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Memory has an extraordinary ability to sanctify itself. In it, half-hearted apologies become psalms, simple compromises become sacred offerings, and disappointments are recast as divine trials sent to test the endurance of our ever-present and unwavering love.

It will begin on the most unexpected of days— for me, a hot afternoon in mid-July. You will come to realize you have taken someone frighteningly ordinary, and enthroned them upon an altar of selective remembrance. One stitched together by a future that will never exist, children that will never be born, and a reality that lives on only in the most insecure corners of your mind. You will become uncomfortably aware of the times you knelt before them in worship. You will finally see yourself in pictures, picked apart and reconstructed to their liking. Your divinity, only ever affirmed by the call you waited all night for or the flowers sat on your doorstep.

But love should not be sacrificial; it should not demand you to offer up the parts of yourself that are truly sacred. You are not born of a rib; you are not an amalgamation of someone else’s adoration.

Relationships provided me with immediate clarity on who I was, so there was no urgency to search for it on my own :

I am pretty (because I wear short skirts for them)

I am kind (because I do things for them)

I can be funny (because I make them laugh)

I had never learned to believe any of those things independently, so romantic partners began to function as the evidence that I existed. I arranged myself around whoever stood at my altar, carefully positioning my soul so the light would fall on me in a way that resembled their desires. Their interests would become my own. I would disregard my love for art and replace it with my love for them. I would invest myself in their goals as they could one day become intertwined with mine. I would meticulously plan out a future with them built on traits they did not possess, romantic gestures they would never have any desire to make, and an image of myself in which I am loved, noticed, and never alone.

For twenty-two years I loved with an urgency that felt almost virtuous. I admired my capacity to love so completely, and respected my commitment to making my partners feel special. It felt kind, it felt romantic. Movies rewarded this kind of intense devotion and songs demanded this all-consuming romance. Lovers commended my thoughtfulness, and I began to learn that the most meaningful connections were the ones that asked me to disappear. I soon saw the catastrophic nature of that sentiment, as every breakup would strip me not only of companionship, but my entire sense of self.

Suddenly something new arrived. It came quietly and with beauty, like the soft flickering of light from the freshly lit candles or the bright colors that caressed my face from the stained glass. There was no altar to kneel before and no saint screaming for a confession. I saw no impossible gospel to uphold and no salvation to earn at the cost of my sanity. I saw friends that I could go weeks without seeing and not question my self-worth. I saw brothers that could sit in silence with me, and there be no sense of urgency to perform. I saw parents that loved even the parts I had long deemed unlovable. I saw myself, authentically, and loved regardless.

There is a particular holiness in becoming your own witness. You will come to find that the authenticity you spend years trying to repent for has been someone else’s prayer. It will begin on the most unexpected of nights.