On the Quadranscentennial of My Birth

Today is my birthday. I am twenty-five years old.

This morning, as my alarm went off, I rolled over in bed to see the smiling face of my husband. He wished me a happy birthday, made me some peanut butter, banana, and chocolate chip pancakes, and posed to me a story and a question.

He told me about his own 25th birthday, nearing the end of his incarceration, on which an older gentleman asked him, "What is the most important thing you've learned in your quarter of a century?"

He pondered the question for the day and came to the conclusion that the most important thing he'd learned was efficiency, and the importance of doing things to the fullest of one's abilities.

This morning, he asked me the same question.

What is the most important thing I've learned in my quarter of a century?

I have a slightly different response than my husband, of course. While I understand the importance of doing things to the fullest of my abilities, that's not the most important thing I've learned in my half of half of a hundred years on this earth. Efficiency is a useful skill, to be sure, and a valuable aspect of a well-lived life, but it, too, is unworthy of the title of most important, in my eyes.

No, that title goes to something that I have believed for years, something that sits in the core of my soul and conducts every part of my life.

The most important thing I've learned in my quarter of a century is this:

Love, in all things, above all else.

We must do everything with a mindset of love. In this way, we can ensure that our intentions are pure, our conscience is clear, and our actions are just. If we look at everything through the eyes of love, we can bring about much needed peace in this world of hate and division.

Nothing, in my mind, is more important than love. It is the meaning of life. Everything we do is done for love of something or someone, be it love of money, our job, our lifestyles, or our families and friends. Even the most vile of actions is often done for love in some way or another. Love is what separates us from the animals. It's what makes us human. It's a state of being.

If we choose, each of us, to love one another, as is demonstrated by our greatest religious leaders, and is featured as a tenet of every faith, perhaps we can bring about an era not of fear and spite, but of harmony and joy.

So, for my birthday, I'm asking you all for one thing: choose love. In all things. I challenge you to try it out. Drop me a comment about how you're choosing love, or post your stories and pictures with the hashtag #loveinallthings.

Institutionalized Identification Abuse and Illinois House Bill 6064

Over the last few days I've seen a story pop up in my Facebook feed a few times about some proposed legislation in the Illinois House of Representatives. This proposed bill would prevent a birth certificate from being issued for children of single mothers, unless the mother provides the father's name on the certificate. While this may not seem like a big deal - why doesn't she just name him? - it could, in fact, have dire, even dangerous consequences.

The bill, proposed by Reps. John Cavaletto and Kieth R. Wheeler earlier this month, would be an amendment to the Vital Records Act, and would deny public aid to any mother who does not have a birth certificate for her child. It removes the provision stating that the father must sign an acknowledgement of parentage, instead enforcing a required parentage. In this way, it would prevent deadbeat fathers from denying their children in order to get out of paying child support. The perhaps-unintended effect, however, is to brutally punish single mothers who are unable or unwilling to provide paternity for their child.

While in many cases, it would be easy just to name a father and go on your merry way, there are a number of cases in which this might not be possible, or could prove dangerous to the health and safety of either the mother or the child. With no provisions made, what happens in cases of rape, where the father might be unknown or the mother may not want any contact with the father? What about abusive relationships, in which the mother flees her abuser only to discover she's carrying his child? With the man listed as "father" on the birth certificate, he would be entitled to all parental rights associated with the title, until he chooses to waive them, or custody can be settled in court. Additionally, with the intention of the bill being to force these fathers to pay child support, it could only be assumed the state would contact them to inform them of their paternal duties, providing potentially dangerous information to former abusers.

Of course, in cases where a father cannot, or will not, be named, the mother can either submit her child to DNA testing to determine paternity, or can present a family member who agrees to take financial responsibility for the child. The text in question is as follows:

"If an unmarried mother cannot or refuses to name the child's father at the time of birth, either: a) a father must be conclusively established by DNA evidence; or b) within 30 days after birth, another family member who will financially provide for the child must be named, in court, or on the birth certificate.

If neither condition is met, a birth certificate shall not be issued for the child and the mother will be ineligible for any financial aid provided under the Illinois Public Aid Code for the support of the child."

This fails to consider, however, that mothers who would fall under this legislation are often the ones most in need of aid, and would now be the only ones unable to receive it. It strictly targets poor families where it would be dangerous or impossible to name a father - thus child support is out of the question - and family members would be unable to provide financial support in his place.

While this may be intended to punish "immoral" mothers and deadbeat fathers, it has the potentially dangerous side effect of punishing the child most harshly of all.

Without the assistance of public aid, the child of an impoverished single mother will now most likely be denied basics like clothing, books, and even food. This is not for lack of trying on the part of the mother, but rather is due to a combination of the abysmal minimum wage, which is not enough to support one person, let alone a family, and the rising cost of living - a cheap, small-town, one-bedroom apartment now costs about 75% of the average full-time minimum-wage paycheck, and is up to three times higher in bigger cities, leaving almost nothing for utilities, food, emergencies, and other necessary expenses. Additionally, many minimum-wage employers now only offer part-time work, to escape having to offer employee benefits, forcing these mothers to take on two, even three jobs in order to make ends meet, denying them much-needed quality time with their child and adding expensive child-care costs to their already paper-thin budget.

While the mother would, theoretically, still be able to apply for her own aid, she would, for all legal intents and purposes, be a single, unmarried woman, with no children, working full time at minimum wage, and would therefore be granted only the most minimal of assistance - a little over a hundred dollars in food stamps, perhaps, and state medical insurance (for herself, not her child). She wouldn't even be able to claim the child as a dependent on her tax forms, which could have provided necessary additional income supplementation.

But that's not even the worst part.

Early last year, attention was drawn to the case of a Texas girl named Alecia Pennington who, upon fleeing her ultra-conservative homeschool family, found that not only did she not have access to her identifying documents - they never existed in the first place. At the time, a number of homeschool students began coming forward with similar stories of withheld or nonexistent identity documentation, and a new form of abuse was coined: Identification Abuse.

Identification Abuse is when a child is denied his or her identifying documents for the purpose of punishment or control. Sound familiar?

Without a birth certificate, the child can't enroll in school, apply for a driver's license, get a job, vote, open a bank account, get married, acquire a passport, or receive any aid of their own. In fact, it can go so far as to raise questions about the child's citizenship, which can result in consequences as dire as wrongful deportation.

