Let Go

It's been a while, it's possible no one will even read this or notice it's here, but nonetheless I am going to post it. I've been wanting to start all over from scratch, but I can't figure out to delete this blog. Of all the times I've trashed journals and regretted it, I should know that it's OK to have logs of the past. Even if they are embarrassing, or just completely heart breaking to read. So this post is like a new beginning, maybe now I can post again without obsessively worrying that the other posts are too juvenile.

Trish Parsons – Feb. 2, 2011 – Creative Writing – Kristin Abraham

There once was a place I called home. I remember the rooms were big, but the memory seems small. I remember spending most of my time there, playing my guitar and reading my bible and singing while a few dozen 12-15 year olds hopped up and down to the beat of the music. What did it all mean to them anyway? Did I even care? Or was I too preoccupied with the next chord change? Was I too preoccupied with the boy I desperately wanted to be my friend? I didn’t love him in that way, I just wanted his friendship, and he shot me down. I can remember many nights feeling anxious in that place, right before worship would start – did I remember that we changed the key? Can I even remember any concrete images? What I mostly remember about that place is the people, and the feelings I got from being there. When I think about it and the physical space it occupied, I see lots of red chairs, lined up in a row for people to take their seat. I see an old switchboard, and drinks on the table. I remember an arcade game, and a foosball table. I remember red tablecloths, and a punch bowl. I remember the parking lot. It was big, it seemed big anyway on those Wednesday nights when all the cars left, and came back in an hour. There was a fence that seemed to serve no purpose at all. There was the AMR right next to the church building. And on the other adjoining end there was Kiddie Kollege, where my mom works. I remember the huge office space, with cubicles that seemed insignificant. I remember chairs, big comfy chairs with ottomans. And I remember the bathrooms. I remember the urinal in the men’s bathroom, and the sofas in the women’s bathroom. I can hear girls laughing, gossiping. I can hear boys yelling. I can smell that unpleasant smell of adolescent body odor, and I can taste the Starbursts I always ate.

I can remember crying when my best friend told me she was going to have to move. Even now, after so long I still feel tears wanting to break free. I can remember feeling embarrassed for crying so hard, and wishing I could hold back but knowing I would want to cry even after the initial disappointment wore off. I can remember feeling displaced once she was gone. Who was I without her? People used to call us Bush and Try instead of Trish and Bry and I remember how much that irritated me, but once Bry was gone, I missed it. I remember feeling like it was all such a show, and I remember wishing it could be simpler. I remember that feeling when I decided I would never go back. It was heartache, but it was peace.

I’ve let go now, and I feel much happier but looking back there exists a sadness. It existed then though, too. Someone in class says they are a recovering Catholic. I’m not a recovering Christian, I’m just recovering from an experience that consumed my life completely, and then left me dry all at once. Up in the mountains I prayed for peace within myself, and I think I’ve received it, just not in the way I was expecting. That church was everything, and I‘ve realized an institution should never be everything. Institutions are made by the hands of human beings, and human beings fail. I wrote a six-word memoir that first day of class – Church hopping, God wasn’t there often. I’m sitting in front of a mug I made, and I wrote on it – “The Divine in me blesses and honors the Divine in you.” God lives in me, not in that church. God lives in me, and the things I do are a reflection of that. I have chosen to make sacrifices for a power greater and bigger and stronger than me, not for a weak institution. Not for a church run by a male pastor who looked the other way in passing because image is everything.