Confessing

For the first nine years of my formal schooling, I attended a private Catholic school. Since said school was financially strapped, my brother and I had to ride the public school bus to the private school. Being an overweight, rather ugly child outfitted everyday in a brown plaid jumper with suede hush puppies, I wasn't winning any popularity contests, and was definitely not ever invited to sit in the back with the "cool" kids. In fact, finding anyone who would let me sit with them often proved challenging. More than once I stood by the bus driver for the 4 mile ride to school, frequently being pelted with spitballs and learning interesting new names for fat kids in plaid jumpers.

It is no understatement that I HATED that bus ride, those kids, and the too-poor-for-its-own-buses Catholic school. And hate has an interesting way of manifesting itself.

These kids had a "clubhouse" in the quarry behind my house. It was an abandoned mining shack, duly outfitted with posters, old furniture, and other asundry items of interest to pre-teen monsters. I didn't know this stuff was in there because I had been invited to the place, I knew it because I saw it the day I went there armed with a full gas can and a pack of matches, my little brother in tow.

As I said, hate has an interesting way of manifesting itself. In this particular instance it resulted in a three alarm fire.

Despite the fact that I emerged from the general vicinity of the blaze covered in soot and reeking of gasoline, I immediately and vehemently denied to my parents and the authorities any involvement. At ten years old, you firmly believe that your lies will be taken as gospel. Well, maybe you believe that no matter how old you are. What's the point of lying otherwise? no matter, the truth was as bright and clear as the shiny red fire trucks. To everyone but me, that is.

Continuing my denial for days on end, my father decided that if I wouldn't tell them the truth, perhaps going to confession would save what appeared to be my doomed soul. (it should also be noted that between the blaze and the confessional, I had the shit beat out of me by the clubhouse owners)...So off to the big wooden box I went.

But, I lied in there, too. Just failed to mention that I had committed arson, lied about it, and was was going to lie again when I told my father I had confessed everything. I did, however, admit to hitting my brother and swearing. Mostly because I liked saying "shit" in church, even if it was only in the confessional box.

That was the last time I went to confession, and since then I have developed an increasingly strict philosophy of non-or only partial disclosure. But lately I have started to feel that the whole idea of confessing, and receiving forgiveness from someone else (rather than becoming comfortable with your own rationalizations) is a pretty important part of being human.

The past six months have been challenging on several levels. I have not been at my best and brightest personally, having failed relationships, seemingly insurmountable debt, an unfinished dissertation, good friends who have moved away, dead dogs, dead aunts, a profound fear of everything, and the extremely uncomfortable realization that almost every negative thing in my life has resulted from my refusal to make good, mature decisions.

So I just want to scream "I am a COMPLETE FUCK UP!!!!!!" and have it be heard. I want to confess. Not to hear "It will be alright", or "I'll fix it for you" or "things happen for a reason" I don't want to hear those things. I want to confess. I want to acknowledge not only my brokeness, but also my responsibility in the matter. I want to review every humiliating detail of my darker thoughts and my deeds, and just get rid of it.

OK, maybe not every detail, but you get the idea.

But to whom does one confess these things? This is the question that I have been pondering for quite some time. I am not talking about a counselor type person. They get paid to have you be screwed up. And I am not talking about priests or clergy or anything like that. I just wonder, who do people see as their confessors? Friends? Partners? Bartenders? Dogs?

Sometimes I look at people, and I wonder when was the last time they were levelled by the feeling of being completely responsible for their lives, desperately needing to tell the truth they know about themselves to someone other than the face in the mirror. To whom do they turn, and what does it reveal, that I have to ask that question at all?

Confess. Confession.

Interesting.

It's not even that i have any deep, dark secrets of such an awful nature that I can't bear the thought. It's just that over the course of the past several years I have failed to acknowledge my fallibility, I have hurt people and blamed them for it, I have acted irresponsibly, I have knowingly made poor decisions for which I am now reaping the consequences.

Confess. Confession. Interesting...

If you have ever seen Frank Warren's "PostSecrets", where people write a long held secret on a postcard and send it in to what eventually gets published as a book that millions purchase, you know that I am not alone in in experiencing a need to confess. I find it fascinating that PostSecrets exists, and is so immensely popular. We are all broken, fallible, but for some reason it isn't acceptable to be that way. So secrets get written on postcards and sent and are read by millions, and I wonder if the writers of the postcards ever feel any better, ever experience grace.

Maybe I'll try it...

An introduction, of sorts

For the past few months I have been toying with the idea of venturing in some new directions with my blogging. It seems that my fluffy MySpace blogs fail to adequately capture what I have come to realize as my "darker side". Therefore in order to be a more authentic blogger and, perhaps, to publicly exercise (yes, "exercise", not "exorcise" just yet) my personal demons, I have decided to start this blog spot blog.

The decision was made today, while spending my last three dollars of the foreseeable future on bread and coffee filters. Rankled lately with seemingly overwhelming life obstacles, I was not particularly "chipper" during this transaction. But the check-out lady was. She handed me my fours cents in change, bagged my items, and handed me the bundle with an enthusiastic admonition to "Have a good day!". Without warning or forethought, I scoffed in her general direction. I stopped short of reminding her that gas was over four dollars a gallon, that George Bush has unpleasantly screwed the hell out of the economy and foreign relations, and that for all intent and purposes, it was unclear when I was going to grow up to be a responsible adult. Something I would desperately like to do.

Of course, it's not her fault that I harbor an enormous amount of bitterness toward life right now. I take complete and full responsibility for the fact that, at present, my ability to see the silver lining on silverware has been handicapped by a series of bad life decisions starting around the age of twelve. I decided that instead of festering, and writing happy blogs on MySpace, I'd use this forum to spew some darker VenEm.

So, all that being said, one should not expect that the content herein will be particularly bright and shiny.What it will be, though, is real. Not that the bright and shiny stuff isn't real, but it's only half the story. Half of my story, anyway. I may use some bad words, may misplace anger or blame (or I may rightly place anger or blame, who knows?), I may wallow in self pity, relie to heavily on sarcasm, trash people, or display an appalling ability to live in denial. But, I'll be honest. And maybe in some way at the end of the day...well, we'll see what the end of the day brings...

Why I am feeling compelled to write any of this at all will be discussed in the next post, aptly entitled "Confessing."