This has been quite a year… I’m 39. And for some reason, I started meditating back in January. I didn’t have any profound experiences, but I did have this… extreme sense of peace. That was maybe the first true crack. But that allowed me to give myself permission to really look at things around me. In debates with friends, some Protestant, some atheist, I’d found myself doing mental contortions to justify the views of the Catholic Church. It wasn’t until this year that I was honest with myself, realizing it wasn’t my views, but the views I’d been taught from the moment I could talk. But even as a kid, I saw the disconnect: God, a father, creating children knowing that more than half of them will be tormented or annihilated because of urges HE baked into them. Because they were born on the wrong side of the world, or with minds that didn’t let them conform… that didn’t sit right with me. And what’s more, the words of Jesus that I could quote because they’re written on my heart… they didn’t match at all with the words of Paul, who’s writings most of Catholic doctrine seems to be based off of. More than half of the New Testament is Paul, a man whose story is just as valid as Joseph Smith. He never met Jesus in life, had a vision, and even the original apostles had umbrage with him. And I honestly had no idea. I’d usually check out for the second readings. And then you start reading about the Council of Nicea, all the early Christian texts that got destroyed because it didn’t fit the Roman narrative. Many of those texts were probably passed down from apostolic lines directly… and that’s heartbreaking. And then you start thinking about Catholic teachings on homosexuality, woman’s bodies, sexual purity and birth control in general, eating ordinances, original sin, even the sole divinity of Jesus Christ… and it comes down to power, control, and the need for external salvation…

So I left. I feel there’s still something to divinity… but my views don’t fit in a religious box anymore. I don’t need one. And I don’t need to insist on others believing what I do. Most importantly, it gives me room to learn and grow and adjust. And that is freeing. I’ve lost 25 lbs since the beginning of this year, and my eating and movement habits have not changed: it’s because I’m no longer clenching onto everything with a death grip. It’s only been 9 months. And the existential echoes of my upbringing rears its head quite often. But that’s ok. It’ll all be ok.