Following the Pennington case, the state of Texas approved a bill to make it a criminal offense for parents to refuse their child their identity.

Now, Illinois is proposing to institutionalize this kind of abuse, by refusing to issue the birth certificates in the first place. This sets a dangerous precedent for states still struggling with how to handle cases of identification abuse, and creates a potentially harmful environment for future children born under this legislation.

I think what the state is forgetting here is that it's not about the money - it's about the child. The well-being of that child is more important than anything, and this kind of legislature puts that well-being dangerously at risk, either from abusive fathers brought unnecessarily into the picture, or from the mere reality of an impoverished childhood.


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If this angers you as much as it does me, I implore you to contact your local representative and tell them how you feel.

31 Days of Moments, Day 3: Drips

Fshhhhhhhhh...

The warm water runs gently across my hands and slips into a pool around the drain, lapping against the sticky plates and coffee stained mugs.

The soap is slick across my fingers as I massage a few drops into our old yellow sponge. The bubbles foam out of the sides, dripping into a dirty pot with a soft splash. Lavender wafts from the sink and into my nose, mingled with the sharp scent of week-old lasagna sauce and sour coffee creamer, stuck to the bottom of more than one brightly colored mug.

I dip my hands into the water, pulling out a plate. This one was from taco night. There's still sour cream solidified on one side. I brush the sponge gently across its surface, pressing harder where the messes are. It comes clean with little effort, and I shake it off before placing it upside down in the cabinet above my head.

Dip in again, this time pulling out a bowl. It looks clean already. Closer inspection reveals it was a cereal bowl. I brush out the few remaining crumbs and rinse, placing it in the adjacent cabinet.

Next, is a mug. Morning coffee, two or three days ago. The grounds leave dark brown lines across the interior, like a growth chart in reverse. A shrink chart? The stains come off easily with a swipe of my magic sponge. It's the dried on cream that takes time. I scrub away at the solidified mass, gradually pulling it out, and run the mug under the now-hot water, for good measure. It, too, goes into a cabinet, this one to my right.

Out comes a pot. Ugh. Pizza sauce. Jeremy makes the best pizza, but cleaning the sauce off the pot is the worst. It goes sour as soon as it cools, leaving a tomato pulp film across the bottom, as the juice cooks off and evaporates. The sticky mass collects on my sponge and I have to rinse it several times, nearly running out of soap in the process. I squirt in a few more drops, squelching the suds into the pot. It, too, gets a final rinse, and finds its home on the wire shelves behind me.

So it goes, plate, mug, bowl, mug, plate, pot, bowl, pan, until all that's left is the silverware. Good God, how many forks do we own? Each one gets a swipe from the sponge, a rinse in the running water, and plink! into the silverware holder. One by one, swipe, rinse, plink! swipe, rinse, plink! until the sink is finally empty.

I run my hands under the warm water, smushing the last of the suds out of the sponge, before placing it in its dish at the head of the sink. I shake the last few drips from my fingers, then turn to the fridge.

Dinner time.

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31 Days of Moments: Day 2: Pounce

Her eyes sparkle. She pulls back the corners of her mouth into a mischievous smirk. She crouches, legs poised to spring.

The green stuffed mouse gently wiggles as I drag it across the floor, felt tail grasped between my toes.

She inches forward, claws flexing and retreating, eyes never leaving the toy. The hair on her back stands up, waving like grass as her muscles ripple underneath. Her tail flicks back and forth excitedly. A soft hiss escapes her throat, and she pulls deeper into the crouch.

With one last flick of my toes, the toy goes soaring across the floor, into a patch of sunlight. She turns, pulling back against her own legs. One, two, three...

Pounce! She launches across the room, over a pile of laundry and a stack of books, suspended temporarily only by the strength of her hind legs. Her front feet make silent contact with the tile on the other side, claws out, inches from the mouse. Her hind legs follow, as she slides into the toy, snatching it up with sharp teeth and powerful jaws. She leans back onto her hind legs, grasping the mouse with her front paws, viciously ripping at it with her teeth. She throws it into the air, leaping up to meet it on its descent, slamming it into the tile with both feet.

She bats it between her legs, reaching back to kick it forward again.

Oops! Too far. It slides under the coffee table, coming to rest next to one of the legs. She crouches again, Inching forward, one paw at a time, until...

Kick!

It disappears! Where did it go? She turns frantically in the direction it flew.

There!

It's next to the TV, nestled between DVD cases. She immediately leaps onto it. It won't escape this time!

She wrestles with the toy, chomping onto its catnip-filled center. She rolls onto her back and latches onto it with all four paws. She rolls back and forth, swiping angrily at the ground when it slips out of her grasp.

She rolls upright, and lines up to pounce again. Hind legs ready to spring, eyes sparkling mischievously, fur rippling. One, two...

Pop!

What was that?

She turns her head instantly. Daddy is standing in the kitchen with - is that... It is!

She bounds to his feet, brushing against his calf as he plops the can of fancy feast onto a plate. The mouse rests in the patch of sunlight, all but forgotten.

She scurries over to her food bowl, eager and hungry.

Daddy places the plate gently onto the floor. One, two, three...

Pounce!

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31 Days of Moments: An Introduction

Deep breath.

In.

Out.

My fingers drop onto the keys, unsteady, waiting, tense. They're ready; I'm not.

Maybe one more deep breath.

In.

Out.

Where do I even begin? How do I start something like this?

I mean, it's not like I haven't done it before... I mean, not this, specifically, but, you know... This. Writing. Blogging. Whatever.

I don't know, I guess maybe this time it's different? ...More honest? ...More real? I don't know.

What if no one reads it?

What if someone does?

In.

Out.

Here goes...

Click, click, click... Tapping away at keys, tentatively, nervously. One word. Two words. Three. Four. Five. Six words. I have a sentence. One sentence. That's good enough, right?

No, I sigh. There has to be more.

In.

Out.

I can do this.

I can't do this.

My mother will kill me.

I don't care.

Okay, I care.

I just won't tell her.

What if she finds out anyway?

She won't.

Who am I kidding? She's a mom. She'll know.

In.

Out.

Does it even matter? Isn't it time I stopped worrying what they think? Come on.

Fingers back on keys.

In.

Out.

I can do this.

I have to.

Click.

"Let me tell you a story."
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Hey, guys. So, this kicks of my 31 Days of Blogging series, #31Days of Moments. You can follow along on social media with the hashtag #31Moments, or you can keep checking back here every day as I work my way through a month of writing down single moments.

