Sorting It Out - Part 1

At this point in my life I have spent more time out of organized religion than in it and I can definitively say that I feel a difference in myself and my quality of life.

I have way less guilt and anxiety and self-doubt and self-loathing. 

I’m part of a group chat with a few folks I went to bible college with and we all have the same kind of survivor’s guilt feeling about the whole experience. My experience church youth groups and bible college destroyed my self-confidence and self-esteem and filled me with anxiety, self-loathing, and guilt because I never felt like I fully fit in those places. 

As the parent now myself I have been processing through a lot of memories and emotions and realize and can see more clearly how absolutely fucked up some parts of my childhood were thanks in some part, but not entirely, to organized religion and how it was practiced around me. 

My former default was to just go along with whatever made the other person happy and would avoid conflict. That is what was modeled for me and it was and is not a healthy way to go through life and has not served me well in my life. It has been and remains a conscious effort to recognize and correct the just go along with it mentality and behavior. 

It’s a conscious effort to recognize and correct my behavior when I find myself in a situation where I don’t necessarily agree but also don’t want to risk any kind of conflict. Not going along with something I don’t agree with doesn’t mean the only response option is the nuclear option of blowing up and causing harm to the relationship (something else I saw modeled growing up). It has taken a significant amount of conscious effort to unlearn so much of what I learned and saw modeled growing up and I’m still working on it. 

When I was a sophomore in high school and had given up and didn’t care about school anymore my mother started going to a new church which meant I had no choice but to go. I was compelled to get involved with the youth group. I soon discovered that the typical “don’t ever leave the house” rule did not apply if it was something church related. Doing church stuff was the ONLY acceptable reason to not be home so I used this new loophole to my advantage to be gone as much as possible. 

If there was something going on at the church, I was there. Not out of devotion to the cause but the desire to not be at home. 

When the time to go to college was approaching I got it in my head that I had to go to bible college. Again, because that was the only way I saw to get out of the house and completely away from the dysfunction I did it. Once there, I never felt like I truly fit in or even belonged there. 

Years later I was finally able to put my finger on why I felt this way: I never actually believed or bought into the religion stuff. Going along with it was necessary for survival in my home situation so it was not really an option to not go along with it. 

I knew what to say and how to act but deep down I never fully believed it. It was the only way to not be at home. 

Growing up all the adults around me used yelling and shame (in the name of god) to control my behavior and eventually it broke my will to do anything and I gave up. 

Looking back I see that I was “tended to” rather than “raised”. I was never taught about how to handle money. I was never allowed to have an after school job. Any mention of possible career paths was met with “you’re called to be a pastor” and never discussed further. Another example of how my future was stolen. 

It probably wasn’t the strongest sign that vocational religion wasn’t the thing for me when I had to be reminded that that’s what I was “called” to do with my life. My heart and mind were never really in it. 

This post was originally longer but I decided to end it here and save the rest of the original post for a part 2. 

Busy Q3

I’ve been kind of quiet on the old blogosphere lately because after two years of being cautious and doing everything we could to stay safe and healthy we had the opportunity to travel and we took those opportunities.

After over two years of being voluntarily homebound and avoiding people we felt confident enough to travel between vaccines and continuing to practice mitigation measures. So far this year we have been to New Orleans, Paris, New York, and Miami with another trip to New York planned before the end of the year. 

It feels weird to be traveling again and it also feels good. We missed adventures and fancy hotels and the Tiny Human hadn’t really been anywhere that she could remember except a local relatives house but that’s not really the same. 

The Tiny Human has already established herself as a fancy hotel and room service kind of girl and charms the staff everywhere we go. She is truly a force to be reckoned with. 

With the holidays coming there is sure to be a flood of feelings and memories - some good, some bad - that will need to be dealt with. 

Overall time and distance have helped with the healing and forgetting but there are still some that pop up that have to be dealt with every year. 

