Support

Finding your world view shattered on the ground isn't exactly fun. But for an extrovert, infinitely worse was feeling as though I were a fish out of water on a sweltering desert island in a sea of well-intentioned sharks. Overstatement? Sometimes. But only sometimes.

My parents didn't get it. My mom was devastated, and my relationship with my dad deteriorated into long arguments. They warned me not to talk to my cousins because I was "such a good role model" for them. My counselor, dean, and professors were very supportive of my questioning—up to and until I stopped arriving at the correct answers. (I've found that such answers, of the sort which are also used in Bible studies and devotional books, can be terribly mundane once one has mastered the various formulae.) After many months of supporting me, my boyfriend (understandably) came very close to ending our relationship. One friend informed me that our friendship was over unless I wanted to continue listening to his views on the topic. After that I mostly stopped talking to people about it.

But there were a couple distinctly bright spots.

On Bars

I'm not quite sure what this post is about. Maybe it's about how last night, I met a girl who might, maybe, be me in a few years. She's the same age but somehow managed to hit the end while she was still living at home (an unthinkable feat in my mind). She was able to witness that, yes, it sucks, it destroys your world. And she was able to look at me and say—you can do it. You can put your life back together. You'll be ok.

Maybe this post is about how we then went to a bar with a group of friends. It was my first time in a bar, though of course I didn't drink. So maybe that's what this post is about—that over the last month, I've embraced the fact that I will never be able to just leave the traditions; that it's something I love too much and that has had too profound of an influence upon me to be able to walk away. Is it possible to participate in the church without advocating? It's been deeply instilled in me that no, this is inherently impossible. There are so many places I don't belong…