the best way I've been able to do so is just by like, telling people what it was like and letting them draw their own conclusions, but even that isn't very accurate at the end of the day
Same. Sometimes the plain simple description gets the most across--or else I just don't even know where to start with describing how it felt and how my feelings have changed over the years, so I just go with plain facts and that works as well as anything. And then sometimes you just had to kind of be there, you know?
I know it's never been true for me
Yes. That was really hard to come to terms with, but it's the honest truth for me as well. It eventually felt freeing to admit that (along with admitting that I don't know if God exists, I'm no longer obsessed with being sure, and I even find some beauty in the ambiguity) but it still sometimes gives me vertigo to compare what the inside of my head used to look like with how it does now--because I used to think a) all this stuff was vitally important and b) there was something wrong with me that I could never get it to click. 🤷🏻♀️
even if that's the factual truth and it's just the human desire to be special and connected to God in this particular way, I think there's a beauty in that yearning and in wanting so desperately to feel the presence of your God there with you that you manifest it yourself
Oof. That's just made something click for me, thank you. YES, that yearning, that longing--sometimes it was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I know people felt that. I'm not entirely sure if I ever longed to know God (I do know that I longed to feel all the right things that "everyone else" felt, but I think that was more about desperately wanting not to feel alienated and bad at this supremely vital thing) but I know other people did. And I don't think I've encountered that same incredible heart-aching longing anywhere else. Except maybe in queer fiction, where it's the longing to be seen and known and allowed to love who you do love.
[ETA: And that is why, even though it was never real for me, I can't really write it all off in a way that mocks the people it was real for. Sure, there are frauds and hucksters and people drunk on their own egos. But there are also people for whom all these strange behaviours and unusual beliefs are part of a genuine longing to connect with the ground of their being. Part of something real, for them. And I can't mock that part.]
But yeah. That shit blows your eyebrows off. I still have no idea if the love and longing is coming from inside people or from outside them, like whether it's their brains processing life in a specific way mine doesn't or if there's really A Someone Out There they're talking to and in love with. But the yearning is absolutely being felt.
(Just not by me. Is this what it's like being asexual at an orgy? It's not an accident that I compare how I feel to the feeling of being gay in a straight society I guess (even though I'm bi irl and sometimes feel the het feels). Unsure if that makes sense or if my metaphor has run away with me!)
it's a whole big complicated thing and I'm still angry about a lot of it at the same time that I like, miss parts of it? I wouldn't go back but I've definitely grieved some for what I lost
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Date: 2020-08-14 08:35 pm (UTC)the best way I've been able to do so is just by like, telling people what it was like and letting them draw their own conclusions, but even that isn't very accurate at the end of the day
Same. Sometimes the plain simple description gets the most across--or else I just don't even know where to start with describing how it felt and how my feelings have changed over the years, so I just go with plain facts and that works as well as anything. And then sometimes you just had to kind of be there, you know?
I know it's never been true for me
Yes. That was really hard to come to terms with, but it's the honest truth for me as well. It eventually felt freeing to admit that (along with admitting that I don't know if God exists, I'm no longer obsessed with being sure, and I even find some beauty in the ambiguity) but it still sometimes gives me vertigo to compare what the inside of my head used to look like with how it does now--because I used to think a) all this stuff was vitally important and b) there was something wrong with me that I could never get it to click. 🤷🏻♀️
even if that's the factual truth and it's just the human desire to be special and connected to God in this particular way, I think there's a beauty in that yearning and in wanting so desperately to feel the presence of your God there with you that you manifest it yourself
Oof. That's just made something click for me, thank you. YES, that yearning, that longing--sometimes it was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I know people felt that. I'm not entirely sure if I ever longed to know God (I do know that I longed to feel all the right things that "everyone else" felt, but I think that was more about desperately wanting not to feel alienated and bad at this supremely vital thing) but I know other people did. And I don't think I've encountered that same incredible heart-aching longing anywhere else. Except maybe in queer fiction, where it's the longing to be seen and known and allowed to love who you do love.
[ETA: And that is why, even though it was never real for me, I can't really write it all off in a way that mocks the people it was real for. Sure, there are frauds and hucksters and people drunk on their own egos. But there are also people for whom all these strange behaviours and unusual beliefs are part of a genuine longing to connect with the ground of their being. Part of something real, for them. And I can't mock that part.]
But yeah. That shit blows your eyebrows off. I still have no idea if the love and longing is coming from inside people or from outside them, like whether it's their brains processing life in a specific way mine doesn't or if there's really A Someone Out There they're talking to and in love with. But the yearning is absolutely being felt.
(Just not by me. Is this what it's like being asexual at an orgy? It's not an accident that I compare how I feel to the feeling of being gay in a straight society I guess (even though I'm bi irl and sometimes feel the het feels). Unsure if that makes sense or if my metaphor has run away with me!)
it's a whole big complicated thing and I'm still angry about a lot of it at the same time that I like, miss parts of it? I wouldn't go back but I've definitely grieved some for what I lost
Yes. All of that. ❤
💕