Sitting in a strip mall restaurant, looking over the sunlit concrete ocean
of parking lot, the cars filled with people
busying themselves in their evening activities, post-work, what's
next for them, home, bars, soccer practise, I shudder to think, bible
study...The exterior of this moment with its plasticity and cemented
exterior brings to mind a former life...I find my mind filling with
old memories of myself, in a different time, a part of me that I wish
not always to remember, a time when I wore loose turtlenecks to hide
every ounce of my horrible flesh, a time when my insides felt rotten
and I hated the sight of me, a time when from the pulpit the Pastor
preached about my degradation and waited while I bowed my head in
submission, a time when I sacrificed myself, my own desires,
interests, passions, and creativity, for the good of the whole, but
in doing so, lost all sense of purpose in life...a time when a forced
smile masked the depression and pain inside, a false constraint so
much like the turtlenecks I wore...a time when looking pretty on the
outside was more acceptable than self worth and evaluation on the
inside, when all that mattered was that you conformed to their
interpretations of the Bible(or face the ostracizing effects) in so
doing, peace and joy was promised but never obtained...
As I recall this time of my life, I'm
filled with anguish not so much for myself but for those still
trapped inside. It is for them, then, that I begin this story.
However fiction it may be, beacons of truth will shine through,
reveal the darkness pretending to be light, and bring freedom to
those enslaved to the deception.
