. Sounds heretical.

That was my worship at that time. I was at least acknowledging. I was alone and in contact with whoever the hell this Being was or is. I was honest. And I really believe he heard me.

I don't think that's all worship should be -- a rageful rampage at the supernatural -- but I think I was hitting on something even then. I don't need these people standing on a stage singing empty words that really mean nothing to get to the heart of what worship is. I don't need a band or the music or the people. Just me and him. Just the honesty and him. Call it a prayer, call it worhip, call it heracy, I don't care. It worked for me. It still works for me.

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.

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?

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.

Time Doesn't Heal

Over time, I’m sure I’ll be ready to write more of my story on here – what happened to get me to where I am today. But right now, I think all I’m going to say is I’m coming out of a very abusive and painful church situation that started for me when I was 14. I’m 19 now, and I’ve walked out of organized religion completely, and I really can’t see myself ever being able to return to that. The entire of this purpose of this blog is basically to be a place for me to be able to say whatever the hell I want about it, because, 5 year since it all started, 1 year since it’s all been over, and I’m still trying to heal.

I sat in a ragged old, over-stuffed blue lazy boy across from my counselor this week - my third in two years. I’m back again because the details of what happened still haunt me. I had just told him about nightmares I’m still having, fears and pains that won’t die even though I’m over a year out of the dead center of the situation now. I feel like I should be able to be done with it now, should be able to move on, but I haven’t really been able to. I’m incredibly frustrated, because I desperately want to be free, but feel like I’m not in so many ways. We talked about the old saying “Time heals all wounds.” We agreed that this whole idea is complete bullshit. He said it’s like if you get a paper cut and ignore it, it’ll be fine in a few days, with time, but if you break your leg and ignore it, time is only going to give you a pretty fucked up leg.

It reminds me of a song I heard when I was driving the other day. Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks sings in an angry song “I’m Not Ready to Make Nice” about a time when she was hurt or wronged or something. She starts off “Forgive? Sounds good. Forget? I’m not sure I could. They say time heals everything, but I’m still waiting.” The chorus goes on to say “I’m not ready to make nice, I’m not read to back down. I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go round and round and round. It’s too late to make it right.”

Corny though I think the Dixie Chicks are, I identify with these parts of the song. It’s been a few years, but I’m still furious about the situation my family and I went to at the hands of our church, our spiritual family.

I wish so much that I could just let it go and heal, but I’m not really sure how. Time hasn’t done it. Even with a few solid years of counseling, the dreams and thoughts and anger that haunts me proves that I’m still incredibly wounded. Even though I didn’t treat the broken leg like a paper cut, even though I’ve tried to get the help I needed and have tried to move on with my life, I haven’t healed. I hope that some day, I will be able to, but I can’t fathom a day when I won’t carry the anger and frustration with the church and Christians that I still carry today.

Time has brought me one thing, and that’s the understanding, vague though it is, that there might have been a purpose in my own life for this all to happen. Thus far, the only purposes it has served were to get me out of my town and into college a year earlier than I should have, and to completely redefine the God I believe in now. I’m completely comfortable being angry now, and letting that anger come out even towards the God I now believe in it.

I haven’t really been able to connect with other people like me til recently, people who were victims of church abuse at a young age like I was. I’ve actually started looking for blogs of people like me, and I’ve found some that have bloggers whose wounds are much much fresher than my own. I wish I could say to them that things get easier with time when it’s all over. I wish I could say that it won’t always have a foot hold in their lives. I wish I could say they’d get over it. I can’t. I know that isn’t very encouraging.

If I can be any encouragement at all, hear this: what happens in abusive churches is a big deal. It’s painful, it’s scarring, and it wounds you on such a deep level. I’ve had so many people – friends and mentors and pastors and teachers – ask me why I can’t just get over it, why I can’t just move on. Simply put, they don’t understand it. It’s not that easy. My blog won’t be sugar coated, and it won’t lie about this pain. I’m not going to try to belittle it anymore.

Is there ever going to be real healing for me? Yeah, I think so, but I’m not quite there yet.