Tonight I have a story to tell, but it must be told in fragments, with ripped out pages where the rest of the story should be.
Why? Well...to be honest, the story behind this post is not one I should tell. To anyone. It is a story that, to this day, very few people even know exist. And for my own security, I would like to keep it that way. Rest assured that I did not do anything illegal, and what happened more regards my relationship with God and the way I used to see it than any actual physical act committed by myself. In fact, thinking back, I didn't actually do anything physical.
But the telling of this story is still important, and you'll see why in just a moment.
--
We are humans. When we see something that glitters, we want to chase after it. It's often in the act of chasing that we forget about God, running far away from God looking for a beautiful butterfly, or a lightning bug at night. And when we finally catch that thing that we longed for so much, we turn back and see how far we really have strayed from home.
I'm not saying that chasing every glittering thing is a bad thing. But for me, and in this instance, it was. For security purposes I can't say when exactly I started chasing after it, but it had grabbed my attention and was in the back of my thoughts a LOT. I thought about it in class. I thought about it when I was about to fall asleep. I thought about it in church, though most of the time God was at the forefront. I had God and this thing I was obsessed with connected, you see.
I kept searching for it. I kept hoping that if I found it, that if it was finally in my possession, that it would fix everything and I could be with Jesus forever, and my lesbianness would go away and I would find a husband who would let me play worship music and a church that would actually let me lead. I wanted it so badly that I planned my entire life around it.
And then I got it. I fought hard enough, so I got it. And what I did with it...well, that's the mystery. But in my selfishness, I made a decision that changed the way I would see the world. I took the thing I chased after and realized that I wasn't fit for it. And if I wasn't fit for that, then perhaps I wasn't fit for anything. Just months later, it was gone, sand through my fingers, with me heartbroken wondering where it had gone.
And it changed everything. I had it, I knew the truth about myself and what I wanted out of life, and it was gone. In its place was a sinful person who didn't know the real meaning of love. If I couldn't keep tabs on this one thing, if I couldn't still hold it in my possession...well, you all know where this story goes. I went looking for it again, and I found a new lover instead. And on and on the story played until I found my abusive partner.
After all of the OTHER mistakes I had made searching for The Precious Thing, I believed I deserved how they treated me. And I believed this for a long time.
I knew the thing was gone. I pulled myself back together while in NYC. I lived with Garo and Tamsin and I made myself comfortable. I finally was able to come home. I reclaimed my music, I strangely found a man who retaught me how to love life and love myself, and everything became okay again. I had answers to most of the questions in my life up until this point, save for one. Where did the thing go? It wasn't like I still needed the thing, though, so it didn't consume my thoughts. It just still stayed back there somewhere, a reminder of how I had gloriously screwed up so much because I wanted a thing so bad.
While on vacation this year, I sat on the beach much like I did when I had the thing, so long ago. And I let myself wonder once more what happened back then. It's not often that I feel I heard God's voice, but in that moment, I heard it loud and clear. "I think it's about time you finally know what happened." And like a map, the truth unfolded in front of me.
It is, once again, a truth I cannot say here. And there is still no redeeming the thing I lost. But, in some ways, I had it all along. In some ways, there are parts of it that have been redeemed. I had finally found the answer that I had wanted for so long. I had finally been brought back to a place of understanding with God, no longer chasing after that thing, and when I asked, "so what happened?" I was able to finally listen for the answer.
But like so many things just between me and God, I wasn't sure if I could tell anybody. After all, only two or three people at most even remotely knew about the thing back in college. One of them has disowned me, and the other two I'm quite sure are happy never speaking to me again. But I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I found out what happened to the thing!
It was driving me crazy. I wanted to tell someone. But I knew if I told someone, I'd have to explain what the thing was in the first place, and that would land me in hot water. Whomever I told would not see me the same way again. (A gentle reminder that I did not physically do anything or break any laws, but just as gay people are judged for something they didn't do, so I knew judgement would come for me anyway.)
