Spending time with my father is one of those pastimes that never gets old. In the wake of what happened last night I expected today to be hard. But it wasn’t. Leaving the house this morning I felt light as air. It was beautiful outside. A perfect morning for a Sunday. Dad and I went to church. It was something I was wary about. I don’t go to church when I’m at school. It started off as a being shy thing and not wanting to branch out and find somewhere else to attend church. Now it’s a “I don’t know what I believe” thing. Over the last year my life has gone to the shitter. And honestly, I cannot find it in myself to believe in God. Maybe that’s because I was too romantic about Jude and I from the very start. There was a time that I remember very well when I thought Jude and I were going to get married. I thought that after ALL THOSE YEARS of being alone and praying to God for my soulmate that he had answered my prayers in Jude. I viewed him as such a blessing and I was completely in awe of our relationship. I with all my heart believed that Jude was my answered prayers. And then…he took him away. And not only did God take him away but he turned him into one of the cruelest people I’ve ever met. And so far I’ve been sitting here at rock bottom praying like a fool to a God that has gone silent. To a God that does NOT want to hear me anymore or maybe never did. And I’ve been asking for strength and for this hurt to go away and it only gets worse. And I pretty much resigned myself from going to church ever again because I was not going to get up and sing praises to a God that didn’t exist or if he did, didn’t deserve them. That was my mindset. And maybe that’s a horrible mindset. Maybe all you Christians out there are condemning me to hell right now but that was what I had resorted to in my mind.
Last night when my world was crashing down for the millionth time in the last 5 months I was closing my eyes to sleep and I thought of Jesus. I don’t know why I thought about Jesus. I was trying to find something to make this hurt go away and my mind transported back to those times when I was in Sunday school and they used to tell me how Jesus loved me so much that he died for me. Now. I don’t give a fuck if you’re reading this and you don’t believe in Jesus. That’s fine. That’s completely fine. I have no problem with other people not believing in Jesus because I would not want someone telling me that my ideas and my beliefs weren’t true or not real. But if you have something ugly to say about what I’m saying right now, shut your fucking mouth or I’ll do it for you. This is my blog and I’m going to talk about what I want.
For some reason thinking about Jesus helped me fall asleep. I said a few words to him in my moment of half awake delirium and then I was out cold. The thing was that I awoke the next morning feeling better than I had in days. Which was odd. Because judging on last night…I was expecting to wake up feeling like my guts were coming out. But I got ready for church. Dad MAKES me go to church. It’s one of those things you just don’t fight because it’s not worth expelling the energy. I didn’t expect to enjoy church. On the way over to church I listened to angry songs about women who got left by their men and now they’re pissed. Some examples of this would be P!nk’s “So What” and Miranda Lambert’s “White Liar” and Taylor Swift’s “Tell Me Why”. I was enjoying thoughts of getting hot one day and showing Jude up and getting a sexier boyfriend. All of things that won’t happen because I’m not a mean spiteful bitch that writes these kind of songs.
When I got to church for some reason I wanted to participate in the service. I went and got communion this time, I did sing and I wrote notes down about the pastor’s sermon. What was very odd to me was that the sermon was about marriage. And that’s a sore spot for both my dad and me. My dad is losing the person he was married to for 35 years and I am losing the person I thought I was going to marry. But I kept an open mind about it and I realized that the pastor was talking about all the things that a husband and a marriage should entail. And it made me realize that with Jude those things were never going to happen. It wasn’t like….a sermon about “CHRISTIAN” marriages but a sermon about GOOD marriages. And that’s what struck me was that with Jude I wouldn’t have a good marriage. Not unless Jude was heavily medicated to maintain ONE personality and not eleven. Which if he was interested in that I could indeed supply that kind of medication after I graduate. Heh. Anyway, the pastor told a story about a little boy that went on the Johnny Carson show and was asked, “Do you go to Sunday School?” The boy told him yes and he asked the boy what he learned in Sunday school this past week. The boy told him that he learned about how Jesus turned the water into wine at the wedding. And the man asked him, “what do you think this means?” The boy said, “It means don’t forget to invite Jesus to the wedding” And of course the congregation laughed because the little boy was referring to the literal act of Jesus turning water into wine and how cool that is.