The goal is to write 500 words or more about moments of 5 minutes or less. I thought it appropriate to write about a moment of blogging for this introduction post. This is the moment I began the blog series that ultimately led to the writing of my memoir (in-progress), Lost Girl: Found.

I'm doing this blog series for two reasons.

First, to challenge myself. To force myself to write, just for a few minutes, each day.

Second, to practice resting in the details. I tend to tell lengthy overarching stories, skipping over the little moments, in favor of sweeping summary. The purpose of this series is to force me to take time to appreciate the little things, to pay attention to them, savor them, remember them.

This series will be broken down into "weeks" beginning every Saturday (except this one, obviously.) Each week will have its own theme, announced at the beginning of the week. All the posts in the series will be linked at the bottom of this page, so they can be found easily. Additionally, each post will link to this page, the previous post, and the next post in the series.

This is Day One. There are thirty more.

Are you with me?

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background photo courtesy of albumarium.com: [AndreasS]

Week One: #EverydayMoments
Day One: Introduction
Day Two: Pounce
Day Three: Drips
Day Four:
Day Five:
Day Six:
Day Seven:
Day Eight:
Day Nine:

Week Two:
Day Ten:
Day Eleven:
Day Twelve:
Day Thirteen:
Day Fourteen:
Day Fifteen:
Day Sixteen:

Week Three:
Day Seventeen:
Day Eighteen:
Day Nineteen:
Day Twenty:
Day Twenty-One:
Day Twenty-Two:
Day Twenty-Three:

Week Four:
Day Twenty-Four:
Day Twenty-Five:

Day Twenty-Six:
Day Twenty-Seven:
Day Twenty-Eight:
Day Twenty-Nine:
Day Thirty:
Conclusion:

Going to a Christian College Turned me into a Heathen, Afterword: The Faith of my Fathers

Start this series from the beginning, then come back here.

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So, now you know my story. Most of it, anyway. And now it's time for a little explanation. Some tying of loose ends, perhaps.

I'm not a "heathen" in the traditional, dictionary sense. I haven't totally abandoned my faith. What I've abandoned is the so-called faith of my fathers. The faith that says I have to be subservient and meek.

I will not be a "weak" woman. I will not be an obedient housewife.

I will run through the forests, and climb the trees. I will fight pirates, swim with mermaids, and dance with the Indians. I will fly.

I will not sit at home and cook and clean while the boys have all the fun. I did not come all the way to Neverland just to grow up.

I came to live, for as long as I possibly can. And when there is no more living to do, then, and only then, will I return home.

I also will not judge the women who do cook and clean and obediently serve. For some, that is their calling. As I long to fly, some long to serve. That, too, is honorable. "To thine own self, be true."

I will not follow an exclusive faith. I will not deny entry. That is not my job.

Mercy is not for the worthy, healing is not for the whole.

My faith is the faith of the broken. The unworthy. The ones who don't belong. The runaways from a faith that wanted them to grow up too fast.

My faith takes you where you stand and says, "Come in. We've been expecting you." It reaches with open arms for anyone willing to step in. There are no membership fees, no tickets required, no ceremony required before you can be deemed worthy. There is only hope. Only home. Only here.

It's a scary thing, admitting that the faith you grew up in might not be for you. You're told your whole life that one thing is right, and everything else is wrong, only to find out that you might, perhaps, disagree.

And that might be okay.

And it might also not be for everyone.

For some reason, the faith of my fathers has endured, and that has to mean something. For centuries, this is how My Mother's Jesus was passed across the generations. It became the faith of my fathers by being the faith of my fathers' fathers. And their fathers. And maybe even their fathers before them.

But somewhere down the line, things changed. Faith wasn't always this way. Somehow, somewhere, someone disagreed. Maybe even more than once.

Before my father, and my father's father, the faith of the day included slaves. Someone changed that.

Before that, the faith of the day required you to pay for forgiveness in gifts to the church, and confess your sins to man, rather than to God. A man named Martin Luther changed that.

In our own holy text, the Bible on which our faith is based, outspoken women are stoned, kings have hundreds of wives, and the only one worthy to talk to God is the high priest. Someone changed that too. When? And why, when our collective faith is already so radically different, is it so wrong of me to question my own?

Didn't Jesus call us to love, above all else? Why then, is the primary influence of the present day church to shame and accuse? Why is the call of the missionary, "Come as you are," but the message of the church, "Change, first. Then, forgiveness?" It can't be reconciled.

For this reason, I deny the faith of my fathers, and substitute my own. A faith that believes, not in the clean White-Jesus of the modern day megachurch, but in the filthy, controversial man who was called the Son of God. I choose a faith that loves, equally, and with abandon. A faith that doesn't guard its heart, but opens it. Vulnerable, honest, and imperfect. And totally mine.

So, yes, in a sense, you can call me a heathen. If this is your impression of me, that's okay. I don't need your permission. You don't need mine. You and I can continue to live our lives in relative peace, we can agree to disagree, and the world will continue to turn. Life will go on. One day at a time.

There is so much more to the story. Maybe in the end, I'll tell you mine.

Until then,

Fin.

Going to a Christian College Turned me into a Heathen, Part Eight: Lost Girl

This is the conclusion of an Eight part series. Start with Part One and work your way up to here.
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The first week of January, my parents finally thought to ask me if I actually wanted to go back to Western. I finally built up the courage to tell them, no, I did not. That I was burnt out on school and needed to take some time off.

This, of course, meant that I was throwing my life away. That I was selfish for letting my grandmother already pay for a semester of school, and for not telling them sooner, because they'd been preparing the basement for me to move into second semester (1. I never asked to move into the basement. 2. She was planning on selling the house anyway, and the basement was moldy, rotting, and full of old stuff). Henceforth, I had doomed myself to an eternity as a Walmart greeter or burger flipper. Obviously.

My father was, of course, gracious enough to offer to allow me to continue to live under his roof, provided I lived by his rules - meaning essentially I went from home to work and back, I didn't stay out late, I didn't spend all my time with Bear, and I kept my room spotless (privacy was a non-issue, since I didn't have a door anyway). Otherwise, I was expected to find other accommodations.

That night, I officially moved in with Bear.