And then I considered there might actually be one person who wouldn't judge me. He would listen to my rantings about God and what I did and not judge me. It would just take a while to explain myself to an agnostic mostly-Buddhist weeb.
So Mikkun and I sat down on Memorial Day after we had been at Akiba Arcade for a few hours. We sat in the back room where we couldn't be disturbed, with a glass of water and all the time in the world. He gave me plenty of space to take my time, and I had to go back and make plenty of things clear from the get go. It took longer than I had hoped it would. During the telling he gave me a side-eyed glance only once, wondering about the 'weird' thing I had said. He hugged me afterward and told me what he always tells me: that even though he may not have actually understood a damn word of what i just said, he loves me anyway, will support me no matter what, and was happy that I had finally come to peace about this thing.
But after I told Mikkun, a weird thing happened. I still felt at peace since I had finally gotten closure. But it suddenly appeared that I no longer cared what anybody thought about me at ALL.
Before, I had the silent shame of Me Losing The Thing to hang over my head. Even when other people weren't actually judging me, I could feel my own judgement somewhere. But once I finally physically told somebody about it -- I guess it didn't matter who -- it was like I was actually free from judgement. Someone questioned my answers at the POE and, other than a little sound processing delay, I wasn't offended. I even got my first "you're wrong for being gay" Tweet response, and I just muted it. I seriously don't care at ALL, and it's beautiful.
And starting now, all of the bad memories have been redeemed. I no longer feel bad about anything I did or anything I went through. I look back at those times and I'm able to finally smile on them. And because of that, I'm able to walk forward, holding the memory of The Thing in my hands and knowing it wasn't ever about The Thing anyway...it was about the Creator who made me exactly who I am supposed to be.
Thank you for listening. Just by reading this, even if you don't understand, I think you continuously enable me to forgive myself, over and over again. This is probably the true meaning of freedom...not being free from oppressive parents or societal obligations, but freedom from myself and my own shame. It took this long, but I'm okay with that. God does everything in God's own time.
Why? Well...to be honest, the story behind this post is not one I should tell. To anyone. It is a story that, to this day, very few people even know exist. And for my own security, I would like to keep it that way. Rest assured that I did not do anything illegal, and what happened more regards my relationship with God and the way I used to see it than any actual physical act committed by myself. In fact, thinking back, I didn't actually do anything physical.
But the telling of this story is still important, and you'll see why in just a moment.
--
We are humans. When we see something that glitters, we want to chase after it. It's often in the act of chasing that we forget about God, running far away from God looking for a beautiful butterfly, or a lightning bug at night. And when we finally catch that thing that we longed for so much, we turn back and see how far we really have strayed from home.
I'm not saying that chasing every glittering thing is a bad thing. But for me, and in this instance, it was. For security purposes I can't say when exactly I started chasing after it, but it had grabbed my attention and was in the back of my thoughts a LOT. I thought about it in class. I thought about it when I was about to fall asleep. I thought about it in church, though most of the time God was at the forefront. I had God and this thing I was obsessed with connected, you see.
I kept searching for it. I kept hoping that if I found it, that if it was finally in my possession, that it would fix everything and I could be with Jesus forever, and my lesbianness would go away and I would find a husband who would let me play worship music and a church that would actually let me lead. I wanted it so badly that I planned my entire life around it.
And then I got it. I fought hard enough, so I got it. And what I did with it...well, that's the mystery. But in my selfishness, I made a decision that changed the way I would see the world. I took the thing I chased after and realized that I wasn't fit for it. And if I wasn't fit for that, then perhaps I wasn't fit for anything. Just months later, it was gone, sand through my fingers, with me heartbroken wondering where it had gone.
And it changed everything. I had it, I knew the truth about myself and what I wanted out of life, and it was gone. In its place was a sinful person who didn't know the real meaning of love. If I couldn't keep tabs on this one thing, if I couldn't still hold it in my possession...well, you all know where this story goes. I went looking for it again, and I found a new lover instead. And on and on the story played until I found my abusive partner.
