Existential Feelings Update

Good Morning!

Or whatever it is.

If anyone ever reads my journal - the actual journal, not the Internet blog - they'll be like, "Wow. She only writes every other week." And then they'll be like, "Wow. She's really dramatic. And apparently miserable."

Yeah. I pretty much mostly journal when I need an outlet. I'd hate for my blog to end up that way too, so after reading my last existential musings post, I decided to post today.

Because things are good.

Am I happy? Moderately so. Far cry from euphoria, but I'm feeling pretty good. My brother called for a chat, and that's always pleasant. I ate a donut. I exercised. I feel guilty about nothing at the moment. The violets, lilacs, and other purple flowers of Spring are all in bloom. All in all, it's a good day. 

I love Spring. The sun is warm. The flowers are beautiful. The sun shines long enough that I rarely have to drive by moonlight, clutching my steering wheel with numb knuckles as I watch for the shining glint of deer eyes that are definitely waiting to total my family car.

It's funny how much the moon means to me in the winter. This year I discovered I have a favorite phase of the moon: Waxing gibbous. It's bright enough to have the same general effect as the full moon, and I have a whole week to enjoy that level of light before it starts tapering off.

And then, this past month, I realized I'd stopped caring what the moon phase is anymore.

Because Spring!!!

Who needs a waxing gibbous when you have the sun?

Another thing: I feel like things in my brain might be settling. 

A few months ago I realized I felt like a teenager again. It felt like those confusing, chaotic days as I tried on different identities, and put WAY too much anxiety into what should* have been an exciting exploration of who I could be. Instead I was super caught up in who I should be. With hindsight, I can look back and realize it didn't really matter if I was blonde, peppy, and quick-witted, or if I was snow-white complexioned, broody, and artsy. As long as I was kind, the image was about what I preferred, and not what was best. And really, I could be both. And something else entirely.

Now, as an adult, as I've confronted questions of faith, and finally addressed the dissonance that has hovered in the background since my teenage years, I've been afraid of not believing what I should* believe. What is "the" right belief system for me? That dissonance rises and falls, depending on what's happening in my life, and how badly I need to know I'm on the right path, and lately... wow. Lately, it's been front and center.

One of the things I like most about the religion I was raised in is the doctrine that you can't just take everything at face value - you have to pray and study and find answers for yourself.

The problem with that doctrine is that it's always presented as, "Pray, study, and find out for yourself that X, Y, and Z are the answers."

And when you pray, study and find out that Z is true, but X and Y are a combination of tradition, bias, and unmitigated bullshit, it kinda throws you through a loop. That's not what they told me was going to happen. And I can't just take the path they said those questions would lay out for me.

In my case, I found out Z was true, but nobody said anything about X and Y, because I wasn't ready to deal with that yet. Over the last couple years, I've been slowly dealing, and I'm starting to get answers. I'm starting to find out X came because people need to have something solid they can believe in, without the scary fact that mortal humans will put mistakes in quite literally everything they touch. I'm also starting to find out that Y is about power dynamics, money, and history repeating itself. Safeguards against financial corruption become opportunities for narcissistic power abuse, and not everything works for everybody. 

Life is messy. Religion is messy. Power dynamics are always messy.

The great thing, though, is when you stop believing the people in power have any authority - or that the system they claimed to get their power from was ever legitimate in the first place - they lose that power. You can laugh in their narcissistic faces. 

(Okay, I'm laughing in the memory of a face I haven't seen in over 20 years, but dude. I really hope in the last two decades you got help.)

And when that system is completely illegitimate, nobody can ever have that power again.

Aw... did my blog post just become personal therapy? 

Apparently.

Anyway, the summary of that situation is that there have always been things - major things - that felt just sort of, "off," but that were so heavily pushed that I found ways to explain them, to defend them, to attach a weak asterisk to them, rather than just say, "Nope. That's wrong." I could do that easily enough with the little things, but never the really big ones.

I've considered picking a new religion - one that better meets my needs - but that's more complicated than just looking for something new. I'm unlikely to believe anything in its entirety, or even close to its entirety. And I live deep in the Bible Belt, so I'm very unlikely to find anything that even comes close to matching my belief system. 

I guess I'm mostly agnostic now, except I believe in God, I believe He's my literal parent, I believe He's loving, I believe eternity is perfectly fair, and I believe in prayer. The rest is more along the lines of, "This could be true, but if it's not, I'm not going to sweat it. It doesn't change how I treat the people around me, and the decisions I make about my life." 

And I still read scriptures, and apply them to my life where it makes sense. 

For example: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

When your church's yoke and burden are crushing you, and you will literally never be enough, you know that's not what He meant.

Pulling back feels good. I feel like I can finally breathe again.

And the best part... I can still participate in the good things. My kids go to church and learn the fun church songs. They're learning the scriptures that will serve them throughout their lives. I don't have to believe it with all my heart to participate in the religious rites and traditions that I like. I'm excited for my kids and the way this particular religion does baptism - that's a good tradition. And I don't have to participate in the rites that make me uncomfortable.

And maybe in the future I'll get more answers. I have enough for now, and I'm really tired. I'm tired of sweating and wondering and trying to make sure I'm believing what I should*. I'd like to just sit here for a while, finally able to believe I'm okay, and not have all the answers. I have enough to move forward, and to reject the burdens this religion tries to place on me. 

I don't feel like I'm in the sunlight yet, and maybe not even in the light of the full moon. But this moon is definitely waxing, and maybe - before it has a chance to wane again - I'll make it to sunrise.