It will never cease to amaze me that some people- some special, bright, and beautiful individuals- can exist. The words they allow to spill from their lips onto the canvas of other people's lives, the hope that their simple existence can bring, the wisdom stored inside of them from everything they have been through....it will never cease to amaze me. These people are everywhere, wrapped up in little cacoons and veils of light. Sometimes we can easily spot them. We hope to meet them, to befriend them, to simply be able to have known them- at least I desire to have the privilege to know such people. Meanwhile, there are others that are more difficult to spot. Not so much as a shining beacon, but like water. Necessary, beautiful, reflective, deep, changing everything around it, changing itself, sustaining, understanding in how it almost caresses the object of it's present affection. I cannot even begin to describe these people. They bring hope. Both types bring so much hope and inspiration and joy. Just a single smile can bring a smile to a tear-stained face. Just a single one. And while I wish that these people, once met and integrated into my life, could remain with me I have come to realize that they simply cannot. They are like rain. Beautiful, telling their stories and sharing past wisdom as they pass....but they do have to pass. They have to continue forward, no doubt touching others in this world, because that is who they are. They are the bandages to a broken world. They are the embrace to a lonely heart. They are hope to a lost soul. They are joy to a beaten and depressed mind. And while I desire it for them to stay I know they have to go.
As sad as the occasion always turns out to be I always watch the forever traveling footfalls of that new-turned-old friend. In the blink of an eye they leave, but the memory remains. Like a planted seed...the hope grows up in the spring with every water of the memory and after every cold winter. These people are not simply forgotten. Sometimes our paths cross again, many years later. It is these unexpected reunions that hold the world for me. Once again seeing a person who filled me with such hope, who brought me such joy, who pulled me from underneath the waves and into the sun once again....It's a breath of fresh air. A reminder and a testament to who I was and who I am and who I can become. It reminds me of my old dreams.
I guess tonight is a meloncholy night, a lonely one. Scattered with minor chords constructed of bittersweet memories. I'm not really sure what I feel tonight, what my heart possesses in it's depths in the current moment. I find it difficult to capture my heart. To hold it up to a light and reveal everything inside. To write every single confession out is one thing, to share those confessions is another. An event like that is so rare, as I am usually very reserved in what I reveal about myself. Even now I am with-holding an immense amount of information- confusion, hurt, exhaustion, new found hope. Yes, hope. Not every emotion in life is negative, though I sometimes lose sight of that.
I guess I've been struggling a lot lately with my identity and my spirituality. As far as my identity goes, it's safe to say that I am completely lost. I don't know who I am and I can't seem to come to terms with that as of now. Maybe, when I learn to be content with who I am in the current moment, I'll learn to be okay with not knowing every little thing in my life and every little thing about who I am "supposed" to be. No....I'm not "supposed" to be anyone. I am myself and it is that simple. Now I just need to learn how to love that person. How to be proud with that person. How to be okay with who I am as a human being. When I say that I am struggling with my identity, I mean that in many different ways. I struggle with what I will eventually do with my future- college, career, family, etc. I'm lost in that department and I am willing to say that I am lost because I do not have enough confidence in myself to pursue any of the things that I love. That lack of confidence will always stand in the way of my dreams, so that is something that I will have to progressively have to work on. Teaching myself to think differently, to see myself differently. But when I say that I am struggling with my identity, I also mean that I am simply struggling with my sexual identity. While that particular identity is just a single part of who I am, I am getting lost in all of the confusion and possible labels and my desire to just know. If I'm completely honest, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to the big question. However, I don't want to say it out loud. I don't want to admit it. There is a point where it goes from trying to accept myself, to trying to fit this new idea of myself into the old mold of who I was. Now...here's the funny thing, ironic really, I constantly get hung up on how a person's sexual identity doesn't change who they are as a person....yet here I am, unable to accept myself if my thoughts are true. I have been raised my entire life in a christian home. In a christian home that is very divided on this subject. My father is against it; he believes it to be a sin, an unforgivable one at that. To him I would go to hell for loving who I love, even though I cannot change that. Now, I can understand why he believes this. I really can. We all have a choice. We can control whether or not we act on our desires. I could choose to marry a man someday, have kids, and try to live a happy, "normal" life. Yet....I doubt that I'd actually ever be happy that way. I have fought these feelings for around 4-5 years now and it's wearing me down. I'm so worn down now and unhappy. Hiding it, constantly fighting it, dealing with the internal struggle between religion and love, always being paranoid that someone will find out, being terrified of losing friends....it's stressful and tiring and enervating and hopeless and it just hurts so much. The pain sears through every little happy moment of a day simply because I feel out of place, wrong, deceitful, manipulative, and ashamed. There have been many days where I have wanted to end my life because of how alone and simply wrong I've felt. It's difficult to not even be able to accept yourself. I'm afraid to. And I'm honestly so confused. Finally, my spiritual life has altogether crashed and in burned. In the midst of my sexual struggle I allowed myself to slip away from God. I felt to ashamed and condemned and out of place in any institution devoted to religion. I felt as though I couldn't be around my friends from church because it felt as though I were lying to them. Also, a lot of events went down at my old church and my family decided to leave the home church to go to a separate campus, one on it's own. This arrangement worked for awhile, but I still felt the sting of what I saw at the time as a betrayal. With that fresh wound, and with the annoyance of my parents, we eventually left the church. We set out looking for a new church to attend. We tried places like the Refuge, University City, Trinity Church, Living Water. However, we never settled at any one place (and we still haven't), so I continued to drift further and further away. At some point I didn't want to go back. I got to the point where my heart was so hardened and skeptical that I did not want to be a part of religion anymore. I was tired of the droll show and dance of the churches I'd been to. I was tired of the constant judgement and playing face to keep appearances. I was just tired. So I stayed away for nearly a year, maybe longer. To appease my parents, I would attend whenever they decided that they wanted to go one Sunday. However, the words of the worship team and the pastor always fell on deaf ears. Nothing got to me. I wouldn't let anything in. Even now I am drifting, but I am attempting to reel myself back in. Hopefully, if I can move past this enormous loss of self, I can return. But I am still questioning myself. I am still questioning my beliefs. I am still in pain.
I guess this was all just a big explaination of one of the things that has been occuring in my life. If you read this all, thank you. I know it contained random subject jumps. Thank you for hanging with me. Hopefully you had/have a good day.
~Amanda
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