Loosing My religion

Hello World. This is entry #56 in my private blog. If you are someone in the future reading all of my nonsense, I am sorry for all the nonsense, self doubt, and general rambling you have had to sort through up until this point. If you are just joining this circus, my name is Lacey. Some call me Lace, L, or E. I am 17 years old. I am attending my last year of highschool, and looking ahead to what college life may be like for me.

Now, let's get to the point of this blog post. Something big has been shifting in my life, and I feel the best way to sift it out, is to write it down for me. Hence the reason for starting this nonsense. My therapist says it is good for someone figuring out who they are to keep a journal or a blog, because then you have the ability to look back, and see what progress you have had. I've looked back a few times, and I still don't see any progress. But that's ok I guess.

I know, I know. I can already hear future me, and future other people reading this, get to the point, Lace. You are classically avoiding the difficult topic, in the hopes that it will go away. But not today! I am going to get to the point. I wont allow myself to stop writing, and rambling until I have expressed the thoughts that continue to swirl around my brain. Here it goes. The big reveal...

*deep breath*

I am gay. There it is. In black and white. I am gay. I am a female, and I love other females. I have long thought there was something different about me, but I kept pushing it down, hiding it, covering it up as best as I knew how. But not anymore. The only other person that currently knows is my best friend Alana. But she has been super encouraging in the whole process of self discovery. My big problem is wrestling this self discovery, and journey of self acceptance in the background of the rest of my life. You see, my Dad is a pastor of the local methodist church. We live in the parsonage on the property, right across from the graveyard where many of the church's faithful are buried and waiting to be 'resurected at the appropriate time'. According to the church, God, and my family, being gay is an afront to God. In their interpretation over many centuries, marriage and partnership in life should only be between a man and a woman. But, for people like me, I don't want to spend my life with a man. Just the thought of being trapped in that fake arrangement sound like pure torture to me. I would rather be single then to subject myself to that.

But I don't want to be single. I want the oportunity to share my life with someone, and to share in theirs. I want to travel, go on adventures, share joys and sorrows. Genuinely have a person that I can call my own that loves every part of me. If I were to do that, I would run the risk of being outcast from friends, family, the church that I grew up in. Essentially, loose my safety nets in life all in one go.

I know that one shouldn't life their life through fear and self doubt. But also, my therapist says all feelings are valid. So, I am putting all of my totally valid feelings right here on a page, and making them physical.

Shifting my thoughts to the religious side of things, right in line with my self discoveries, I have realized I am questioning a lot of different areas in my life, one other big one being, what do I believe. I don't really think the methodist, or the western christianity is for me. Do I think there is some bigger entity out there in the cosmos? Yes. Do I think it is the Christianity view of God? No. Am I sure what it is or what to call it? Also no. It could be Zeus, Thor, Buddha, Ra, the list goes on from different cultures. I don't think it's fair that every major culture and religion has their own definition of god, but Western Christiany came in with the crusades, and decided theirs was the only god.

It's almost like, you have grown up with everyone telling you the yellow starburst are the one true flavor. Sure there are other ones, but the yellow one is the first and only original flavor. This knowledge has been passed down for many generations in your society. Then one day, some stranger that doesn't look anything like you, comes in, and says the yellow starburst are fake banana, and therefore are not real at all. The true starburst is the orange one. Hold on, you may be asking. The orange isn't a true orange either. It's also a fake fruit flavor created in a lab. No, the stranger replies. If you don't accept the orange as being the only real one, then we will kill you and all the other banana loving people.

That may be the strangest analogy you have ever read, but welcome to the inner workings of my brain.

Anyways, I feel a little better now that I have put all of this down on paper, and maybe one day I will look back and see this as the start of a new revelation and a new life for myself. Or maybe not. Who can tell the future. I certanly cannot. That's why me and the rest of my generation has a lovely thing called anxiety. It's just that some of us are able to be medicated to help.

I've rambled on far long enough now. I'm sure whomever is reading this is truly sick of me. So, in closing summary. I'm gay, and in the words of R.E.M. I am loosing my religion. Maybe it will come back, or come back as a different form. For that to happen, I must do more soul searching.