I just read this article in Relavant magazine about how wonderful your 30's are because you start to be treated like a legit adult and how confusing your 20's are because you're trying to figure yourself out and so on and so forth. I think he was basically saying not to sweat your 20's though he did state that a lot of the choices we make in our 20's can take us in radically different directions.
I grew up in a Catholic family and went to more Christian summer camps than I can count when I was in middle school and high school. Something about those experiences spoke to me, and I wanted to be on the "right" path and be "on fire" for God, so I took to heart everything I learned at camp. I worshipped my counselors, my Christian coaches at school, my youth group leaders. I poured myself into church and mission trips and FCA and being a "leader for Christ". I joined a Christian sorority in college and a Christian organization that helps inner city kids and did Bible studies and devotions and listened to Christian music and wrote letters to family members encouraging them to walk on what I thought was the "straight and narrow."
And under all of that I always craved an adventure. I was drawn to bohemians and new places and intruiged by alternative lifestyles. A group of my very best friends in high school were lesbians. I love them to death and they still teach me a lot though we're not as in touch. They jokingly called me "Jesus with a vagina", which, crude as it is, still makes me laugh.
I spent a lot of my growing up trying so hard to be "good." Looking back, maybe some of that was an outlet for me because I always felt a bit insecure, about my height, my body, my acne. I was always friends with everyone in the cool group, but never felt quite cool enough myself to really own my place in their midst.
And then I moved to New York and realized drinking is not of the devil, everyone and their mom is having sex, and most people don't really "do"' the church thing. Granted, I still poured myself into the church scene, and, for better or worse, that's where a lot of my good friends seem to derive from...and, of course, Texas.
I have run the gamit of emotions about this change of pace and culture and lifestyle and ideology that I ebarked on almost 5 years ago. Sometimes grateful for my spiritual grounding, but a lot of times ashamed or embarrassd. Of what, I'm not so sure. Most of my spiritutal endeavors were self imposed, so it's not like I have an oppressive family to blame. I go in and out of wanting to do the church things. It constantly draws me back because there is something about radical grace and talk of Jesus that is alluring and some of the most counter cultural stuff I've ever heard. But then there is the church stuff that makes me want to run: the small groups, the lingo, the service. All of it makes me feel so freaking exhausted. And I think that's kind of what I used to feel like a lot, hopping from one do-gooder thing to the next, trying to live up to some kind of spirtual expectation I had of myself.
I think right now I just need to start over. If church and churchy things seem a little too exhausting, then maybe that's just not where I need to be right now. I think I'm just going to sit down with a pastor and be like, "Here's the deal..." I just want to start over and figure some stuff out and learn how to own my past a bit more without feeling like I spent all those years wrapped up in Christian activities because I couldn't face the real world. I want to learn how to reconcile some radical committments I made in years past (absitinence, pro-life, Jesus being the only way) with reality. I want to know how one determines what they can truly stand firm on and move forward in that.
