FA+
Shop
29th of Morning Star, 12.022 HE
3 years ago
From my digital pen...
This is me taking a long response I wrote to someone else's journal and turning it into my own. It's a pretty good summary of myself right now. Looking towards the future throughout 12.022 (the same calendar just add a decennium), my focus seems simple enough: work on my plans and take the small steps one day at a time.
It's been a hot minute since I've had to think this deep.
You see, I was raised very religious, and that experience was a mixed bag. It made repress entire facets of myself, but it also shaped the very core of who I am. This discord remains present in my everyday life. I live in a small, rural, conservative area, and I love it. Yet... I am only half of myself. This past year, I stumbled into the mental health field as a Skills Coach. It was the hardest job I've had yet (mind you, I'm only 23), but it also was the most rewarding. I am exposed to people at their most vulnerable, and working most often with minors, I witness the glacial but irreplaceable impact of good role models and positive attention. This job ticks all the marks I wanted out of a career growing up. It's definitely not a "passion" job in the sense of creative expression, but it fulfills my old wish to be a pastor. Having a bit of a unicorn experience in the church, I met some very compassionate and devout religious people. It was a definite shock to learn that not all religious people could be respectful and gentle. That said, I did feel the sting of leaving that social network when I accepted my same-sex attraction. Suddenly my desire for ministry seemed impossible, and the religion I once defined myself by felt alien and hostile. Then, I joined the mental health industry. I'm learning more often than I'd like that my experience isn't a good measuring stick for life's expectations. So, I count my blessings that I serve under a caring supervision team, and there remains the fact that I serve. That is the heart of my career, and it was the core of my former dream.
I've not made it though. As a self-defined ambivert, I've yet to balance my times alone with the social network I crave. Fortune favors me with some potential friends who are very open-minded for a small, rural town, but they're the minority it feels like. I volunteer at a local clothing ministry and joined my county's local historical society. Yet, both of those have a demographic that makes me feel less than myself. An older lady who helped me out in a volunteering endeavor made the comment, "He's a good Christian man." They think I'm single and can't figure out why that would be. Little do they know, I'm not. Beyond that, I've high expectations of myself that I constantly fail at. It feels like all that's needed for me to "arrive" is to master my impulses.
I close on this thought. It is odd to step outside and observe my own life through this cross-section of my current activities and commitments. So much is lost in translation from ongoing experience to written record, but for me, knowing the full context of it all... it's a little humbling. I like the metaphor of playing a video game in third person verses first person. Living is first-person, but we make sense of ourselves when look at ourselves from the outside. At least, that is my experience in this moment.
It's been a hot minute since I've had to think this deep.
You see, I was raised very religious, and that experience was a mixed bag. It made repress entire facets of myself, but it also shaped the very core of who I am. This discord remains present in my everyday life. I live in a small, rural, conservative area, and I love it. Yet... I am only half of myself. This past year, I stumbled into the mental health field as a Skills Coach. It was the hardest job I've had yet (mind you, I'm only 23), but it also was the most rewarding. I am exposed to people at their most vulnerable, and working most often with minors, I witness the glacial but irreplaceable impact of good role models and positive attention. This job ticks all the marks I wanted out of a career growing up. It's definitely not a "passion" job in the sense of creative expression, but it fulfills my old wish to be a pastor. Having a bit of a unicorn experience in the church, I met some very compassionate and devout religious people. It was a definite shock to learn that not all religious people could be respectful and gentle. That said, I did feel the sting of leaving that social network when I accepted my same-sex attraction. Suddenly my desire for ministry seemed impossible, and the religion I once defined myself by felt alien and hostile. Then, I joined the mental health industry. I'm learning more often than I'd like that my experience isn't a good measuring stick for life's expectations. So, I count my blessings that I serve under a caring supervision team, and there remains the fact that I serve. That is the heart of my career, and it was the core of my former dream.
I've not made it though. As a self-defined ambivert, I've yet to balance my times alone with the social network I crave. Fortune favors me with some potential friends who are very open-minded for a small, rural town, but they're the minority it feels like. I volunteer at a local clothing ministry and joined my county's local historical society. Yet, both of those have a demographic that makes me feel less than myself. An older lady who helped me out in a volunteering endeavor made the comment, "He's a good Christian man." They think I'm single and can't figure out why that would be. Little do they know, I'm not. Beyond that, I've high expectations of myself that I constantly fail at. It feels like all that's needed for me to "arrive" is to master my impulses.
I close on this thought. It is odd to step outside and observe my own life through this cross-section of my current activities and commitments. So much is lost in translation from ongoing experience to written record, but for me, knowing the full context of it all... it's a little humbling. I like the metaphor of playing a video game in third person verses first person. Living is first-person, but we make sense of ourselves when look at ourselves from the outside. At least, that is my experience in this moment.
