This Beautiful Place Isn’t Everything They Say…

I’m not a religious person.  Anyone who has read this diary/journal for a while knows that.

But in my own way, I suppose I’m kind of spiritual.  I want to believe in God, but as yet, all the experiences in my life up to this point add up to a great big "nope, God doesn’t exist."  I know so many people who are Catholics, Christians, Buddhist, any religion you can name.  I’m friends with a lot of really religious people.

And I’ve told them time and time again not to lecture me about Believing.  Yet, every time, they get into it with me.

Now it’s not that I hate religion, and it’s not that I hate God.  For me it’s not a matter of hate or mistrust or anything, it’s a matter of lack of evidence, lack of proof.  And these people, these religious friends of mine, are loath to believe that, for some people, God isn’t present in their lives.

For me, God just isn’t.  The things I’ve been through in the past 20 years have given me no platform upon which to form a belief in an all-seeing, all-loving, benevolent, supreme being who cares for everyone and everything and who, If He Brings Me To It, will Bring Me Through It.  My life has its up’s and down’s, I don’t deny it.  I don’t always have shit to deal with, but I certainly don’t always have flowers and sunshine either.  It seems that the shit has outweighed the sunshine, though, in my life.

My grandpa’s death was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of my giving up Believing.  I didn’t want to not believe in something bigger than me, but I prayed and prayed that my grandfather would be okay, that he would make it through all the cancer and the edema and the breathing that sounded like his lungs were paper bags.  In response, I suppose, I got my grandmother quietly coming into the back bedroom where I was curled up – holed up trying to pray through it – and climbing into bed with me, holding me and telling me that he wasn’t going to make it past the end of the day, that my aunt was home to say goodbye to him, that I should come say goodbye.

God wasn’t there for that.

And then I got emotionally and mentally dragged through the mud in junior high and most of high school – losing friend after friend to the stupidest things (cliques and crushes I wasn’t allowed to have, the wrong clothes, the wrong words, the wrong me), losing myself to the hate I felt for me.  I tried to believe in God.  I grew up going to Catholic schools (elementary to high school, straight through), praying every morning for a day that would be better than the last, faking my way to communion, and slowly losing faith.

I suppose it all started when I was a kid.  Some of it makes sense now, some won’t make sense for another 20 years, I’m sure.  But my mom told me a few years ago that I started waking up when I was 4 or 5, and telling her that I didn’t want to wake up – ever.  Ever again, and I was just a kid.  Barely in school.  I honestly don’t think I really believed in God even then, or if I did, I was doubtful about His abilities and affections for me.

I don’t know why I’m writing this.  Probably because I just heard The River a few minutes ago and all I can think is, "When the hell am I going to see a vision of my life and be delivered?"

This is all rhetorical stuff, so you don’t have to note unless you want to, and I won’t be offended if you don’t.  I guess I kind of just wanted to get this all out. 

– the river – good charlotte –