It was an incredibly freeing experience. Never again did I have to worry about coming home late to a three-hour lecture about how I was breaking Jesus's heart by my sinful and disrespectful behavior. Never again would my father berate me for dropping my clothes where I undressed, instead of folding them neatly and putting them away. I no longer had to hide in the corner to change clothes, for fear someone might burst through the non-existent door. I was free of the constant judgement, the seemingly-inescapable fear that I would never be good enough, the shame of my failure, and the disappointment of my life choices.

Now, I ran my own home. I paid my own bills. I went to work, and came home to my husband-to-be. I made my own dinner in my own kitchen (I was very excited about that one. I love to cook), and I washed my own dishes after (to be honest, my husband would probably tell you he washed most of the dishes, but I'm making a point here).

Six months away from the day I was expected to be a fully-functional adult, I was finally free to learn how to be one.

And you know, despite the incessant promises of purity culture that moving in with my fiance before marriage would be the end of our relationship, it only made us stronger. Every day, waking up next to him, I fell more and more in love. Sure, our habits got on one another's nerves, but we had the pleasure of dealing with that outside of the overwhelming pressure of a new marriage, where every little fight is a sign that your marriage is already failing. Rather than hiding our feelings to preserve our blissful marriage, we found ourselves talking about issues before they became marriage-threatening meltdowns.

We also got the pleasure of falling in love with some of those habits. I love the way he snores steadily in his sleep (no, honestly, I do). I love that he tells me he loves me by doing the dishes and taking out the trash. I love the way he never refills the water pitcher or the salt shaker.  I love the way he makes funny faces at me when he's bored. I love the way he obsessively checks that the door is locked when we leave the house. I love falling asleep nestled into his side, and I love waking up to his smile and his snuggles in the morning.

When we finally did make our vows, nothing changed at home, because we'd already been settled for months, even calling each other husband and wife in front of friends. Our scandalous cohabitation didn't make our wedding any less beautiful, our vows any less meaningful, or our honeymoon any less wonderful (wink, wink). As of the day this post is published, we have been married three blissful months. I know that isn't much, comparatively, and I don't profess to be any expert on marriage, but it's a start.

For part of our ceremony, we put together a fight box. We built the box together, pounding nails into boards, sitting cross-legged on the cold tile of our kitchen floor. We stained it and sealed it and lined it with moss. During the ceremony we put in a bottle of our favorite wine and two letters, one from each of us, reminding each other why we fell in love. They are to be opened the first time we have a huge, marriage-threatening fight, to remind us what we're fighting for. We're hoping we never have to use it.

They say every girl wants to grow up and marry a man just like her daddy, and for young me, that was as true as anyone. And while I do see some similarities between my husband and my father - in personality, in politics, even in appearance - I also see a lot of differences. My dad wasn't all bad. I know that what he did, he did out of love. But I also know there is a better way. And I know that my husband has found it.

Where my father pushed me, my husband encourages me. Where my father lectured me, my husband gently reminds me. Where my father saw me as something to be protected at all costs, my husband understands that even though I can take care of myself, sometimes I still need saving. Where my father wanted to keep me from making bad decisions, my husband is there to remind me that it's okay to make mistakes - as long as we learn from them.

Where my father was there to help me grow, my husband is there to help me through the hard part - being a grown-up.

When I was a kid, I loved Peter Pan. I never wanted to grow up. I only wanted to have adventures. I still do. I was convinced, to the very core of my being, that I would become a Lost Girl some day. That wish came true, if not in the way I intended. I was lost there, for a while. I didn't know what to do or who to turn to. I tried turning to my parents, but found myself weak. I tried turning to my teachers, but found myself wanting. I tried turning to George, but found myself wavering. I tried turning to my mother's Jesus, but found myself unworthy.

But it's the strangest thing, being a lost girl. Because all lost boys and girls, really, are found. Peter finds them. He picks them up, takes them away, and teaches them to fly. So, wouldn't you know, when I didn't know where to turn, when I finally turned away from all the shame and the fears and the never-good-enough, I didn't find myself wandering. I merely found... myself. Buried under all the baggage of twenty-odd years, there I was, squirming and unabashed and pure, ready to start this new thing called life.

I was a lost girl: found. And I soared.

[Afterword]

Going to a Christian College Turned me into a Heathen, Part Seven: Good Enough for Me

This is Part Seven. You should probably start with Part One.
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In the fall of 2014, I left yet again for college, this time to attend Western Illinois University. I wasn't happy about having to leave Bear behind, but I was given an offer I couldn't refuse - my grandmother offered to pay all tuition that wasn't covered by financial aid. This was a way for me to get out of my parents' house with minimal strain. My only alternatives were to refuse the offer, and then spend six months still stuck in my parents' home, being reminded every day how stupid I was to turn it down, or to try again to move in with Bear - an attempt that would almost certainly be thwarted yet again by my father's blackmailing skills.

Once again, I joined the marching band, figuring this would be the best way to make friends. I had no idea how different this band would be from the one I was a part of at Olivet. While my former bandmates were thicker than thieves, a close-knit and well-integrated group of over 200 people, Western's band, although much smaller, was heavily cliqued and many of the established friendships were not looking for new members. Add this to the fact that I was a solid 4 years older than the freshmen who were my social equals, and you're left with very few options. I did make a few good friends, two of the more open minded girls in my section, with whom I roomed on a field trip early in the semester.

Even in my department of study, I had some difficulty making friends. I was studying theatre this time around, having forgone music thanks to my parents' obsessive influence. While theatre people are a far more accepting group than musicians, there remains a certain amount of heirarchy, and once again, established friendships made it difficult to create lasting connections with anyone. I was well behind the students who were my age, and my position as newbie meant I wasn't cast in any productions. The closest I got to anyone was the stage managers I hung out with during my time as a sound designer and board operator for the fall productions. Even that was a lonely position, one during which I read seven different books while pressing sound cue buttons during the collective two weeks of tech I covered for two different shows.

Even in my dorm hall, I was often alone. I had no roommate, although I did have a suite-mate. We didn't get along very well, however, and rarely spoke except to remind the other to change the toilet paper or buy more hand soap for the shared bathroom in our two-room suite. My RA was sweet, but a little bit too friendly.

Again, I was isolated. I became deeply depressed, my only solace in nightly conversations with Bear. I missed him terribly, and often fell asleep talking to him, the phone pressed to one ear, my pillow to the other. I began to lose my motivation even to get up and go to class in the morning. If there hadn't been a mini-cafeteria in my building, I probably wouldn't have eaten most days.

