i drove past my old church today and my phone automatically connected to the wifi
i sat at the stoplight and thought about how i used to call that place Home
used to laugh there. used to cry there. used to believe in something bigger than myself there.
Community can be such a loaded word. i had one there. i lost one there.
i had friends i would have called family there. i had people i “did life” with. and i watched that life die. slowly. painfully.
i wonder if i only have myself to blame. because who i was there was not who i am. it’s funny, a place that tells you to bring your “whole self” sure wants parts of you to be real quiet.
the queer part. the progressive part. always silenced for the “greater good” of “reaching souls” i wonder if those souls feel as empty as mine now. i wonder if my silence ever helped anyone else find their voice.
i think of how i stayed for so long, pushed parts of me down, “submitted to the leadership above me” for the students i served. but ultimately, who did that serve?
there’s no good word for this kind of grief, to hold this kind of loss. to watch people you thought you could trust vote for and promote policies that directly harm you. to watch your husband be ostracized the second you decided to be true to yourself. to lose that community, that joy, that connection.
Sundays are still the hardest day for us.
i still try to drive a different way home on Wednesday nights.
i cycle between anger and sadness and guilt and longing.
i hit the “unfollow” button over and over and over when a Christian Nationalist martyr dies.
my therapist knows the names of my old pastors.
I tell my kid I don’t believe in god and his dad does and that’s ok. I don’t feel unequally yoked. I don’t live in shame anymore. I work to heal myself in a way their god either couldn’t or didn’t care to. I go to brunch and watch football on Sundays. I work to find community in other places.
I keep showing up for myself. I keep being true to myself. I stop hiding. And I try to let go. And I make my own Home.
