A Rebel, A Religion, A Roadway
Part One: For Better or For Worse, A Rebel
I was always the rebellious child.
I was often in trouble in school.
My grades never really reflected my ability (not past 4th grade, anyway).
I was always headstrong, holding myself to high standards, perhaps demanding to be allowed to attempt to live up to them, and being deeply critical of and frustrated with myself when I didn't meet them.
Gifted, but disruptive, sensitive with an explosive temper, creative and disorganized.
Arbitrary authority has rankled my nose since I had a sense of self.
Norms, the proverbial crowd, and the beaten path, never grabbed my attention. As a rapid consumer of information and processor of novelty, those things appeared bereft of what drives me as an individual.
Going beyond the set limits, and boundaries, breaking molds, and defying expectations, are much more my speed.
The cherry on top is my boldness in doing and being so, and my nonchalance toward the things that don't speak to me, that don't galvanize my intellect.
In this way, I differ quite highly from my siblings.
My eldest sibling was comfortable with, and willing to conform to the norms that were presented to us, which is what they did. My next eldest sibling, while not comfortable with, or willing to conform to the norms, was capable of falling in line, and didn't feel the need to raise a fuss about them.
I, however, could never stomach it, and had no compunction about expressing that very fact.
As you can imagine, such a personality configuration made a large portion of my interaction with my mother deeply contentious.
Interaction with adults that were responsible for me throughout the day were no different, save for the few that allowed me the room to be.
Prior to my conception, my mother had three miscarriages. I've always harbored a deep guilt and shame at the idea that, all of that adversity and tragedy was overcome, for the result to be me: a child that was, in many ways the polar opposite of the kind, or type of child that she desired.
Part Two: The Reign of Religion
I was raised by an incredibly devout Christian woman.
My mother converted to Christianity, from Catholicism, over a decade before I was born, and they haven't looked back since. This occurred at an excruciatingly tumultuous time, driven largely by the chaos of dealing with my father.
His family was exceptionally dysfunctional, with him being the youngest of 12 living siblings (one perished in a fire), raised in a house much too small to accommodate all of them.
My grandfather was emotionally unavailable, thoroughly alcoholic, and violent, to the degree that at least once, he chased everyone out of the house with a shotgun, in the middle of winter.
Abuse of all types was rampant chiefly, sexual (that side of my family is open swingers, they trade wives and girlfriends, children- my grandfather sired a child with his niece), and carried out by him, as well as all of my father's siblings, on each other. Being the runt of the litter, it seems as if he had it the worst.
Thus, my father ended up a narcissist, and womanizer, with a tortured relationship to his masculinity. My aunts and uncles swung freely, ran a family motorcycle club, the streets, and drug use was part and parcel of the environment.
According to my mother, God told her that my father was meant to be her husband.
He tended to have affairs with women who engaged in the occult, particularly black magic. My aunt was partial to such, and the drama of how it diametrically opposed my mother's beliefs.
Note: During my infancy, my mother had to keep one of the women from seeing me, or getting a picture of me, lest my likeness be incorporated into a ritual that certainly didn't have my or her best interests in mind. She despised my mother for having me with my father (who is not the father of my siblings), and saw me as the reason she couldn't have him (or get him back).
They were married for 14-16 years, separated for 7, the majority of which spanned my early childhood.
Their divorce was, amongst other things, driven by him introducing me to his mistress, during what was supposed to be a father-son weekend trip to the circus.
Throughout it all, my mother remained steadfast in her beliefs. In fact, she will, without hesitation, tell you that if it wasn't for God and Jesus, she wouldn't have made it through those trying times.
My mother was once a very passive individual.
For her, entering a relationship with my father, and enduring the cruelty of him and his family, was God's way of helping her develop a backbone, and learn to stand up for herself.
Her indefatigable belief in God is perhaps both her most admirable and tragic trait.
I find it tragic because she believes to a fault, and in my opinion, her own detriment, at times.
My mother is quite sharp, and peculiarly open-minded. The paranormal, cryptids, and conspiracy theories are topics that she's genuinely done her own research on, and can speak about logically, at length. That being said, all such things will inevitably be filtered through the sieve of Christianity.
She researches herbs, and is a fan of Chaga, Cordyceps, Blackseed oil, Sanicle, and by way of such things, is in incredible shape. People tend to be shocked when she informs them of her age and birth year.
She also believes that certain mental health disorders, poverty, and racism are spirits set upon us by the devil, and that they can be prayed away. My older sister is likely, schizophrenic, and hasn't had treatment since the onset fifteen years ago, as my mother is convinced it's not a mental health problem, but the result of a group of witches working regular and electronic (voice-to-skull) witchcraft on her.
That's not to say that she's ignorant to the real-world causes of such things, but that for her, the ultimate solution, for such things, is spiritual.
Part Three: Taking A Roadway, My Own Way
I have a pretty caustic take towards Christianity, and have ran my rounds through occultism, the esoteric, and materialism, out of sheer disdain and as well, hope to find fulfillment. Beyond that, I attempted to replace it with philosophy, which didn't work.
As a child I did love the lord, my baptism was my choice, and then, like many, as I grew up, the world and my life, the lives of my friends, and others, didn't align with religion enough for me to keep it.
I try not to resent it openly as much as I do, but in many ways I blame it for a number of meaningful tragedies and catastrophes in my life: even the very accident of my being. For most of my life, I've felt abandoned, perhaps even hated by God.
I find myself currently in an odd limbo state. I can accept that science may never account for everything, but I don't know where to place that which lies beyond science. I appreciate what religion offers people, individually, and in groups, but am not certain that justifies the horrors of it. Additionally, there are some aspects of myself that are most certainly not considered acceptable in that paradigm so that keeps me away from it (my mother believes I caught my preferences by way of being intimate with someone who had similar ones).
Simultaneously, I would both hate to be right, and hate for my mother to be wrong (it means so much to her).
Put simply, I have to find my own path to walk to whatever I would define as salvation. My own idea of a higher power to serve.