Technicolor Thursday

I was raised in a very black&white home. Things were either entirely good or they were entirely bad. The rules were clearly defined and I liked that. The whole world fit neatly into orderly little boxes and I always knew the right answer to the questions. My whole life was a church bubble – not only did we attend church twice weekly, the youth group was actually held at my house. The school I attended was inside a church. I had never met an adult who didn’t see the world the way my parents did, so I just sort of assumed that the whole world operated that way. It wasn’t until I came out that my black and white life went all to hell, no pun intended. The rejection of my church caused me to question God’s very existence. The rejection of my family caused me to question my own. If the two cornerstones of my worldview suddenly crumbled, what kind of life was I left with? Could I exist without my family in my life? Could I exist without my faith? How did I figure out what to believe? How did I know what was right?

It took a decade to work through things with my family. Ainslee was two the first time I was allowed to bring Melissa to my parents’ house and we’d been married for ten years with three kids before we could stay there. The whole thing was so unnecessary and just… dumb. I should have just walked away, but I couldn’t. I would handle that whole situation differently now, but I sure didn’t know how to do that at 25. And am obviously still working on it at 45.

My relationship with God was a lot less vitriolic, mostly because God never yelled back. I did enough of that for both of us. I was left with no one – very few of my friendships survived. None of my family would speak to me. I had bought into something with my entire being, only to find out that I didn’t meet the criteria anymore. I had spent high school summers doing mission work and I had seen amazing things. I had a real relationship with God and I thought I knew who He was. I couldn’t reconcile that the God I believed in – a loving parent, the ultimate expression of love – would intentionally create me knowing I’d be forever excluded. It just didn’t make sense to me. The God I knew wouldn’t do that. No loving parent sets their child up to fail, do they? I have come a long way on this faith journey – I now believe all sorts of things that 25 year old Sarah would scoff at, and boy… Am I glad I don’t have to listen to her anymore. That chick was confused. But I’m good with what I believe. I’m like 99% sure I’m not going to Hell for being gay. That’s way up from where 25 year old me started.

Maybe I’m wrong, who knows? I guess nobody really knows until they’re dead. But, even if I’m wrong, about the ending, I will have spent my life trying to be the very best version of myself. I will have tried to be kind and to make a difference in the lives of the people I care about, and I will have opened that circle wide. I will have broken old trauma patterns and forged something new for my children. If that’s my worst case scenario, I can deal with that.

PS: I’ve been wrestling with some old anxieties and triggers this week. This is me trying to figure out both why and how to walk through it. I’ve also decided that I don’t like being an adult very much. Making good emotional decisions is a whole lot more work than just wallowing in old, unhealthy patterns. And I know, I know. The right thing to do is usually the hardest. But… :Insert my petulant little two year old foot-stomp here: It still sucks.