final project(s)

Tonight I turned in my portfolio for Genres. The focus I chose for the semester was memoir, in which I tended to exorcise some of my personal demons. My favorite piece that I submitted in my portfolio I now submit to you, my readers.


"Faith and Thumbtacks"

Artist and writer Mary Anne Radmacher said, "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" I know nothing about Radmacher. In fact, until I googled this quote, I would have attributed it to the creative genius Anonymous, which is a pseudonym taken from the Greek, meaning "the author of everything that no one can really claim as their own."

Regardless of a person's life, whether he or she spent his or her formative years permanently in a church pew or living the prodigal lifestyle, that person will experience regret. Certainly, not all remorse is the same. Everyone deals with their conscience differently. Some people experience guilt for taking a pen from the doctor's office whereas others hardly blink an eye at murder. But at some point, each non-sociopathic person will come to terms with his or herself.

My ex-boyfriend's mother, Laura, introduced me to Radmacher’s quote about courage at a time when I was ready to quit. Fall semester of my junior year in college, I was wrestling with my past, especially in light of how the mental sexual baggage was affecting my present and would continue to impact my future. Everywhere I turned, specters from my past haunted me—in classes, in friendships, in family affairs. I felt trapped, weighed down by my poor sexual choices, by what had been done to me, and by the overwhelming sense that I would never be freed from the guilt, shame, and fear so closely tied to abuse and its successive behaviors.

At that point in my life, when Laura shared with me, I wanted nothing more than to run away from my past, to keep denying its existence. After all, from my perspective, the past was a permanent stain on the fabric of my life. No one could remove the blemishes—not even God. In fact, if God were truly there, and had been there all throughout my life, then why had He allowed these things to happen?

Various doubts crept into my mind, taking root in the uncertainty I felt in relation to my past abuse. Now that I’d admitted to it, how do I deal with it? Was my insistence that it wasn’t really abuse evidence of the Stockholm Syndrome? If that was the case, was my sister actually a cold-hearted villain or was she truly a victim like me? Was I merely playing a role in dating at the time, or was I actually drawn towards lesbianism? Was it best to deal with it, or keep suppressing it?

I cried out in anguish and despair. I shed tears of bitter fury. I wallowed in self-hatred and humiliation. The feelings that I had always repressed inundated the floodgates I had carefully constructed and barricaded over the years, and there was seemingly no end to them. They just kept pouring into my mind, battering my heart like a toy boat caught in a hurricane.

In the past year and a half since I admitted to my past, I have cried like I have never cried in my entire life. (I always saw crying as a sign of weakness, and I have so desperately tried to be strong in and of myself throughout my life.) I have prostrated myself on the floor, weeping before God, crying out for remission. I have cried in the arms of my parents, on my (then) boyfriend’s chest, into my pillow, and in front of school assemblies at weekly Monday night worship services. But all the tears seemed to bring nothing but headaches, exhaustion, swollen eyelids, and a flushed face.

The barrage of emotions became too much for me to handle on my own, and I gave in to the negativity that swirled around me. I embraced every foul whisper that echoed in my empty soul, rejecting any truth that was spoken in the midst of my pain. I chose to live in the darkness that clouded around me, and at that point, I chose to hurt myself.

I had never understood cutting or self-injury of any kind, but I began to cut—first with scissors, then deepening the marks with thumbtacks. The idea of taking a sharp object and willing slicing through supple flesh to reach some kind of release simply did not compute prior to my own experience. But there was a point in my life that I did not understand girls staying in horrible relationships either. Now, I am grateful for having experienced these various tragedies, as my field of empathy has expanded as a result.

Somewhere in my depression, I decided that since I was a horrible person, I should be treated horribly. I secretly hoped that cutting would scare off those who seemed to care for me. I did my best to turn people against me. I didn’t want to be loved anymore—I certainly didn’t feel worthy of love. Simply put, love and purity cannot remain where lust and pollution reside. And yet, when my greatest efforts to spurn people harvested an even stronger commitment, I gave up. I sought help from a professional counselor, and willingly gave up my sharp objects, choosing to take the first steps towards healing.

Every day when I woke up, I had the choice to return to the negative mindset that would eventually destroy me, or to focus on God’s promises—the light at the end of my tunnel of depression. It was difficult, and I did not want to choose life. I would have preferred to die and end all the inner torment, but God remained faithful as I took my hesitant steps of renewed faith. Many days, I chose to revert to the darkness that surrounded me. At the end of those days, I felt discouraged, that somehow I had managed to add one more tally mark to my failure scorecard. But at those times, I was reminded of Laura telling me about choosing to try again on the morrow.

And I did try again. And again. And again.

There was no miraculous cure for my depression—it was a painful process to walk through. Usually, God works subtly through our pain and walks us through the hardship so that we learn from our experiences and grow stronger. In my life, God used key people to intervene. He aligned circumstances to bring the right people into my life when He knew I would need them the most. And then, when I realized where I was and how far I had run, He welcomed me back softly, reminding me that faith doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, it’s the tentative, yet courageous, step towards the truth that you know is real—even though you don’t see it.