Fat Girl, Talking
Michael and I went into a Halloween shop today.
I’d never been in a Halloween shop before, and it was an eye-opening experience.
I was really surprised to see so many little kids everywhere — and not a single one of them crying or scared. These kids…they clearly could separate fiction from reality in a way that I couldn’t at their age. In a way that I couldn’t as a young adult. I envied this ability they had that I’m still working on developing. I envied their lack of fear, their pure delight, their reasoning skills.
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Just because I’m a good person, just because I’m progressive, just because I’m involved in working towards a better world, doesn’t mean that I am unaffected by privilege, exempt from critique, incapable of bearing responsibility for abusive behavior…or even incapable of being an asshat.
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Since publishing the admission of my deconversion from Christianity, I’ve been questioning myself an awful lot (to put it quite delicately).
Maybe I shouldn’t have written it. Maybe I should have kept playing along so I didn’t hurt anyone. Maybe I should have kept it all to myself for the rest of my life. Maybe the timing was bad. Maybe I should have consulted with anyone who would have been upset about it before publishing. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
I keep coming back to the same answers. I had to write it. Lying to everyone for the rest of my life would have been more damaging to us all than telling the truth has been. There was never going to be a “right time” for it. Consulting with those who would be hurt by it would have only served to delay then intensify the pain, because their displeasure wouldn’t have kept me from publishing.
That leads me to two questions that apply both to that post in particular but also to my entire blog:
- Why did I write it, and why do I write in general?
- Why did I write it publicly, and why do I write in public?
When I say I am sad, it’s because I don’t really have words to explain what’s happening. It’s because it’s easier for me to say, “I am sad” than it is to explain what I actually mean.
And, if I’m honest, it’s because saying “I am sad” is easier than owning to myself how bad things can get. Have gotten. Will get again. It’s my way of downplaying something that is all-encompassing and overwhelming and frightening and stifling and maddening and exhausting and devastating.
Read MoreThat’s one of the problems of purity culture. It seeks to shelter, to save, to protect. But in doing so, unwittingly or not, it becomes benevolently sexist, perpetuating the very evil it claims to protect its adherents from, using gentler words and subtler manipulation towards the same end.
Read MoreMaybe I should have just kept pretending to be a Christian. You know, for the rest of my life. Because lying forever can’t possibly go wrong.
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This is a conversation I don’t know how to have.
How do I write about no longer identifying as a Christian in a way that won’t turn my entire world upside down?
I guess I’m doing it something like this. But I’m not holding onto hope for keeping my world aright.
The language of Christianity is still my mother tongue. The culture of Christianity is still my hometown. I don’t know anything else.
This is a strange place for me to be.
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There is so much I want to say. So much I want to talk about, share, unload from the heaviness of my heart and dredge up from the murkiness of the swirling waters of thoughts in my head. There are people who have contacted me that I want to respond to.
But all I can really muster is silence.
Read MoreI am a feminist. And I am a Christian. I think these are completely compatible systems that ought to go hand in hand.
But I do not — cannot — will not — go to church.
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