So I spent the weekend reading through old journals. Some dating back to freshman year of high school, but mostly ones from college. These are ones I’ve never read through before, so I’m reading words I barely even remember writing. Some were actually crazy enlightening – they were from a dark period – my attack, first marriage, divorce, near affair, move back home to start over, internal paradigm shift in progress. These were the times where I was coming into my own and expanding in ways I wasn’t ready for. I was growing and evolving, and the life I started living (which felt true to me) went against the ideals under which I was raised and later lauded for. I even found an entry where I was crying out to God asking why I felt so distant. That I was sinful and not bearing fruit. “I’ve never been this far from you before. No one would know it. Those just looking in would think I’m the perfect little Christian girl. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. I don’t even know why I’m writing. It’s a waste of time…” (I was a little melodramatic, obviously.) That was from 2005.

The “sinful” bit is all about the shame I felt for being sexual with my boyfriend-later-turned-fiancé outside of marriage. Though I can tout that I was a virgin until marriage, that’s simply due to lack of penetration, not lack of sexual acts. We creatively still did basically everything but the actual deed itself to fulfill our (natural) sexual desires. I carried so much guilt for those desires, and even into marriage and adulthood, it’s still been hard for me to allow myself to enjoy what I do sexually without carrying some sort of guilt around it. (My lover-god of a husband sure has helped with that.) I lived a beautiful, love-filled life. I was a good person who did good things and lived a good life. The amount I guilt I carried over my sexual enjoyment and desires nearly outweighed all the reassurance my good life gave me. I convinced myself I was awful and needed to keep my shit in check. My bad negated all of my good. And the “bad” I’m referring to is basically just liking sex and cussing. The sexual guilt was huge, though, and I think this may end up being a blog post itself sometime soon.

It was a bit emotional to read through these words and realize how far back the internal struggle and searching goes. I remember the shame I felt. Feeling like I was a failure. Feeling like I was disappointing God and my parents, my peers and community. The internal conflict of following my heart and soul and living a life that feels truthful to me while also knowing that it’s conflicting with how I was raised and parts go against the religion I was following. I mention a lot about not feeling like I know where I belong anymore and wishing I had all the answers.

Looking back now, I’m able to also see that I was dealing with some pretty intense undiagnosed anxiety. A lot of “I’m sad all the time and don’t know why” and “it’s like just one thing happens and I get set off” and “I can’t concentrate on school with all this other stuff going on” etc., etc. Especially in the later entries after my attack – I even mention knowing I should go get some counseling but that I was just too busy or couldn’t afford it or wasn’t ready or didn’t feel like I needed it after all.

Then the entries of the divorce. The shame and disappointment. How no one understands. How I just want to be happy – “doesn’t God want me to be happy??” And then about him. (He who shall not be named…we all have chapters of our stories we like to keep to ourselves.) He, who many don’t even know about. But he was very important to me for a very short time. He was the impetus of my shifting, actually. He started a lot of it. The existential questions and wanderings. The rebellious experiences. The shedding of old belief systems and learning how to trust my own intuition as to what’s “right” and what’s “wrong.” Watching “What the Bleep Do We Know” one night while my husband was at work, wishing he’d hold my hand or sit closer to me. The drives through the country hills smoking blunts and listening to conscious rap (ha!). The intense talks. The kiss on the forehead when I told him about my attack. The kiss that would come months later when we knew it shouldn’t have. He’s the one who initially turned my world around. He made me question everything. Who was I? What was I doing? What did I want? (Some questions I’m still trying to figure out, to a degree.)

Anyway, so yeah – it was a trip reading through all those journals this weekend. Thoughts I had completely forgotten about. Words I don’t remember writing. Pages documenting some of my darkest times. There have been times where I’ve thought about tossing out all these old journals. But then I have days like today. There is so much still to be discovered in them. As I continue this journey of self-discovery and trying to write my memoir to tell my story and explain my process – these are becoming quite valuable. Some are just rambles of nonsense, but there are hidden nuggets of insight within all of them.

My journey didn’t start when my change in beliefs were exposed to those close to me a few years ago. My journey has been ongoing for years – I just haven’t let a lot of people in on it until now.