The Circle Unbroken

It isn’t going well. My heart and mind are full of thoughtful reflections about the past few weeks, but nothing is coming together on my laptop screen. All I get is this:

I never thought it was going to be a circle. Endless, recurring, eternal.

Now, I am quite satisfied that this is how it’s going to be.

Forever.

It’s the same thing. I keep revisiting the same sentiments in each piece I begin for the Peacewriter. Is there nothing original in the journey? Everything feels old and worn out, but also new. How can that be?

There are times of course when the circle widens and things aren’t so tough. That’s when my life drifts away from things that remind me of the Church. Of the past.

The good things. And the bad.

Inevitably the circle closes and everything comes back again.

The good things.

And the bad.

Maybe this is it. The circle does widen out sometimes. I get complacent, take for granted that life is hitting a normal rhythm and the journey will reach a destination. This chapter of my life will someday close, won’t it?

I hoped the journey would be linear. Milestones and landmarks should mark the progress for me, the progress away from those first few weeks and days.

But it doesn’t work that way. Instead, it feels like a ride on a Ferris wheel that never ends. The joke is on me.

Maybe not. Where is the reassurance that there even is an endpoint? I have yet to see one.

It takes only a gentle reminder to thrust me back into the mix. I see an old picture. Me, young and sunny, surrounded by friends at a stake youth fireside. Photos bring back the good memories; the warmth of the tribe, the extended had of belonging, the hope and promise of an LDS worldview.

Journal entries, wedding photos, patriarchal blessings, all of these things bring back the hurt. Not anger, no feelings of being duped, but regret. I see who I was in the eyes of those that used to love me. I see the smiles, pine for the embrace of the tribe. No animosity, only tears.

This time, it was uncovering my patriarchal blessing in an unexpected place. I hadn’t seen a copy of it for a couple of years. I pulled it out, and when it registered in my brain what I was holding in my hands, the tears began almost instantly. Where does that come from? How much longer will I be like this?

The tug at my heart can overwhelm me in a nanosecond. This self-described tough girl collapses into the couch, covers her face with her hands, and cries tears of hurt and regret.

I miss it. I miss them. I miss what I thought my life was. Not the doctrine, the dogma, or the part of my heart that was shattered… But, the smiles and the love, the surety and the direction, the hugs, and the open arms.

This. There it is, the whole thing in a nutshell. How is it that I can still miss so much a part of my life that has been out of my life for over three years? I don’t know how. But I do. I miss so much. The pangs in my heart take my breath from my chest. It hurts, deeply.

Life moves on. Feelings fade away again. My circle widens. I think for a while that I am safe.

I even begin to think that I have left much of it behind me. That time has begun to close the wounds. It begins to seem like a distant memory. A cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea becomes normal; the stigma diminishes. Life continues and I am happy. My wings spread just a bit; I relish in the new worldview and its accompanying freedoms.

Leaving it all behind is like trying to lose your shadow. For me, it is just not possible to let it all go. Like my shadow, it exists outside of me. It’s something I just can’t shake off completely.

I get the feeling that trying to come to peace with it is going to take me the rest of my life.