the sincerest form of flattery

i have always been a highly impressionable person.  growing up, i saw almost every autumnal return to school as an opportunity to reinvent myself, usually in accordance with some girl i had either read about or seen in a movie.  i remember the summer i saw lucas and decided that i wanted to be exactly like kerri green’s character in that movie.  this meant i was going to wear lots of ponytails, cardigans, and bright white keds.  i was going to be quiet and ladylike (ha ha).  i don’t even remember the movie itself, just the reinvention it inspired.  i used to go through phases with the different characters in my babysitters’ club books; i wanted to be every one of the older girls at one point (except kristy).  the books described them in such detail that it was even possible for me to mimic their handwriting.  i once bought tofu at the grocery store because dawn ate tofu.  i can tell you from firsthand experience that an eleven-year-old girl from a meat-eating family in tennessee has no business buying tofu.  and don’t even get me started on sweet valley high.

you might think what i’m describing was limited to my awkward pre-adolescent years.  you’d be wrong.  as i got older, my fascination was usually with some older girl who i thought was the height of cool, whatever that meant.  i’d pick up different tidbits; elements of style, language, and taste, all added to my internal cache.  i was an emotional pack rat.  i didn’t really do anything with this information on the outside.  i mean, it’s not like you could look at old photos of me and identify all these different phases.  i’ve always pretty much looked the same, in terms of dress and hair and stuff.  you have to understand: i didn’t want to look like these other girls, i wanted to be like them.  and not because i hated myself, or anything.  it was just that i felt they had something that i was missing, some mysterious, elusive x-factor that made me feel constantly incomplete.  and, really, at this age, i never got past the daydreaming stage of reinvention.  i derived bittersweet pleasure from imagining what my life would be like “if only…”  i made elaborate plans in my head, drew floor plans and landscaping schemes for the houses i wished i inhabited, gave names to the pets i wanted to have and to the towns in which i wanted to live.  i should stress that i did this at home, alone, when i wasn’t hanging out with my friends.  i wasn’t THAT deep inside my own head, y’all. 

this ephemeral sense of self-identity stayed with me well into my twenties, and definitely became more pronounced during those periods when i was, shall we say, given to bouts of escapist behavior.  it was during a particularly protracted period of responsibility-shirking that my mimicry reached an all-time high (or maybe it was a low).  i had done it: i had completely lost myself, and i was perfectly miserable.  there was so little about me at that point that was actually me, but in spite of all the junk i was carrying around, i knew a good thing when i saw him.  and once i met dave, all the junk started to fall away.  i’ll try to use a metaphor he’d appreciate:  it was as if i was a magnet that had attracted all this crap, but then someone somehow switched my polarity, and the crap that used to be stuck to me wasn’t anymore.  yeah, i’m not really what you’d call a “science person.”

it’s taken me years to get a handle on all this.  for a while, when dave and i first got together, i totally retreated.  i dropped nearly all my old friends and, er, hobbies, and just stayed home all the time.  i went to therapy.  i figured some stuff out.  and i slowly started to get to know myself again.  part of this self-discovery has led me back to god, because i know that i can’t do life on my own.  i can’t; it’s a mess when i try.  everything is screwed up, and every relationship is disaster.  i’ve tried it both ways, and i choose god.  i’m aware of how that sounds to some of you.  i know that people see religion as a crutch, as “the opium of the people,” as a figment of the imagination.  those are all viewpoints i’ve shared, at one time or another.  and i really have nothing to offer in response other than some cliched crap, like, “to each his own,” etc.  i’m not so sure i need to offer anything more; it just is what it is.  

anyway, this is all kind of new to me, in that i didn’t grow up going to church on any kind of regular basis, or reading the bible, or even having discussions about god and what it means to be a christian.  i have no foundation, which is something that sets me apart from nearly everyone i know these days.  it can be very frustrating, because i feel like there are so many questions i need answered, and it’s hard to find people who are tolerant of this constant questioning.  and since my questions have a history of getting me in trouble with various authority figures (usually assholes bosses), it makes me nervous to even ask.  so when i started having some issues with the church i’ve been going to, i didn’t really know where to turn.  nothing felt safe.  i just knew it was going to end badly, with awkward apologies and tense politeness.  i was sad, because i hated the thought of leaving behind the friends i’d made, and i wasn’t sure we’d stay friends without the church in common.  i love the people; i have some issues with the service and theology.

i have a friend who values even the annoyances that naturally accompany friendship because they serve as a reminder that the relationship IS.  no relationship is prefect; there are always ups and downs – that’s the nature of things.  and it was in talking to this friend that i realized my relationship with the church isn’t necessarily any different.  i think it’s impossible for me to be in total agreement with everything i hear at church, all the time.  i don’t have friends with whom i never disagree, do i?  does that mean we’re not friends?  why can’t i apply the same principle to my relationship with my church?  then it dawned on me: i totally can.  

the older i get, the more firmly i believe in the importance of surrounding myself with people who don’t just embody admirable qualities, but who actually live and practice and speak and interact admirably.  of course, it helps that my definition of “admirable” has matured with me.  i am glad to have friends who care about me and my family.  i am thankful for all the people who don’t run from my questions, and who chime in with questions of their own.  i am blessed to know people who understand that we are all in this together.  i am relieved to have found a community that feels like home.  and i am so lucky to have in my life people who let me be myself.