"God's Work Isn't Done By God It's Done By People"

Let me tell you how desperate I've been for direction and solutions lately... I thought about going to church. I KNOW! Crazy, right? But there's this Catholic church by me and I thought, for like a good solid hour, what if I just went and sat with the priest and unloaded? Free therapy, right? Tell him everything dark and empty about myself and be absolved and cleansed and embraced by god's mercy and light, right? Sounds beautifully perfect, right?

WRONG.

Know why? Because I don't believe in it, and if I'd done that I'd be lying to myself, the priest, his god and the Universe. I'd just be going through the motions, same as I did when I was a kid, blindly following church dogma because that's what I was taught to do, not because I believed in it.

In the end I knew it would leave me emptier and darker than I already was.

Some of you are probably wondering why I would even think of going back to the very church that, in all honesty, caused the majority of my mental issues, but the truth is that without the generosity of Catholic charities I might not have been born. And without them I would not have ended up as scholarly as I am today. And without the church breathing down my neck all the time, I probably would have gotten pregnant at 15 like everybody else in my neighborhood. I kinda owe them my life, as sad and pathetic as it is. So whenever I try to solve my problems with spiritual guidance I turn to them first out of loyalty and habit, but I always stop short because I know it won't work.

I don't want to hear that my rewards are in heaven; I can't live off of that. I want my rewards here on earth. And I don't mean monetary rewards (although, hey, I wouldn't kick money out of bed!) but basic human needs-type of rewards. Like knowing that I made a difference, that I mattered, that I was important to someone's life, that my existence was for a real, concrete reason. Selfish, I know, but selfless, too, in the sense that this realization made me WANT TO make a difference, matter, and all that good stuff. And the best way I could think to do that was to take this free time I've been afforded, this free time that I craved so badly until I actually got it, and use it better, use it to make a difference, use it to matter, and only ask for validation in return.

All I want is to know that I'm not nothing. It's not enough to have people tell me that; I have to actually feel it for myself.

Up Up Up Up Up Up - Ani DiFranco

And that's the journey I'm currently on. I just hope it takes me someplace warm and sandy with fruity drinks and fresh, steamed lobster... what? I never said I was Mother Theresa...

*smooches...determined to make something out of nothing*
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step number one, without a doubt, I gotta clean house. literally AND figuratively. chaos, it turns out, is not really my friend. it was just pretending... skanky whore...