After all of the OTHER mistakes I had made searching for The Precious Thing, I believed I deserved how they treated me. And I believed this for a long time.
I knew the thing was gone. I pulled myself back together while in NYC. I lived with Garo and Tamsin and I made myself comfortable. I finally was able to come home. I reclaimed my music, I strangely found a man who retaught me how to love life and love myself, and everything became okay again. I had answers to most of the questions in my life up until this point, save for one. Where did the thing go? It wasn't like I still needed the thing, though, so it didn't consume my thoughts. It just still stayed back there somewhere, a reminder of how I had gloriously screwed up so much because I wanted a thing so bad.
While on vacation this year, I sat on the beach much like I did when I had the thing, so long ago. And I let myself wonder once more what happened back then. It's not often that I feel I heard God's voice, but in that moment, I heard it loud and clear. "I think it's about time you finally know what happened." And like a map, the truth unfolded in front of me.
It is, once again, a truth I cannot say here. And there is still no redeeming the thing I lost. But, in some ways, I had it all along. In some ways, there are parts of it that have been redeemed. I had finally found the answer that I had wanted for so long. I had finally been brought back to a place of understanding with God, no longer chasing after that thing, and when I asked, "so what happened?" I was able to finally listen for the answer.
But like so many things just between me and God, I wasn't sure if I could tell anybody. After all, only two or three people at most even remotely knew about the thing back in college. One of them has disowned me, and the other two I'm quite sure are happy never speaking to me again. But I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I found out what happened to the thing!
It was driving me crazy. I wanted to tell someone. But I knew if I told someone, I'd have to explain what the thing was in the first place, and that would land me in hot water. Whomever I told would not see me the same way again. (A gentle reminder that I did not physically do anything or break any laws, but just as gay people are judged for something they didn't do, so I knew judgement would come for me anyway.)
And then I considered there might actually be one person who wouldn't judge me. He would listen to my rantings about God and what I did and not judge me. It would just take a while to explain myself to an agnostic mostly-Buddhist weeb.
So Mikkun and I sat down on Memorial Day after we had been at Akiba Arcade for a few hours. We sat in the back room where we couldn't be disturbed, with a glass of water and all the time in the world. He gave me plenty of space to take my time, and I had to go back and make plenty of things clear from the get go. It took longer than I had hoped it would. During the telling he gave me a side-eyed glance only once, wondering about the 'weird' thing I had said. He hugged me afterward and told me what he always tells me: that even though he may not have actually understood a damn word of what i just said, he loves me anyway, will support me no matter what, and was happy that I had finally come to peace about this thing.
But after I told Mikkun, a weird thing happened. I still felt at peace since I had finally gotten closure. But it suddenly appeared that I no longer cared what anybody thought about me at ALL.
Before, I had the silent shame of Me Losing The Thing to hang over my head. Even when other people weren't actually judging me, I could feel my own judgement somewhere. But once I finally physically told somebody about it -- I guess it didn't matter who -- it was like I was actually free from judgement. Someone questioned my answers at the POE and, other than a little sound processing delay, I wasn't offended. I even got my first "you're wrong for being gay" Tweet response, and I just muted it. I seriously don't care at ALL, and it's beautiful.
And starting now, all of the bad memories have been redeemed. I no longer feel bad about anything I did or anything I went through. I look back at those times and I'm able to finally smile on them. And because of that, I'm able to walk forward, holding the memory of The Thing in my hands and knowing it wasn't ever about The Thing anyway...it was about the Creator who made me exactly who I am supposed to be.
Thank you for listening. Just by reading this, even if you don't understand, I think you continuously enable me to forgive myself, over and over again. This is probably the true meaning of freedom...not being free from oppressive parents or societal obligations, but freedom from myself and my own shame. It took this long, but I'm okay with that. God does everything in God's own time.