By homecoming, I had dropped out of band, and was hardly speaking to anyone, my only real human interaction in classes. Even in my theatre work, I was mostly alone, ending up stuck in the booth reading Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" for the thousandth time between doorbell noises and curtain cues.

Whereas Olivet was an aggressively friendly environment, I found Western to be quite the opposite. Very quickly, I succumbed to deep anxiety, frequently falling asleep watching "Winnie the Pooh" with the lights on, or with the phone pressed to my ear, because there was no other way I could get to sleep. I longed for nothing more than to be home, not with my family, but with Bear. We found that we needed each other. Where George and I had been comfortable with a long-distance relationship, Bear and I couldn't stand to be apart. Although we did spend the occasional weekend together - him visiting my dorm, me sneaking home to his apartment for a weekend - it was never enough.

In mid-November, during a weekend home, Bear received a very small package in the mail. We both knew what it was, of course. It was no surprise that he'd been planning to propose. With the ring now in-hand, he couldn't wait to show it to me. I, however, didn't want to spoil the surprise. After a few hours of inner debate, he decided, finally, to propose to me that day. While snuggling in his apartment, he asked if I really needed a big, fancy proposal, and I replied that of course I didn't, so long as it came from him. He pulled out the ring and explained that he had carefully chosen it to symbolize the strength of our love. That he'd struggled to come up with a creative way to propose to me, but couldn't come up with anything that could do it justice. That he'd thought long and hard about marriage, because he only wanted to do it once, and he was prepared for me to say no, if I wanted to.

The ring was stunning. There was no stone, only a sterling silver heart, etched to resemble oak. I responded with an emphatic yes. He cried. I cried. We celebrated by going to the movies. I still have the ticket stub in my ring box.

Later that night, we made the announcement to my parents and sisters. My sisters were ecstatic. My parents were... supportive, at best.

I returned to Western two days later to finish the semester. Over Thanksgiving, we made the announcement to the rest of my extended family, before finally releasing the news publicly via Facebook. At last, four weeks later, I returned home for Christmas break.

At the time, I had no intention of returning to Western. I hated it, and much preferred to stay close to home - and bear. I had no idea how to tell my parents, who were pressuring me to finish my degree before getting married.

I remember one night - a rare occasion of me sleeping at home that break - my father came into my room and began listing every possible problem with Bear he could think of, citing that "he and my mother were concerned about my judgement." Most of the problems he listed were actually things I loved about him.

He complained that Bear lets me drive when we go to Chicago because he doesn't like driving in the city, saying, "I would never let my wife drive in the city" (he frequently does, in fact).

I love driving in the city. I'm very comfortable navigating Chicago's one-way streets, and would much rather be in the driver's seat than stuck in the passenger's watching Bear have a breakdown.

He complained that Bear was unemployed at the time, due to a rather dramatic falling-out with McDonald's.

I knew he was much, much happier not working at McDonald's. I would rather he be unemployed and happy, than employed somewhere from which he literally came home suicidal. I have a great job as a news anchor for a local radio station, and am comfortable supporting us both between employers until he finds a job he truly loves.

He complained that Bear didn't share "our faith."

I liked the change of pace. For what should, by now, be obvious reasons.

No matter what I had to say, however, my father would hear none of it, having already deemed him unworthy in his mind. Luckily for us, I no longer cared what my father had to say. It had become clear to me that what he wanted for me was to become a submissive housewife to a strong, successful, devout Christian man, who would unwaveringly support me, spiritually and financially, all my days. It didn't matter that this was not what I wanted for myself. This is what he believed God wanted for me, and therefore, my opinions mattered naught.

I was not prepared to me the modest, quiet Christian woman I saw in my mother. I didn't want to be servant to a man my entire life. I wanted a man who was my equal. A man who saw me as his wife and partner, not his property. I wanted to be unafraid to bare my shoulders and have male friends - something in which my parents expected me to follow their example instead. I wanted to be a mother, yes, but also to work outside the home. I wanted permission to be a strong and independent woman - because permission was something I thought I needed.

I decided it was time to change that.

[Continued in Part Eight.]
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Going to a Christian College Turned me into a Heathen, Part Six: One of the Grown-Ups

If you're just coming in, you should start with part one and work your way up to here.
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My parents hated my friends, growing up. Sure, there were a few they liked okay, but most of the ones that stuck, they encouraged me over and over to abandon. More than once, I was denied rides to friends' houses because they "didn't think she was a good influence on me." This was made all the worse by the fact that we lived five miles out of town, in a small neighborhood with one kid my age. I couldn't walk to friends' houses, and my parents wouldn't take me. I became very isolated.

I still struggle with this isolation, even today. I was taught repeatedly as a kid that you never invite yourself over to someone else's house. You never ask to come over, you wait for them to invite you. This is a habit that has so ingrained itself in my behavior, I can't go over to my own grandmother's house without an invitation. I spend the whole time feeling like a burden, imposing on the good graces of my host.

Because I never invited myself over to my friends' houses, and it was often "inconvenient" (per my parents' insistence) to invite them to mine, I rarely saw them outside of school. This served exactly my parents' intended purpose - whether they would admit it or not - of separating me from the friends they didn't like. While I was home, alone, in my room, my best friends were out there making other best friends. Ones that could come over and hang out when they asked.

Even when I got my own car, much of my life was scripted for me. Although the grip loosened a bit when I turned 18, I was still treated like a 15-year-old, well into adulthood. Anytime I was living at home, my schedule was completely subject to my parents' schedule. If they wanted me somewhere, it was immediately far more important than anything I could possibly have had to do. Meaning of course, that, should I dare to make plans without checking with them first, it was entirely my fault if it inconvenienced them in any way, and was therefore deserving of punishment.

For example:

The summer after Bear and I started dating, Venus and I decided to have a sleepover, along with our close friend Sabrina*. I was 22 years old, I left a note on the counter for my parents, so they wouldn't worry, I figured I was in the clear.

I was wrong.

My dad called, about 10:00, asking me where the hell I was. I mentioned my note, and he said he had found it, and then proceeded to go on for five minutes about how irresponsible I was, and, essentially, how dare I have a sleepover with my friends without his permission.

Remember, I was 22 years old.

He then proceeded to go on for another ten minutes about how irresponsible Venus was. A single mother with two kids (who were with their father that week), living in public housing (so is my boyfriend, dad, what's your point?), without a real job (she did and still does work full time in the emergency room at the hospital). He went on about how if she has free time, she should be using it to look for a real job (again, she had one, and it was the middle of the night. Where's she job hunting, China?), not throw sleepovers like a teenager.

