Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Good Christian Girl is Dead

I'm going through an identity crisis right now.  See, my identity has always been wrapped up in being the "Good Little Christian Girl."  And even though over the past few years I've been slowly changing my theology from the fundamentalist evangelical upbringing I had, my identity has still been wrapped up in being the "Good Little Christian Girl."  I just began defining it differently. I could still be GLCG and believe in feminism. In social justice. In universalism. In gay rights. In abortion rights. In evolution. In a non-inerrant Bible.  Even as all my GLCG beliefs eroded, I still clung to being GLCG.  That's who I was, and I couldn't imagine myself as anything different.  And really, GLCG was not a healthy identity for me any longer.  It wasn't even really who I was anymore, with all my changing beliefs.  But I couldn't let her go.

She had to die instead.  And I struck her a death blow.  See, I could change all my most important beliefs and still pretend I was GLCG.  I had to DO something, something GLCG would NEVER have considered doing in a million years.  And I did. I cheated on my husband.



No, I didn't cheat on my husband with the express purpose of killing GLCG. There were a whole host of extremely complicated reasons why it happened.  But I, the virgin on my wedding night, the girl who had never gone farther than a peck on the lips with ANY guy other than my husband... I had a one night stand.  And GLCG died that night, and I was reborn.

The problem is, I don't know who I am anymore.  I don't have an identity now.  And my world is completely falling apart, due to the choices I made and the choices my husband made. I don't know if my marriage is going to survive.  And its not just because of the cheating. That was the final domino of a long line of bad choices.  Anyway, the thing is, my life is falling apart in every way.  I don't know which end is up.  I don't know black from white anymore.  Everything is a giant, ever shifting mess of grey.  And I don't know what to do!

And GLCG is tempting me.  It turns out she is not quite dead.  She is in the back of my mind.  Like a siren, she calls to me.  Everything was simpler when you were me, she calls.  Everything was better, she says, when you fit neatly into the fundamentalist box.  Like a siren, she berates me.  This all happened because you are a sinner.  When you started questioning your ideals, you went down a slippery slope.  This is the bottom of that slope. Come back, come back, repent.  Go back in the box.  Believe in the fundy ideals.  Then your life will be better, you wretched sinner.  This is all your fault for daring to question the status quo.  Come back. REPENT!!!

Like a siren, she has my destruction in mind.  I can't go back in the box.  Life was not better then.  I just didn't know, at the time, how bad it was.  I can't go back in the box, even if there is a part of me that wants to.  I can't be Good Little Christian Girl anymore. I don't want to be her.  And even if this time period of uncertainty and change and reinventing myself is the most painful period I've ever had in my life...  Even if it hurts more than anything else has ever hurt me...  Even if the temptation exists to "repent" and go back to the box because it was EASIER to let someone else think for me.  But I can't go back in the box.  So now I have to figure out who I am.  Easier said than done.

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