a little more juju

I cannot remember the exact moment that I realized Christianity was not for me, and honestly, I don’t think there was one. It was just a myriad of occurrences, a thousand tiny cuts, one slap too many, that drove me away, but not in a bombastic way. Oh no, my friends, that faith went out with a whimper.

A sad, pitiful, and unnoticed whimper.

Because here’s the thing: no one actually cared if I stayed or left. I wasn’t a wealthy donor or an influential celebrity or a new convert with an inspirational testimony. I was just … me. Maybe if I’d reached the IDGAF stage earlier, I might have at least been one of those upstarts that pissed off the elders with my antics, but alas, by the time I’d gotten to that point, I didn’t give a single fuck about making myself known. I just wanted out.

And out I went. Well, kind of. The first year of college, I was a part of a Methodist church group, but by the end of the school year, I realized I was only trying to recreate the environment I’d known for so long, only this time choosing a slightly more liberal group of people. It’s like right after I left my now-ex-husband; I started dating a guy who was literally just a slightly better version of him, and I had to remove myself from the dating scene for a very long time. Both instances required a clean break, and both instances meant I had to leave behind everything I had known to start forging my own path. Alone.

As you might expect, the entire process has been … unfun. Not only am I having to unlearn so much of what was pounded into me from the time I could understand words, I’m also trying to create a world for myself where I feel safe and loved. It’s lonely. I’ve even thought about trying to find another religious community that I am more inline with, but literally nothing fits. The closest would be Buddhism with splashes of paganism, I guess, but that’s obviously a very niche community that probably doesn’t exist in my current town. Or maybe it does and it’s just very hidden, who knows. Then again, I may just need to move someplace more purple (blue would be fantastic), even if I did just buy my house out here. Surrounded by a bunch of Trump 2024 flags and signs, inexplicably still up four months later by a bunch of people who were offended that I put up Tibetan prayer flags on my front porch when I first moved in back in August.

I do not regret kicking Christianity out of my life; I don’t need it to have a connection to whatever created this universe, be it cosmic energy that just is or an all-seeing incorporeal being or something we can’t even imagine in our worst Eldritch horror nightmares. It just requires me to be An Other, and in today’s environment, that is a difficult thing to do. It leaves me frightened and angry because for the first time in my life, I’m feeling more myself than I ever have. I should be able to enjoy this, to revel in my identity that is now separate from a death cult.

And so I trudge on, as difficult as it may be. It’s possible that this will be a struggle for the rest of my life, but I cannot turn back. I have to consider myself and my needs, and if I have to fake it until I make it, so be it. After all, I faked it for a ridiculous number of years, and I’ve got the practice to do it.