Behind Me
There are a couple of things I need to explain.
1. I got a divorce.
2. I stepped away from the religious tradition in which I was raised.
On the surface, they’re not so much related to each other, but neither would have happened if the other wasn’t occurring simultaneously. I actually did the second thing first, although it was more of a process. In the end, these two major life changes ended up forming a kind of a pretzel. Tied in a bow. Not so perfect. Pretty salty.
I was in full-blown, exit strategy mode the last time I was in the middle of LJ Idol and it felt like my entire world was crumbling around me. I couldn’t talk about it other than to a few of my very closest friends and even then, it was this hushed thing because I had to get everything absolutely right before I could call it what it was. The end.
I don’t want to sound flippant about what was one of the biggest decisions of my entire life. It was difficult. Facing that mountain, looking straight up at the thing I had to get over and having people tell me that when I got on the other side I would realize my perception was skewed, was one of the hardest things I’ve done. Because not for one moment did I believe I would go over that hill and look back to find it had been something small. It was hard because I was ill-equipped to stand on my own in the middle of a decision that impacted my future.
And that’s where the other thing comes in. Realizing I had been raised in a faith tradition that prepared me for nothing beyond stepping into a role and forgetting ever other desire I’d ever had was more devastating than the divorce.
Sometimes I think people don’t believe me when I say that I was, for all intents and purposes, raised in the 1950s. I am the first woman in my direct lineage to have a college degree. I am the second to have a driver’s license. It was understood that I would go to college, get my basics, maybe graduate, definitely get married, have babies, and live the rest of my life like all of my predecessors.
I can remember the first time my dad said something about me being different. He decided I needed to learn to do some things on my own. I am, at this point in my life, an amateur plumber. Because when your father lives an hour away, is your landlord, and refuses to call Leon the plumber from a few houses down, you learn your way around a toilet. A bathroom sink. A washing machine.
I learned a lot.
I had braced myself for the shame. Go watch any film from the 1930s through the 1950s about some pariah of a woman who loses everything to divorce. The woman forced into schoolmarmery because she has no other choice. Know that this is reality for people, still.
But the shame that came was not that for which I’d prepared myself. My family was supportive, in a, “We’ve Always Expected As Much” kind of way. Certainly I should have seen it all coming. They did, though they never saw fit to tell me. Now every conversation is an opportunity to belittle the person I chose to spend a quarter of my life with.
I have left so much behind me.
Somehow, the other thing is much more personal. Both have earned me enemies. The first thing made me lose in-laws, friends, and the kind of structured community I’d been used to for many years. And then it turned out to be an integral piece in the game of pick-up sticks that was the second thing.
Have you ever walked into a family holiday and felt like people were handling you like a bomb that could go off at any moment? Or that you were to be avoided because you were dangerous? I thought about trying to get used to it, but there’s nothing quite like the knowledge that you are making the people around you uncomfortable. Or worse, that you are now their target, because you don’t think the same way, have made different choices, and choose to live in a way that dares to not mirror the previous one hundred years.
__________
this is my entry for week 5 of therealljidol. the topic is "My enemies are all too familiar. They're the ones who used to call me friend." you can vote in the poll here. the rest of the idol entries can be found here.