But it made sense to me in another way. I didn’t take it like “You must go to church every Sunday and you and your husband need to be fire and brimstone Christians and pop out little fire and brimstone Christians” but more like….we need to exemplify what Jesus taught in our marriage. Whether or not you believe in Jesus as the son of God he WAS a real person and he did teach lessons. And the Ten Commandments really, give or take one or two really apply to EVERYONE no matter what faith. And you need to bring that into your marriage to be able to be happy. If one member is a complete selfish asshole and only thinks of themselves, well then you’re not going to have a good marriage because that’s not the right thing to do! And from my point of view, I want a man that exemplifies Jesus’ teachings of being a good person and giving to others. That’s what I WANT and what I NEED. And that sermon helped me understand that. I need to invite Jesus to my wedding.
After church dad and I went to the football game. Dad has been a Saints season ticket holder since their conception as a team. Yes. My dad IS that old and OLDER. Haha! And I took interest in going to the games with him and now when I am in town, my dad and I go to the game. That’s our ritual and happy fun time with each other. As we were driving down the Causeway, Louisiana’s pride, The Longest Bridge IN THE WORLD, there were THOUSANDS of Monarch butterflies! I was completely in awe of them and there were SO many. My dad kept trying not to hit them. And it reminded me of something. A long time ago when I was still in high school I used to frequent PJ’s Coffeehouse because my family didn’t have internet at the house and I needed to do my homework. Well there in the Hwy. 190 PJ’s Coffeehouse in Covington there is a rack of inspirational greeting cards. They really are beautiful cards and have such nice and unique sayings on them. Well the summer after my first year of college I went home and I got a bunch of these cards. I sent them to my friends but, there was one that I kept for myself. It was a plain card, just dark blue with white writing that had the quote:
“And just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”
I thought that quote was so much like me. I have always been a butterfly. I have always been an ever-changing person, constantly getting stronger and improving. And while other people are becoming worse, I have gotten better. I think that’s because I was born on rock bottom. Well I kept that card on my bulletin board for a LONG time and pretty much forgot about it.
Well after this whole thing happened with Jude, I really thought the world was over. A lot of times I resorted to the idea of killing myself and ending my life. To this day I still think about it and it takes every bit of strength in me to not act on it. But as we were driving and I was seeing ALL these butterflies I couldn’t help but think about that quote. I’m thinking about getting that tattooed on me somewhere. It also made me cry a little because a few days ago Lanie had likened Angelle, the girl who died, to a monarch butterfly. She told me that after Angelle had died and everyone had learned the news, she said there had been one lone monarch circling the school courtyard as if it was protecting the girls and the perimeter. Lanie said she thought that was Angelle looking over them. So I got very emotional seeing that.
The game was another heart-stopper. The Saints really know how to send you into cardiac arrest. The whole second half I think I cried, cursed and jumped up in extreme elation all in 1 hour. My dad and I were physically clinging to each other the last 10 minutes of the game. I was being petty and wanted the Saints to win because they were playing the Carolina Panthers and anyone who knows anything about my life knows that Jude is from South Carolina. AND I know that they are based out of NORTH Carolina but they are still related! They share a name and thus to me it is the same thing. It felt good to beat them even if only by a few points.
It was a very emotionally draining day. And although I was very depressed I fell asleep quick. I find that I have gained comfort in the whispering community on YouTube. When I was going through the whole ordeal over the summer they kept me sane. And now in this time they are keeping me sane again. I think the whole thing with Jude was much more complex and hurtful than it should have been because he drug it out so long. It was the “never knowing what was going on or what was coming next”. It was very hard. And now it’s very clear to me what is going on and what needs to be done. I won’t wait for something else insane and worse to happen to me. Somehow some way I will become a butterfly and fly away from all this destruction.
End Day 42
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