Unwritten
Seeing a therapist for the first time or even the first time after a long time is like finding relief after being emotionally constipated. It hurts. When you are finished, you feel better than when you came in but you aren't sure you can call it a positive experience. What you do know is you need to make sure it happens again soon. Truthfully, I wanted to walk away from therapy with a fully developed white paper - Jesse Ihde’s Life; The Final Draft - with the stamped approval of a professional. I wanted the perceived warmth of wrapping myself in the Christian cliché of “knowing God’s plan for me.” I wanted an answer to my question. I wanted clarity.
What I got was something entirely different. I got permission. I got permission for all my parts and all my thinks and all my dreams to exist in plain sight. I got permission to admit that some days I feel dissatisfied and cannot name the longing in my heart. I got permission to be tired of Christians who want to put me in a box I’m never going to fit into. I am a southern woman who grew up in the Baptist church which means I can cook in a crock pot, name the epistles and of course, I stay home with my kids. I also co-run a marketing company with my sister which means I work too. And I love Jesus. And I am totally worn out with the right wing agenda, judgment and legalism parading around in their fancy suits as truth and fully disgusted by the “hate the sin and love the sinner” mantra. We all know when someone loves us and we all know when someone hates us. And by the way, the folks we kept chanting this to could clearly feel which side of the line they fell on.
I got permission to stay complicated. I am disorganized. I don’t fit in at church. I don’t fit in at play dates. I can be really awkward around new people. Most of us have a great filing system for people. We have little compartments, little boxes we put people in. It’s why conversations get led with questions like “Do you stay home?” or “What do you do?” I don’t have a clean answer for either. Yes, no, yes, no. Mother, work, play, wife, lover, chef, house keeper, accountant, writer, friend.
After almost two years of therapy I can tell you that I do not have a final draft on my life and I’m not trying to flip to the last few pages to see how it ends. This longing in my heart isn’t leaving. This feeling that I don’t fit in isn’t going away. I am unwritten. And I am present.
Photo credit: Theophilos / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND