A little story.

Once upon a time I changed my life.  It has been the best thing I’ve ever done and yet I keep it inside like a dirty secret.  It makes me happy, and I want to talk about it.  I am a little tired of being tender with other people’s feelings.  I need to make room for my own.

Once upon a time a tiny seed of doubt showed itself in my heart and I looked at it for a while and talked about it a little with someone I thought might understand me and then I put it away.  And I carried on with my life, following the path that I had been presented with but still trying hard to cling to the real me.  I met someone who saw me for who I am and we had a friendship that quickly became a love story, and I loved him enough to keep ignoring the seed and to start our lives together and join our paths.  I knew we were compatible, and I believe that subconsciously I knew we were compatible in even more ways.   He accepted everything about me and our togetherness has always been easy and natural.  I was scared of the way we were starting our life together and I yearned to say I do on a mountain top or a sunset beach but it was just the way I had always been taught it would happen and it seemed like it was what he wanted.  And I wanted him.  So I kept quiet and I went along and I said yes.  I looked around me and everyone else was smiling and nodding, and I took that as confirmation and I tried to cling to it.

Years into our story the old seed started to grow.   I had lost myself a little and I had to shut off a lot of myself in order to do the things I was supposed to do.  And I just generally wasn’t feeling it.  My light was dying a little every year.  The seed grew into an obsession and I thought I must be crazy.  Everyone around me believes these things, nobody else feels the doubt that I feel.  I must be crazy.  I prayed my guts out for an answer, for something that was really personal and identifiable, something to keep me on the prescribed path.  And everything that was sent my way was telling me to leave the path.  I was scared but I was so sure; more sure than ever.

At the age of 31, as the mother of two daughters and the wife of a funny and kind man, I found the strength somewhere within me to ask my questions out loud.  And to step off the path to find my own.  It was scary.  It literally gave me panic attacks.  I started grinding my teeth at night.  I knew that people would believe that I was falling off the deep end, and I had to present the kindest and best version of myself always in order to prove them wrong.  But I didn’t always feel kind and good as I was allowing myself to question and to process a lifetime of teachings and feeling a little ripped off about some things and a lot pissed off about others.  And at the same time life became brighter and clearer, and the world bigger and smaller at the same time, and a lot less scary.  It was like these extreme highs of peace and energy and excitement and then these crazy lows of sadness and grief and anger.  But the new path fit better and the new path felt like freedom.  And the new path has been discovered with my best friend and partner right by my side.  We have had a million conversations that are interesting and mind bending and aggravating and touching and amazing.   We have had epiphanies and realizations and we have grown closer.

So this is our new life.  A life without religion.  A life where our integrity is our religion and the thing we will have to answer for.  People think we have fallen off the deep end.  I’m pretending that doesn’t bother me.  My motherhood has been called into question and people who I care about have kicked me emotionally in the name of concern for my salvation.  They don’t know what they are doing; they think it is their duty.  Maybe they are afraid of me or maybe they are afraid for me.   I don’t know how to make them feel better about our choices.  Everything I say sounds like a cheesy sales pitch and I wait for them to say “who is she trying to convince!”  I know what they believe, I understand where they are coming from, and I totally totally get it.  But really, we are good.  We are good!

I have gathered around me a new sisterhood of like-minded friends and they have given me strength and support in navigating this new life.  I have gathered my little family around me and we make plans and we continue doing the things we’ve always done and we feel more love and peace than we ever have before.  I have my mom and my siblings, with whom I have been to hell and back and we are really just a bunch of rock stars. I have Court’s family, who are my own and I love them.  I have friends I’ve had forever and a day and knowing that they love me no matter who or what I am makes me want to cry a big smiley cry.  They listen to me, they laugh at me, and they’re always there.  But mostly I have myself.  I feel happy, capable, hopeful, and curious.  I feel like me. 

Life is good.  No sales pitch needed.  

Life is good.