Two Years (and like two weeks)

Two years later seems like a good time to reflect on it all. I tried last year; the whole blog post is still in my notes app, and as I read it tonight I remember why I never posted it. I thought by one year I should have healed from what I went through when I was leaving the church, and my writing from then feels masked. I tried to sound whole, like I was happier, but the wound was still raw beneath the guise. I think I believed that I should have been healed by then. Truthfully, I had just started the process. Just months after the one year anniversary passed, I started working through more things that resurfaced in my mind. I was realizing the long-term impact of religious teachings on my mind.

I read through all of the notes that I wrote while leaving the church again tonight, and then through the notes that I wrote last year on the topic of the church, looking for differences, for indications that I have grown in the two years since I left. The truth is that I do my best writing when I'm in agony, so most of what I read was heartbreaking. But in the last year there has been more acceptance, of both myself and what I've been through. More freedom to be myself. More trust that I'm going to be okay through all of this.

Two years ago, I wrote that I hoped things would be better when I had worked through more of my experience in the church, and two years later I can confirm that things are better. Sometimes a reminder of the past still shakes me, but most days I'm happier. Most days I'm more understanding of myself. Most days I know that I am inherently enough, not broken and not depraved. And every day I am sure that I was right to leave.

-A