I’ve danced around this topic in my previous entries. I don’t go to Mass regularly. I’ve become what my dad used to call a “C&E” (a Christmas and Easter attendee). So how did I get here? How did I become one of those people who doesn’t attend regular Mass?
Well, I guess to get through this, I have to start about 10 years ago. In a previous entry, I talked about my dad not agreeing with choices I made in my early 20s. With hindsight being 20/20, I have to say my dad was 100% correct to disagree with my choices. They were terrible.
Bad choice #1: When I was 19, I became involved with an older man and kept the relationship a secret because he was older (he was NOT married).
Bad choice #2: My parents found out about a 9 months into the relationship and threw an understandable fit. I was given the choice to break it off and stay living at home (I was now 20 and thought I knew it all) or move out. I called their bluff and moved out and moved in with this man.
Bad choice #3: I became increasingly belligerent with my parents. I was 20 and I knew EVERYTHING. I was horribly rude and listened to the vast amounts of garbage the boyfriend was telling me about how awful my parents were and let that fuel even more nastiness.
Bad choice #4: I accepted this bozo’s proposal of marriage
Bad choice #5: Did not do as much as I could’ve to support my mom after my dad died and went right back to being nasty and belligerent again
Bad choice #6: I married the Bozo even though I didn’t want to (Lesson learned: if you are standing at the altar and it still doesn’t seem like a good idea, it’s ok to not go through with it. A little embarrassment is way better than a lot more hurt).
Now here is where I started getting smart, but at the same time, started falling away.
After this slew of bad choices including an awful wedding, I started to wise up. The husband was awful and treated me terribly. My mom saw this but stayed quiet (smart mom) because she knew if she said anything, I would never get out of the relationship. Finally, the first weekend in May came around and I went to visit my mom and brother in Houston. After confessing everything to her of how bad things were at home, she asked me to just leave him. I told her I couldn't because I had taken a vow and I had to honor it. She left it at that and I headed back to the hill country. That was a long 3 hour drive.
When I arrived back in town, he and I fought again and I finally asked if he wanted me out and when he said yes, I made the first good choice I had made in a long time - I left and filed for divorce a few weeks later and the marriage was thankfully over.
I continued attending Mass and even talked with my priest who helped me start the annulment process. He understood what really happened in the relationship and said I made the right decision to end it. It was comforting to sit with him and talk about it. I had expected to be condemned for divorcing, but he listened and said it was ok and that God understood. Phew!
So you would think I was good and everything was better, right? Wrong!
After word got around that I was getting divorced, ladies at the church started treating me differently. Before my divorce, I had been involved in a lot of activities at the church. I loved it, but now things were different. Sure there were some who were nice and tried to be helpful. A couple tried to get my ex and I into counseling to work things out, but you can’t save something that was based on secrets and lies. Most of the ladies I considered my friends and “sisters” stopped talking to me. I was dropped from a retreat team with no explanation. I just stopped being talked to or included in retreat talk. I was a catechism teacher and some parents went so far as to remove their children from my class. The whispers grew louder and I could not ignore them anymore. I needed these "friends" so much, but very quickly, they all stopped associating with me. Divorce was taboo.
I talked with my priest about it and he said to leave it be and turn the other cheek; that soon it would become old news and things would be good again. I totally get the “turning the other cheek” thing…I took religion in school and remember many sermons my dad preached on it. I could handle being under the microscope. What I could not handle was how women I once considered friends and sisters could turn on me so quickly and turn their back on me as if my bad marriage were a contagious disease.
I began to withdraw. I stopped attending retreat alumni sessions. Then, I stopped teaching catechism citing “work” as my reason. Then, I just stopped going. The constant looks and quickly averted eyes were just too much for me. I I decided I couldn't go until I thought I was forgotten enough to be invisible.
By the time I started attending semi-regularly again, almost 8 years had passed. Priests had changed; the children I once taught had grown up and graduated. I thought I could go back, but I had been in such a routine of not attending that attending seemed strange now. I was in a new relationship at this point and actually engaged. My fiancé was not Catholic and not really a churchgoer so there was never an argument about where we would go to church. He supported me and would go wherever I liked. At first, he was working on the weekends so I thought I would go alone. I did and it seemed strange. Outside of Christmas and Easter, Sunday Mass can be very sparse. I was afraid but I went anyway. My need to be in church was far greater than my fear of seeing someone who remembered my 5 month marriage.
I started feeling good again…until I got too comfortable. One Sunday I went to a later Mass. On my way out, I ran into a woman I had known during my brief marriage. As we were walking down the very long aisle to exit the church, she asked how I was doing. I told her I was well and updated her on my brother and that I was engaged. She looked at me quizzically and said “Again? Already?” I was stunned. All of the sudden, I was thrown back nearly a decade with emotions flooding me. I could not answer her. I tried to make an excuse to hurry out but was stuck among people in the center aisle. I was humiliated and could not find a way out. I grew claustrophobic and though she had moved on to talk with someone else, I could not move past her comment. I did not go back for some time. I was proverbially lost and I have remained lost.
Since then, my now-husband and I have attended on rare occasion. I don’t make eye contact with anyone other than the priest when I take communion. I am scared that someone else might remember and verbally recall my past failure.
As I write this, I keep thinking how very silly this sounds. Church is supposed to be a community where people care about you and accept your mistakes. I felt safe there once. Now I’m afraid to go and have to pep talk myself into it.
Someone might read this and ask “why don’t you just go to another church?” Well, I’ve tried that. I have tried many other Catholic churches and even some protestant churches. None of them feel like home. I feel like I don’t belong; like I’ve been cast out. I wonder if I will ever feel at home in a church again or if I am forever relegated to this almost shadowy existence.
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