One Year Anniversary

According to old emails, the anniversary of my question moment was about three days ago. Wow. So it seems like a good time to share a little more of my story. I'll start with that day for the heck of it.

I remember texting a friend that night, one of the people I thought would be most open and relaxed about it all, and asking if I could be a Christian atheist. I also remember being blown away by how strongly she reacted. I realized that somehow, I had finally asked one question too many, had crossed a line that thou shalt not cross, and I was enthralled by the newness of it all. There was so much excitement and relief that came from uncharted territory. It was all so freeing.

But as the weeks went on, and my parents began and continued to struggle, and school rushed at me with the religious fervor only found in a religious community, the fun quickly disappeared. I became bitterly nihilistic, lost most motivation, driven mad by menial tasks (there's so many of them) and occasionally suicidal. I remember sitting in my car late at night many times, sobbing and screaming at a God I didn't think existed for abandoning me to meaninglessness. Ecclesiastes says it better than I can. I began to truly appreciate why Nietzsche went insane. I talked with a counselor, a dean, several professors, my roommates, my boyfriend, and a few friends, and inevitably, with terrifying and increasing efficiency, my mind arrived at this single dead end of blank meaninglessness. Why fight, why work to have any impact on the world, when clearly the most efficient end was a permanent end? The thought of returning to Christianity was tantalizing, almost more than I could resist. To just…forget…to have the safety net, the peace, the hope, the assurance, the meaning. It was a miserable irony to recall the classic argument that surely Christianity must be true, because laying down one's life was the hardest thing possible. Miserable, because what I faced was infinitely worse.

It's been a long year. I'm not sure I could go through it again and make it out alive. And yet I am alive—even after a few hundred days when the only thing keeping me that way was trying to figure out why.

There were at least a dozen different factors that brought me to the end a year ago. But looking back, I believe the straw that broke the camel's back that day was this TED Talk by Richard Dawkins. Not that I agreed with everything he said or even liked him that much, but it was eye-opening to hear the other side speak with just as much fervor as the church for once. I share this video with hopes that it might help someone else reflect on the major turning points of his or her own life. What are the tiny catalysts that have changed everything for you over the years?