In 2006 I returned to snooty church for a few months. There were changes. People seemed to have opened up a little, seemed friendlier, warmer. The old guard still lurked like stone gargoyles in the background but I really enjoyed being back, for a while anyway. I had gone from fundy church to a gay church, not because I'm gay (I'm asexual and gender-fluid, if you really must know) but as a reaction to the homophobia I was exposed to in fundy church and perhaps as an antidote. This ultimately did not go very well. The pastor was untrained and tried to play head games with me and the half dozen or so members of the congregation were all middle aged or older gay men desperate for a relationship (including the pastor, who spent hours of his time trolling gay dating sites on the internet) I got very tired of this church very soon and abruptly left.
At snooty church I met a young man co-ordinating a language exchange group with native Spanish speakers. We met together for a couple of months, then people lost interest and eventually it was the young Anglican man and a fellow from Mexico (they didn't like each other). Eventually the fellow from Mexico and I kept meeting together for coffee every week or two. Eventually, on his insistence, we just spoke Spanish which did a lot to enhance my skills in the language. We continued to meet together for about six years. Then he disappeared, responded vaguely to a couple of my emails and I still haven't a clue where he is, what happened or why he stopped being in contact. Apparently this is a very common way of ending a friendship in Mexico. Sad, this.
A couple of people from the old guard in snooty church died while I was there. It seemed almost as if it was meant to be that I be present at least for there passing. One was a particularly snooty old woman, very devout but also very right wing, strict and rigid. We were friends of a sort and I think we did share a deep spiritual connection. Otherwise? Well, let's just say that there was very little we could agree on. The other one who passed on was an elderly priest, a very lovely, warm and humorous man with a lot of care and humility and a deep faith. I remember our last conversation in the church, just weeks before he died. It was warm, deep, loving and profound.
I left snooty church just five months later. I was feeling plagued and hounded by the ghosts of the abuse and mistreatment I suffered there during the nineties and there was no one there I could debrief with. The priest who caused most of the problems had long left the priesthood and the other, the rector, died from a heart attack. I remember seeing him the day before he died. It was just outside the library downtown in the commercial concourse area. He was seated at a table. We actually did look at each other and nodded in greeting. Nothing was said between us, and we hadn't seen each other in years, but I walked away from him feeling that all was somehow well between us and that we were reconciled. I think he died the next day, just weeks after the fellow who had it in for me was murdered. This happened the year before in 2005.
In May, 2006, I finished my therapy. My shrink was retiring and we both felt that we had gone as far together as we could, that after this it was for me to walk alone. He was right. It was not an easy transition and I had a couple of near relapses but I somehow got through them without help and found myself feeling gradually stronger and more capable.
I suppose that I am still in recovery. I have just been through several months of obstacles and curve balls but really without some degree of struggle I'm not going to get anywhere. Without struggle there is no life.
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