The Rantings of a Funked Up Mind

Chapter Three - Believe

This chapter is dedicated to @Tiggermazz because of the epic response she gave me to one of my comments on Fighting for the Doctor's Affection. You are awesome!!

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I was having such a horrible couple of days. The air outside was stifling, so much so, that the kids didn't even want to spend any time playing out there. I couldn't blame them. We were in the middle of a heat wave, after all. It made for long boring days for them and stressful ones for me.

I had noticed that some of my obsessive tendencies were showing their ugly head due to the extra stress. I had spent the entire morning going from room to room moving furniture an inch or two here and there to make sure everything was even or centered or equal distance from the wall. Now I was sorting out the markers and pencil crayons into the "right" piles in the drawer. It was seriously insane the amount of pleasure and comfort I got from organizing things. I could do it from morning until night and never get bored.

As I worked away, I heard my phone buzz. Grabbing it off of the desk, I opened it to see a notification that Corey had just posted a facebook update. Corey was an old friend/ex-boyfriend of mine. We had met as teenagers. His parents brought him to North Carolina, from Texas, to attend a wedding. I happened to be at the same wedding and we ended up hanging out not only for the night but the rest of the weekend. After that, we had stayed in touch. We had even attempted a long distance relationship at one point. He would fly here and I there, but it turned out to be too much commitment, being in our early twenties, and we had ended things not longer after they had begun. We still talked and emailed and he had even been here to meet my husband and kids.

As I read his "daily affirmation" which he almost always posted, I thought back to our many conversations about God. Corey was Catholic, but he was not a born Catholic. His parents were Protestant but they had a firm belief that religion was a choice, not something that should be forced upon you. As a result, they brought up their kids to believe in God but did not encourage any specific religion, including their own.

So when Corey was twenty he decided it was time for him to choose a religion. He called me each and every week to discuss the pros and cons of the one he was researching. He visited a synagogue, a Mosque, a Mandir, and many different Christian churches including Baptist, United and Catholic. Ultimately, he chose to become Catholic and had to endure the year of weekly classes before he could be baptized. I think that was truly one of the happiest days of his life.

I sat there at my desk and slowly let the feeling of sadness seep into from those memories. As I was transported back to one particular visit, not long after we broke up, I decided to make another entry ...

Well hello there! It's been a while. I guess I envisioned my writing going differently than it has. I supposed that I would get more responses and considering this is somewhat anonymous I figured it would be a good opportunity for people to leave real honest answers about things I figured we all had questions about. I don't know. I guess instead of this making me feel more normal, it is doing the opposite. I had hoped that in someone's words I would be able to feel or understand that maybe all of the stuff that bounces around inside this funked up mind of mine isn't really that strange. I had hoped that somehow getting all this off of my chest would help me feel more normal. Instead, I feel more isolated and alone than ever.

That my dears is what is bringing us to today's topic. God, or better yet - faith. Do you have any? Now... I am not talking religion. I don't really care whether you go to church, synagogue, mandir, temple or what ever other name you use. What I want to know is what brings you there? What keeps you there? Do you feel that spiritual connection or do you go simply because you always have.