I wanted to scream at him, "We are adults! You don't get to control us anymore!" but I couldn't. I knew if I did, there was a world of backlash and abuse waiting for me when I got home, so I kept my mouth shut for the most part, keeping to correcting facts only when he was dead wrong, and muttering sarcastic mm-hmm's when necessary.

Essentially, what it all amounted to was that my friends weren't good enough for him. Because they weren't part of the plan he had for my life - one in which I was a singer and musician, playing happily with the family band for the rest of my life - they were "bad influences." They "weren't encouraging me to follow my passions." The so-called passions he projected onto my life, which in fact he had done a very good job of killing stone-dead.

Oh, sure, they had started out as passions of my own. Passions for music and songwriting, that my parents aggressively over-supported, to the point of irritation. They bought me guitars, pushed me to seek performance opportunities, even drafted me into what started as a band with several of their friends, but quickly evolved into a "family band," a la the Von Trapps or the Partridge Family, playing seasonal programs of original music at churches nearly every weekend. My sisters were drafted too, when all their friends moved on with their lives. Suddenly, our dreams of performing music were sidenotes to their dreams of having a famous family band. After all, if they achieved their dream, we achieved ours by default. Everybody wins.

Except the part where everybody loses. Because when the only people in your band are your children, it becomes very easy to let it take over everyone's lives. It got to the point where we were forced to rehearse for hours every night - god forbid we make plans of our own - running the same songs and stupid, slapdash scripts over and over and over and over until they were good enough to be deemed worthy. But, of course, they never were. Nothing short of absolute perfection was ever good enough for my father, the self-proclaimed leader of the band. If we complained, we were reminded that if we want to be professional musicians, we would need to practice every single day, just like this, even if we wanted to have solo careers. That was the point at which I began to hate music. It got progressively worse the longer we were involved. My father complained frequently that no one ever had input for the band except him, but when we did give input - like my suggestion that the poorly-written scripts that accompanied our programs were childish and embarrassing - we were shot down, told that he was right and we were wrong, and we were doing it his way anyway, because that's what people wanted. It's no wonder we all stopped talking altogether during rehearsals. Rarely did a rehearsal go by that didn't involve at least one fight - usually between my father and my youngest sister - and someone in tears - usually my mother, who blamed every problem on herself. As soon as I moved out of the house for good, I vowed I would never play with them again, and to this day, I haven't.

While I understand that they just wanted to see me achieve my dreams, their seeming expectation that I would achieve them at the age of 15, 16, 17, to me indicated that I was somehow a failure. Although they waxed poetic about how much they loved my songwriting, or pushed me into seeking performance opportunities (by reminding me that family friends much younger than me were performing somewhere new every weekend. Thanks, dad), my big break never came, and their encouragement turned into unbearable pressure.

Their curiosity as to whether I had written anything new lately turned quickly into guilt and shame, as they reminded me that successful musicians wrote new songs every day, and I should really be focusing on my craft, instead of hanging out with people who don't play music, or watching Netflix all the time.

This was especially evident in my relationship with Brunhilda. For three years, they encouraged me to make friends in the music department, and find a different roommate, who would challenge and encourage me in my music. I didn't have the heart to tell them, music majors do not like me, and frankly, I didn't much like them. Olivet was a classical music school, and while I loved composing, my personality was not compatible with the singers and musicians of the department. Classical musicians have a way of being a bit stuffy, even if they don't intend to, and while I was acquainted with many of them, and found friendships with a handful, I was still the weirdo, the creative free spirit, who didn't jive so well with their flawless professionalism. As for the other composition majors, it turns out composers are few and far between, and tend to be sort of introverted. Nowhere did I find the sort of companionship, the instant connection, that I found with Brunhilda and the gaming club. Here were the kind of people I could relate to, the ones who didn't fit in, and liked it that way.

But, along came my parents, pushing me to "spend time with people who are interested in the same things as you," as if that wasn't exactly what I was doing.

Perhaps my parents were right to try and pull me away from these friendships. After all, most of them turned out just like I have - disillusioned, alienated, forging their own paths of not-my-mother's-Jesus, daring to question the strict conservative upbringing of their forefathers. These independent, free-thinking, open-minded adults - Lord knows those aren't the kind of influences you want your children to have. After all, they might spread their heathen gospels of "Love thy neighbor" and "equal rights" and "forgiveness."

We are rapidly becoming the norm among our generation - a generation of rejects and heathens, raised one way, but discovering others. A whole demographic of former fundamentalists, raised in fear of the big, scary real world, where everything is a trap, out to steal you away from your true purpose, only to discover that the real world is neither big nor scary, and people with different opinions - and even, dare I say, different religions - are just as nice as your childhood youth pastor, and do not, in fact, want to drag you straight to hell, as countless youth groups and parent-provided literary works had promised. A world where you can have a civil discussion with someone who disagrees with you - and come away not hating each other with the passion of a thousand suns. You may even find yourself admitting you were in the wrong!

In this way, this generation is slowly developing a new definition of Christianity. One that rejects the guilt and shame so many of us were trained to accept as normal. A definition in which mercy is something that is granted, not earned, and your neighbor's opinions are just as valid as your own. Where church isn't the only place you can find Holy Ground, and a suit and tie is not a necessary step toward salvation.

We are taking the modern, clean, well-behaved White Jesus, and saying, "this is not the Jesus I worship." Our Jesus is a filthy, barefoot, radical who hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. Our Jesus is the Jesus who turned over the tables in the temple, and bravely defied the teachings of all those who came before him. A Jesus who dares to say, "maybe your way isn't the best way," to the respected elders and high priests. Who took all the rules of the old testament and threw them out, in favor of just two: "Love the Lord your God," and "Love thy neighbor as thyself." My faith may not be my mother's faith, but it is my own. I couldn't have it any other way.

[Continued in Part Seven.]

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*names have been changed for privacy.

Going to a Christian College Turned me into a Heathen, Part Five: Baby, Baby, Fallin' in Love...

Alright, guys. Parts one, two, three, and four are here. Read them first. Trust me.
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I started at Sauk in the spring of 2014. I was taking Biology, Basic Acting, Intro to Theatre, and Voice and Piano lessons. At lunch on my first day, I ran into a friend from high school, Casper*. She introduced me to the group of people she was sitting with - the Zombie Club, as it turned out. Once again, I had found myself among the geeks and the gamers. For the first time in months, I felt at home again.

