Parallels

I was once in love with a boy we'll call PK. I didn't know I was in love with him then, but time and distance has demonstrated that I created a rather massive soul tie with him.
It all started out as fun and games for me, of course, as most relations with boys always did.

Those of you who have known me long enough know exactly who I'm talking about. And chances are, you hated me loving him. You thought he was controlling, creepy, and totally rude. I thought he was authoratative, a natural leader, and strong. You thought he was mean to me. I thought he could see into my soul and pull out all the surplus garbage that needed filtering.
You thought he could use some help socializing and learning to be normal. I thought he was so intelligent that most people just couldn't understand him.
And on and on it went.
I could relay nearly every second of time spent with PK, even times when I was waiting to see him.

Above everything else, we were friends. GOOD friends. We had a lot in common, we believed in the same things, and we enjoyed "fixing the world" together. On the other hand, it was because of PK that I found myself in a million situations I never, as a Christian woman, should have been in. And it was because of PK that I experienced some of my deepest hurting... and wrote some of my best poetry!

Partially because I don't think he ever really understood what I wanted out of him. Partially because I didn't understand it myself.
And partially because he was a lot younger than me and didn't know what he wanted out of life for himself. He had a general picture, and he didn't really seem to care if I was in it or not. And that was OK, because as I said, we were just special friends.

We took it to a deeper level when I left for the army. Some things got left unsaid, but I could tell that we were moving from a "friendship" bond to something more substantial. Time was not on our side, though, and eventually, I moved into other things.

I met and married Wayne during that time.
He appeared out of nowhere and seemed to be everything that PK was lacking.... he was a Christian, so I knew that that bond would get stronger. PK mocked Christianity, and thought that believing in Christ weakened me. He was a conservative republican, and PK was a liberal democrat with a conspiracy theorist aura. I didn't know much else about Wayne, but I knew that I could count on him to, like PK, set me "straight" when I needed it. I also knew that in this new chapter in my life, where I was ready to move on, I was going to have to leave some things behind.
In the past, I had always walked all over boys and I needed someone who was strong enough to put a stick in my wheels, so to speak. PK was great at that. Wayne is also better at doing that than anyone else. It's one of the best reasons we are married.

Breaking it off with PK then seemed wierd. On the one hand, we had never made any official plans to actually become anything other than in my vain imaginings. On the other hand, I knew that I had deeply connected with him on a level that I wasn't likely to encounter again, and that in some wierd way, he was going to miss me too.

I never was able to read his last letter to me, mostly because it had sat in the mail locker in CQ for more than three weeks, where some private had had a friend who sent him a literal cow tongue in the mail rot the rest of the mail as it sat and waited for us to be "good enough" to get our mail at our nightly hydration formation. When the drill sergeants had discovered the disturbing contents of the package, they had hosed down the rest of the mail because of germs. Genius.
So, I got a letter from him, the last one, which I opened slowly while shining my boots in the gentle beginnings of a summer evening on Ft Jackson.
The inside was a blur of ink, mingled with water, and forever smeared across the page in an illegible mess that I was dying to read.
I think that was a God moment. If I could have read it, I'm sure my heart would have burst and I probably would have lacked the strength to do what I had to do to get on out of there.

I've been thinking about that moment alot lately. It was like a line was drawn, right down on the ground in front of me. I had a choice. I was already neck deep in everything crazy that was going on around me, but ultimately, I was caving in to the pressure of not being breakable by the US Army. I thought there was something wrong with me because they just couldn't do anything to make me take them seriously. I knew who those guys were when they came home at night. I couldn't respect them because of it.
I was choosing who was going to get to be my authority. I did it on the basis of what I FELT like doing at the time.
It was easy to look at Wayne and see a romantic love story unfolding... it was easy to see a country music video playing in my brain... a novel... a tragic poem.

I did the exact same thing when I left the nondenominational playground. I was choosing who I want to have as my authority. And although it's wierd to some people that that would be an issue, I know that others get it. We are all slaves to something.
I chose Wayne over the US Army and ultimately, over PK because it seemed easier and more immediate. I did NOT choose to leave the nondenominational world because it seemed easier and more…. Current. This time around, my decision making skills have been honed. I needed to get away from fundamentalism. I needed to get away from faulty theology. I needed to find God in the midst of all the insanity.

Over the first year of our marriage, I discovered that Wayne and I, in fact, had nothing in common. That has served to make us stronger, in that we were forced to build a common bond from nothing-- and that every day we are still able to learn something new about each other. We still work at it every day. Just tonight, we read each other’s blogs and gave each other input. We talked about some things we can do to bring vision back into our team. We opened up to each other. He expressed how much more depth his life has and meaning as a Catholic, and how grateful he is for my role in that. We both thanked the Holy Spirit.

In the same way, since returning to the Catholic church, I’m discovering that I have to build bonds with the church from nothing. We have one basic thing in common: Jesus Christ, and from that, we are working to teach each other and grow from each other. We are experiencing and creating community. We are developing team vision and a plan.

As a married woman, I obviously had to break off the friendly “ties” I had to PK. By mutual agreement, Wayne and I agreed that just as he shouldn’t remain in close personal contact with his ex fiancee, PK and I didn’t really have any business maintaining communication. I am confident that he knows “the things that were left unsaid,” and that he has found closure in that. Likewise, I have found closure on my own end.
And ultimately, I have not allowed myself to dwell on any of it, because of the implications that come with it.

Similarly, I have made a decision and I know that it was the right one. I can see already in how many amazing ways I have been blessed and provided for since leaving nondenominational fundamentalism. I have been truly graced with incredible graces, and I look forward to every new day. In my anger against it for not being able to provide me with what it should have, there will always be a soft spot in my heart. And I find that if I remember that soft spot, I am moved to tears by the sheer possibility of what it offered me.

I don’t think it’s wrong to remember these things with fondness if they help us to look to the situation at hand and see what a blessing it is for us. I pray that I am able to be a better wife to Wayne and a better friend to him by the lessons I learned from PK. Similarly, I hope he will be a better husband to someone one day by the things he learned from my friendship.

In the same way, I pray that I am able to be a better Catholic by dwelling on the good things that came from my relationship with nondenominational fundamentalism--- that passion, that depth of relationship, that “All for God” mentality--- which I know is of the One who made us. I pray that I am able to stop being furious at time that was wasted and start being grateful for what I have learned.
And I think, just now as I’m writing this blog, that I’m finally at that point.

So I’m thankful to PK, and I’m thankful to my eleven long years away from the Church, for making me a better woman today than I was then.