I was incredibly nervous to share the video I posted tonight.
I feel like I’m existing in a spiritual liminal space.
I don’t belong with the strictly religious, but I don't belong with the strictly non-religious, either. I’m somewhere in the in-between.
Growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness left me with deep trauma. As a young girl, I was mentally conditioned to be subservient to all men, especially my husband; to endure abuse with a smile; and to lay down my life at any second in the name of my god.
But it also showed me what a community who shows up for their own looks like. I learned the importance of fierce loyalty—and how you deserve to lose everything if you betray it. I was taught how to be thankful for the smallest things and how to see beauty everywhere.
And when I left, I realized you can burn down everything you thought you knew, and you will still be okay. You can walk away and build something better, as long as you put in the effort, believe it’s possible, and stubbornly refuse to give up until you get it.
I understand why people are religious, and I understand why they aren't. But I refuse to judge or hate someone just because the very thing that brings them comfort once caused me pain.
Maybe in order to see that nuance, you have to live in this liminal space where you belong to no one. And maybe you have to become so numb to the pain of your past that you can finally look at its entire shape without needing to look away.