I am having a "poor me" moment.
I really try not to have these moments very often, because my life is really pretty darn good, and things could be
so much worse. I look at the lives of some of the people in my family, or within my circle of friends, and I am constantly reminded of how difficult my life could be. Overall, I think I've got it pretty swell. I've got a husband who loves me and would walk through fire for me. I've got two great brothers, who both have amazing women in their lives, and a gaggle of nieces and nephews that rock my socks off. I've got four amazing kids who are absolutely the most perfect children for me to parent. My youngest son is going through his struggles, but is literally getting better and better and better with every day that passes. And I've got this phenomenal (albeit NON-paying) career as a writer that I wouldn't trade for all the tea in China. People should envy my life. It's a good one.
However....
I am struggling right now. Struggling with my faith. Okay, I should clear that up a little bit: I am not struggling with my faith. I have a very close relationship with God that I am incredibly fulfilled with, and I am a member of an amazing church. It is a church that is misunderstood by many, and is honestly not every person's cup of tea, (why all the tea references tonight? I dunno.) but it is a denomination that provides me with the best means to maintain a relationship with God, and it is a faith that I feel very strongly about. When I found the church at 21, it was like finding my birth family. (no offense to anyone out there who has actually found their birth family...but I would love to interview you, as it would make a PHENOMENAL book! Just kidding. Sort of.) For the first time in my life, I felt completely at home in a faith. And that was really important to me. And in the 13 years since joining, I've never felt anything but accepted and loved and welcomed.
Until now.
I feel so, incredibly out of place right now. Not with the Gospel. The gospel is good and true and wonderful. But in my desire to go to church every week....meh. Not so much. I feel like a sore thumb. Like a redheaded stepchild. Like the black sheep. And I've never, in 13 years of going to the same church, felt this way. I feel like I need to try harder, be thinner, be prettier, be smarter, be quieter, be more well versed, be shorter, be cuter, be wiser, be more humble, be wittier.....be be be...do do do....change change change. I feel like in order to fit in, I need to be everything that I am not. I am not thin, quiet, cute, or well spoken, and I never have been. I am not well versed, unless its in the world of romantic fiction. I am not witty, unless you consider sarcasm witty and cute. I just don't fit in.
Now, I have to stop right here and add that nobody in my church is asking me to be any of these things. Nobody is making me feel this way. It is
me who has the problem. The catch is, I don't think any of the people I go to church with disagree with me. Instead of encouraging me to remain true to myself, many of them look at me and say, "
Well, yeah...if you did chill out on the sarcasm and try to lose some weight and maybe stop....um, talking so much, you might fit in more." And so my time at church is spent wishing I was elsewhere. Wishing I was with my friends (who seem to be scattered willy nilly these days) and wishing I was at home writing, which is what I wish I were doing 90% of the time. I don't want to feel that way at church! Church is supposed to be the ONE place someone feels loved and wanted and needed, no matter what they look like or act like. In my current standing, I feel so uneccessary, and so unliked, and so, incredibly
replacable.....I wind up sitting in the hallways reading a book when I should be in my classes.
I have to interject here that I am being a giant boob. My BFF is moving away in 2 weeks, and most of my friends are either spread out among other church buildings, or not members of the same church at all. So it isn't like everyone I go to church with is gathering together to collectively pick on poor me. That isn't the case at all. In fact, I would say that 75% of the problem is me. I need to push through this. So what if I feel like I don't fit in? So what if I feel like that Sesame Street song ("..one of these things is not like the other, one of these things is not quite the same...") whenever I go to my church women's groups and activities? So what if I feel like I get more acceptance (with the exception of my fabulous troop of wonderful, incredible, smart, sassy church friends spread out all willy nilly) within the writing community and within my non member friends than I do when I walk into a Super Saturday activity? So what if the simple act of walking into Relief Society makes me feel like I am voluntarily placing myself into a pressure cooker filled with french tipped manicures and varying shades of perfect blonde hair?
This is my issue. MY insecurity. Just because some of these women look at me like I am a rash that needs to be dealth with, doesn't mean that I don't need to have a major attitude adjustment, and that I need to tackle it sooner rather than later.
I think that when someone said that "variety is the spice of life" they really hit the nail on the head. I think that churches should be filled with all shapes and colors and the rich and the poor and the silly and the serious and the young and the old and....you get the picture. I think that my differences should be something that endears me to my church family, rather than pushes me farther away. Unfortunately, I don't feel that way right now. I don't think that's the case. Maybe it is, and I am a big whiney baby who can't see it? I don't know. But right now, going to church meetings after Sacrament makes me have a big, fat stomach ache. I feel like an outsider, peering through the windows.
Okay, that having been said, I am finding that the more vulnerable I make myself, the more I open up to people about not feeling like I fit in...the more people keep reaching out to me. Not neccessarily the ones who make me the most uncomfortable, but others. In fact, I had two women, sisters, offer to help me make a weighted blanket for my youngest the other day. I don't know them very well, and from what they've heard of me, they should probably think I am a total freak by now! But they were nice to me. And it was hard for me to express how grateful I was for that, without coming across like a stalker. It felt good to be needed by someone. Maybe needed was the wrong word, just....significant to someone. Sometimes I walk around church and feel so insignificant. It's upsetting.
Alright. Enough babbling and whining. Enough boobing. I need to grow up. I need to remember why I joined this church, which is the Gospel, and to cling to that. Because God never thinks I am too loud, fat, stupid, obnoxious, silly, crass, ugly, or unecessary. To bad not everyone can be more like Him. I'm working on it...slowly....
Here's to another Sunday tomorrow. *Whimper*
Brooke Moss.
