Summer Storms
June 02, 2003 2:45 a.m.
Even though I have been home for weeks, It feels like only yesterday that I was packing boxes and carting my life around like so many packing peanuts. A million thoughts run through my head, but I feel incapable of dealing with physical dirty laundry, let alone the dirty cloth of my soul. I am lethargic, wanting nothing more than to hide in my bed for the next twelve weeks, until it is time again to move the plastic boxes back into my 12 by 12 cell.A cell, not in the sense of a prison, more in the sense of a monk. Isolated, yet part of a community. Isolated only with those willing to share the experience. And isolated of our own volition. I crave having the contentment that independence brings me.
I am not adjusting well to being at home again. I have been depressed more days than not, and unwilling to compromise. I feel like I'm treading on eggshells around Amie and that my relationship with my father is far past the salvageable stage. I know that he will not be around to see me marry, have children, perhaps even graduate. And what is even more frightening is the fact that what bothers me about it is not the fact that he will be gone, it is the fact that I don't want him to be here.
Although it may sound callous and harsh, I don't want him in my life in the future. I don't want visits home to be filled with the vague apprehension that overshadows all happiness that can occur while in this house. I dread bringing someone I care about into this house because it brings out a side of me I wish didn't exist. I have learned to stand up to him, over many years. But each encounter leaves me shaking with tears, anger, and grief. I should not have to force myself to deal with his attitudes. But there is nothing I can do about it. I want to be able to talk to him about what really matters to me. I want to be able to reach out to him without cringing in pain from the inevitable verbal assault that will follow.
Meanwhile, I face my own crisis. This year has left me in an odd place. Unsatisfied with my blind faith in an absent God, I stumble in the dark searching for my own answers. I contemplate going to Creation and trying to revive the religious fervor that once possessed me, but realize that my inherent doubt and pessimism will lead me to renounce Christianity all the more.
I am frustrated and heart-sick of the dogma of the church. I am sickened by the narrowmindedness of my own faith. I can find nothing good in what is preached in today's churches. The right wing rhetoric that has infused them appalls me, and the lack of sensitivity to any opposing or conflicting views saddens me. The church is dying. And what sickens me the worst is that the few cells that are struggling to stay healthy are being slowly devoured by the cancerous cells of the corrupt and defiled.
No religion should preach hatred, no matter how justified they feel.
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