These people became my friends, as well. I sat with them at lunch. I joined them for zombie club meetings, which I definitely did not tell my parents about. They even invited me to Magic club. I dusted off my decks, unused since I had come home, since my parents believed they were the source of this "demonic influence" over my life and mental state, and had thus forbidden them.

Apparently, the magic players I had been up against at Olivet were very good. Because at Sauk, I kicked ass.

It was through these friendships that I came to know Thaddeus*.

Thaddeus was... interesting. He was the kind of person that exudes so much confidence that you can't help but like him and hate him at the same time. He was completely full of himself, and was constantly bragging. At the same time, his huge personality was somehow endearing. We started talking more and more, because we were kind of the weirdos at the weird kid table. So, we clicked.

We hung out quite a lot for the first month or two I spent at Sauk. We sat next to each other at lunch, we hung out after classes, we talked for hours. But, believe it or not, nothing ever happened between us. He had a girlfriend. I was still dating George. We were just friends, and that was that.

March 3rd, 2014. I had just finished a very long weekend running the sound board for the spring production of The Cat in the Hat: Live! During lunch, the entire table was full, except for a few seats down at one end next to some guy I had never met. Being the extrovert I am, I struck up a conversation. He seemed nice, and I had seen him a few times before, hanging around the table with his laptop, playing some kind of MMO RPG with his headphones on. I had thought about talking to him a few times, but I never wanted to interrupt - living with Brunhilda had broken me of that habit very quickly. Finally, here was my chance to talk to the mysterious stranger.

We started out with small talk, where I learned his name was Bear*, then moved quickly into language, both english and foreign. I was the resident "grammar nazi," so he invited me to edit a paper for him. He mentioned he was part Inupiaq, and that he had been trying to study the language. I immediately took that as a challenge, being the lover of languages that I am (I speak three, so far: English, French, and Russian). We clicked almost instantly.

That afternoon, when I left, he walked me downstairs and asked for my phone number. "I know you have a boyfriend," he said, "so I don't blame you if you don't want to give it to me." I admired his gumption and gave it to him anyway, then left with a smile. I mentioned it offhand to George, thinking nothing of it. He didn't mind. He was never really the jealous type, anyway.

I didn't see Bear the following day, but he did text me. The first thing he sent me was a picture of him with his cat. Which, admittedly, was weird, but I rolled with it. When I did finally see him on Wednesday, we jumped right back in with both feet. I brought a copy of The Cat in the Hat in French to read aloud to him, since he was so fascinated by my language skills. After we talked for a while, I invited him downstairs to a piano practice room to hear the new piece I had written for a musical I was working on.

I played him the piece, followed by all four movements of a piano suite I had written for George while at Olivet. He said it touched him "right here" and reminded him of his late grandfather, with whom he had been very close. We talked in that room for hours, about dreams and aspirations, about flying and fantasies and gaming stories, sitting side by side on the piano bench. In the midst of a story about a D&D campaign I had been in, he stopped me. "Do you want me to make a move?" I was shocked by his forwardness. "I don't know," I replied, before continuing with my story, the presence of his arm resting on the piano behind me suddenly heavy. As I stumbled through my narrative, his hand reached up to touch my cheek. "I'm sorry," he whispered, as he turned my head toward his and gently pressed his lips against mine.

In that moment, I swear time stopped, and three very important thoughts occurred to me at once. First, that this was the first time I had ever kissed anyone except George. Second, that it was the single greatest kiss of my entire life. And third, that I didn't want it to end.

You know how sometimes, when you kiss someone for the first time, you feel fireworks? In that moment, my brain lit up like the Fourth of July. This is what a kiss is supposed to feel like. It threw me into incredible confusion. I thought I was in love with George. But, when you're in love with someone, should kissing someone else feel this good? I had been with George for over three years. We had been making wedding plans already. And here came this handsome stranger who blew me away with a single kiss.

Remember when I said my moment of clarity would come? This was it. Although, I didn't realize it at the time.

Bear, of course, was incredibly embarrassed. He started stammering about how if I didn't want to be friends anymore, he would totally understand, but he just had to do it, he just had to know, and he was so sorry, he would never do it again, if I didn't want him to.

I told him it was okay. I meant I forgave him. He thought it meant kiss me again. He did. I told him maybe that was enough.

My mind raced. My thoughts swirled. How did I reconcile these two realities - one in which I was in love with George, and one in which I shared the most passionate kiss of my life with an almost-complete stranger. Yet, this stranger, who I had known for a mere two days, felt closer to me than I had ever felt with anyone I had ever known in my entire life. I was more comfortable with him than my own family, and certainly than with George.

We talked for a while longer, and he held me for a few moments in his arms - which felt more like home than my own bed, before we returned, finally, upstairs to the cafeteria, where most of our friends were still hanging out. We had been downstairs for almost six hours. We tried our best not to look guilty.

I did tell George about this, who was understandably upset, but George and I had a weird relationship dynamic. He was very much not the jealous type. Basically, I could kiss and cuddle whoever I wanted, so long as I didn't hide it from him. He was more upset at Bear because he thought the kiss was unwanted than because I had kissed another man.

Gentlemen, a word of advice: while this tactic may be convenient for your ladyfriend, and serve to prevent her from leaving you for another man, first, this really only serves to do one thing: make your girl feel unwanted. The fact that you don't care if she's cheating on you says to her that you don't even think she's worth fighting for. Second, if you need to let your girlfriend cheat on you to protect your relationship, is your relationship really worth protecting on the first place?

The following week was spring break. I didn't see Bear that week, but I did see George, who had flown in from Pittsburgh to visit. At first I thought I could still make things work with George, but by the end of the week, I knew, I had to end it. It was just a question of how and when.

I originally intended to do it at the end of the week, but I gave him stomach flu instead. Breaking up with him while he's puking his guts up just seemed... Unfair. I resigned myself to having to do it over the Internet.

Meanwhile, I had been texting Bear off and on, and had really connected with him. When I returned to school the following week, we were inseparable. He even came to the school, on a Tuesday, when he didn't even have class, just to see me. Admittedly, we spent quite a bit of alone time together as well. I'm not incredibly proud of that, but I had already left George in my mind. I didn't feel bad about it, at least.