My main goal as a parent is to provide a childhood and homelife that will not require a therapist or blog of her own later in life. I can’t guarantee that but I can do my best to not be part of the reason. 

Next time, whenever that is, I plan on sharing why my obsession this holiday season is a vinyl copy of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol II. 

If you’ve read this blog before and suspect it has something to do with Auntagonist you’re correct! Please see someone at the Courtesy Desk to claim your prize. 

I am working on (or attempting to) a handful of other writing projects and will try to be more consistent with my posts and venting in the new year. 

Liberty48

AUTHOR’S NOTE: this is a weird thing that happened that I remember some of what happened and it’s weird enough that I wanted to share. I started toying with a basic outline/synopsis and may try to turn this into a short story. Probably something dark and twisted where something awful happens to someone. Or maybe it’ll be a sunshine and rainbows story. But knowing me, it’ll probably go dark.

One day in spring of 1998 I got a card in the mail from someone I never met. I don’t remember their name because it’s not and never was important to me but for some reason I remember the email address she included in her note. Liberty48 at something dot com.

Why do I remember that detail from over 20 year ago but not why I went into the kitchen? I have no idea. 

The contents of the card were baffling and was written like something from a 12-step program. It was awkward and spoke oddly of forgiveness. She claimed to know Gary and went on about how much he loved and missed me. We hadn’t spoken in almost 10 years by this point so unless he was trying to communicate telepathically there were no tangible signs to validate anything she was saying. By the end of the note I figured out that she must be his sponsor in some recovery program or they met at some odd church thing (see Malcolm in the Middle for another third-party communication attempt) or they were some level of friends or lovers. 

I dismissed the note and didn’t think any more about it until I was bored at work one day and thought what the hell, I’ll email her and see what happens. Over the next month we emailed back and forth in what can be best described as reverse catfishing in that my stories were fantastical and wild but not at all true. I don’t remember specifics anymore but I do remember the stories about my career (such as it was at the time) and personal life were completely made up along with what my future plans and goals were. It was a good writing exercise and maybe that approach would help me get some or any of my writing projects moving forward. 

In every message I included a plea to not share any of it with Gary and that it was just between us. This ensured that she would tell him everything out of some noble intent. I was right.

This went on until one evening the phone rang. My mother picked up the phone. It was Gary. The landline number had been the same from 1978 to approximately 2003 so it was not odd that he would still have it somewhere. I saw his call as validation that my plan worked. 

I did not pass go. I did not collect $200. I walked out the door. Got in my car. And drove away. Probably to Barnes & Noble or Borders or someplace like that. 

When I got home my mother was asleep so I didn’t get any details about the call until the next day. It was as expected. He thought everything I had said in my emails was true and I don’t remember what else she told me except that he left his number and really wanted to talk to me. I still had no desire. At this point, and especially today, it would be like calling a random stranger and trying to establish a meaningful relationship. It would be hella awkward. 

The next day at work I sent one last email to whoever Liberty48 is and expressed my disappointment at her betrayal of my trust and informed her that nothing I had written her was true. I think she responded to that message but I deleted it and thus ended my brief career as an amateur catfishing troll .

It’s been over 30 years since I’ve seen Gary and over 20 since I’ve talked to him. Honestly don’t know if he’s still alive or not. Wouldn’t matter either way. At least Gary left before I was old enough to remember him being around at all. It’s hard to make yourself feel something for someone who was never there and you have no relationship with.

Boring Update

I realize it’s been almost two months since I’ve shared anything here and I’m sure it’s been lonely without my tales of childhood traumas. For those I have left unentertained, I apologize. With both of us working full time and wrangling a constantly growing Tiny Human free time to write or read or shower is at a premium and I don’t always have the energy or mental capacity to put fingers to keys and make the magic happen. 

I do have a couple of pieces in the hopper that should be interesting and hope to have those done and posted in the next couple weeks. 

Will it be everyone’s favorite thing? Probably not. 

Will it be scandalous? Also no. 

There will be more weird stories from my childhood coming soon enough.