I am so lost right now. Each day I seem to be I am finding the challenge of understanding. I am lost in the confusion of what my faith has been, and what it will become. Yet, I am not sure at all what my faith will become.
Rules... and more rules. That is how my faith has made sense to me. I was to listen and obey my elders. I was to trust that each action was the path that God had placed before me. And I was never to question God. God could destroy me if He wanted, and a lack of obedience was an opening for God to destroy me.
When I was younger I never questioned each action that was given to me. Each role that I needed to take on. I welcomed the choices that I found placed in front of me. Even when those choices created a great level of fear in me for night after night. I knew I was chosen and that God had played a great role in my being chosen... so I submitted without question. I didn't understand the role I was chosen for, and yet I willingly learned how to accomplish that role. I am still trying to understand the emotions that the were created within each act of sacrifice.
I was brought to the role of his second. I always knew that he had a first. The first was his wife. And she would always hold a place in his heart. She was the one chosen and the whole world was witness to the day they became one. I was given that chance to become one, in the dark of night. After listening to him come home, hearing each step as he navigated the stairs. And yet, it wasn't me that he was seeking first. It was her. He found his way to the room between their room and the one I was asleep in. The bathroom, a refuge for all at one point or another. The sounds from the bathroom startled me. And then he was banging and yelling. His first had made the choice. She locked him out of the room that they belonged in together. And in that simple action, she chose me to become his second on that night.
In the darkness of our joining... I can remember just a few details. The smell was overwhelming. It was a smell that it would take me years to be able to connect to what it was. It was a smell of alcohol... that and the smell of pee. Basically at this point I understand that it was the smell of a bar bathroom. And the smell is something I avoid. Yet, the smell gave way to touch. Hands with rough fingers were moving me around like a rag doll. And then all I can remember is feeling like I was choking in the dark. Yet, his hands were not on my neck. How could I feel like I was struggling for each breathe? And what was it that cemented our relationship?
What I am left with in many ways is some snapshots that I know traverse time in my life. And with those snapshots... I hear different things. Quiet, a baby crying, his panting breathe... All along with this feeling of drowning. And yet, at some point in this time line of our relationship... I was awoken because I was soaking wet. And there he was... helping me out of the wet clothes...
Yet, another time... I woke up sticky. But I knew whatever it was that I was submitting to was helping. I found the strength to keep breathing. And somehow I knew that God would help me sleep. And sleep became something that only happened, when I could place a bible under my pillow. Yet, it was years after that my inability to sleep became an issue.
I don't recall the exact date that this all started. I often wish I could have remembered the date that I was chosen. I remember other important days, but that one is still just a memory without an exact time. And I often wonder if remembering more would help to prove to others that it was real. That my mind didn't create these memories, emotions, and feelings... Even years later when his first informed me that I had created the conditions to be chosen as his second... and that I had enjoyed it. And that thought in enjoying it and his first being so happy about it... has made me wonder. Yet, I also wonder why his first walked away from him.
Even all these years later... I don't know what I was enjoying. How anyone could know I enjoyed it. But I also don't know how to find a path from repentance and penance to this love that is talked about around me. How can I understand? What is next? This is the perfect storm of confusion that I am trying to understand right now... Where does my relationship with him come into the world of the relationship I have with my faith?
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