Friday morning, I went on a hike with my best friend Venus*. She had the day off work, and it was a gorgeous day out, so we went out to a favorite hiking trail in Franklin Grove. When we reached the end of the trail, about three miles in, my phone started to ring. It was Bear. He asked me out to dinner at my favorite restaurant. How could I refuse?

He picked me up from Venus's apartment at 6. As we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and got ready to get out, he stopped and turned to me. He made a vow to me, that we would stay together, "through the thick and the thin, and the good and the bad, whatever may come, forever and ever." I repeated it back to him. Though I'd only known him three weeks, I already knew, this was a man I could honestly spend the rest of my life with.

Two months ago, I vowed to do just that.

That date was the first of many. The very next day, I had "the talk" with George. From that point on, Bear and I were always together, much to my parents' chagrin. 

Two weeks later (don't judge me) we made love for the first time. What started as helping him pack his things to move into a new apartment turned into losing my virginity in the upstairs bedroom of his parents' house. I cried. It was embarrassing. I won't go into detail.

What was interesting about this was not that I felt guilty, but that I didn't. In fact, I felt more guilty about not feeling guilty than about the sex itself. About that, I was sure. I loved him, deeply, and wanted to share it with him. I had no regrets, and that was the strangest thing. While I agonized over how my parents would react if they ever found out, deeply ashamed, not of my actions, but of disappointing my parents, I felt no remorse for the actual act. I was content.

Despite numerous assurances - from my parents, family members, every pastor I'd ever heard preach, every youth leader I'd ever spoken to, every conference and speaker and Christian writer I'd ever heard from or read - that losing my virginity outside of marriage would be a painful and devastating event, after which I would lose everything - my boyfriend, my faith, my very relationship with Jesus - and no one would ever want me, I found myself shockingly unhurt and still-loved. My world didn't come crashing down. No lightning bolt of judgment came down from the sky to punish me for my horrific wrongdoings. Not only did Bear not leave me, he married me a little over a year later - something Purity Culture had assured me was absolutely out of the question.

Nonetheless, I spent days crying into Bear's shoulders, as first the shame of disappointing my parents crushed me, followed by the realization that I should never let anyone make me feel ashamed of something that doesn't bother me in the slightest. It was through this that I realized my parents had been using shame as a control tactic for a very long time.

Suddenly, it was all so clear. Everything my parents had ever wanted me to do, they coerced me into doing by pushing shame and guilt onto me in the form of bible verses and "Angry-Jesus". A "B" in a class went from "above average" to "failing" in the eyes of my father. The decision to drop out of college went from "completely normal" to "working at Walmart for the rest of my life." (For the record, I have a very good job as a News Anchor for a local radio station, which I had already been working for several months at the time.)

The emotional abuse**, as I was later able to identify it as, was primarily the work of my father. My mother, although not really preventing the abuse, was also not really contributing and may not have realized what was happening. For that reason, I consider her mostly blameless in this. My father, however, is a master of making you feel small and stupid, no matter how certain you are of your position.

This became especially evident that summer, when I decided I couldn't take it anymore, and tried to move out. I won't go into detail, but if you'd like to read about the experience, I wrote a brief post about it shortly after the incident.

The short version of the story is this: I packed up my things and moved out. My dad called me back to the house to get the title for my car, which was in his name. He then proceeded to spend two hours viciously abusing not only myself, but Bear too, who had come with me for support. He spewed insults and scriptures, trying everything he could to split us up, even going so far as to point out that I had kissed George (*gasp!*), and shouldn't that bother him? He told us we were stupid, that moving in together was sinful, that 95% of couples who move in together before marriage get divorced (which is false). He tried scare tactics and shame and ultimately, blackmail. The final straw, which forced me to move back home, was my car. Although the car was purchased with money given to me in the form of savings bonds, which my parents had cashed without my permission, somehow the car had still ended up registered to my father, along with the insurance. He used that fact to force me back home, knowing that without my car I couldn't work, couldn't go to school, couldn't so much as run to the grocery store for a gallon of milk. I was helpless. I had no choice.

Honestly, I still haven't forgiven him for that. Just the thought of being alone with my father for even a few seconds gives me anxiety the likes of which I haven't had since Olivet. Nothing I do will ever be good enough for him, and while I've allowed myself to accept that and move on, I still shrink into nothing when he tries to lecture me. I've been so trained to accept that what he says is true, and I'm just too stupid to know any better, that I can't find the words to argue with him.

Coming to terms with the emotional abuse led me down a long path of self-forgiveness and reevaluation, regarding my belief system, my self-image, and even my relationship with Bear. Suddenly, I didn't have to live up to their expectations all the time. I realized that I was free to make my own decisions, and that is both freeing and terrifying.

It was among all of this that I came to terms with something very important about myself:

I am bisexual.

At time of writing, I've only told a handful of people - seven, in total, to date. I denied it for a very, very long time, but somewhere in all of this soul searching and self-discovery, I realized I was denying something that was a very important part of my past, and possibly my future.

Before you start asking, and preaching, and commenting, know this:

1. Yes, my husband knows.
2. No, nothing you say is going to "change my mind."
3. It's okay if you don't believe in "alternate sexuality." You have a right to believe in what you want, just as I have a right to disagree with you. This does not mean we can't be friends. This does not mean I hate you or you hate me. This simply means that we have a differing opinion on something, and that is okay. What is not okay is trying to guilt or shame someone into changing their beliefs to match yours. Please respect our differences.
4. Yes, Jesus still loves me, and I still love him.

This was the first time my faith started to really differ from my parents' faith. It was the first time that I allowed myself to be something my parents thought was essentially an abomination. It was a moment of acceptance - of myself and my right to have my own beliefs.

For the first time, My Jesus and My Mother's Jesus didn't have to be the same person. Just like Your Jesus might be different than My Jesus, and Your Mother's Jesus might be different from yours.

And you know what? That's okay.

[Continued in Part Six]

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*names have been changed for privacy.

**If you believe you are suffering from emotional abuse, or abuse of any kind, please don't hesitate to seek help from a trusted source. Confide in a loved one, seek therapy, whatever you need to do. Emotional abuse, specifically, is very difficult to identify, and must be handled on an individual basis. What is right for me may not be right for you. The most important thing to remember is this: your opinions, your thoughts, your beliefs, they are valid. No one has the right to tell you who you are. You are you, one hundred percent, and no less.