In her loneliness and isolation she sometimes sought me out. I listened without judging, at least on the outside. We weren't friends but we did have empathy for the impossible positions that held each of us captive. One night at the beach house, when all the others were asleep, we met downstairs in front of the fireplace to swap war stories. I don't remember which of us suggested sneaking off to Barnacle Bill's tavern on the main street of this little coastal town. I do remember laughing about the idea. Sister Cecilia laughed too but she wanted to do more than laugh. She decided to check out the local bar scene. I stayed behind. I was never very comfortable with the bar scene in or outside the convent. I would have held her back as a fellow "stool mate."
Maybe Sister Christine smelled the smoke on her civilian clothes the next day. She was suspicious and questioned the suspect. Under only a little pressure, Sister Cecelia cracked and fessed up. Again, I didn't approve of what she had done. It didn't fit with the lifestyle but I secretly admired her chutzpah. Sister Cecelia had been in the military before entering. I doubt she saw or heard anything in Barnacle Bills that she hadn't heard or seen a thousand times before.
Actually, maybe Barnacle Bill's was a good place for a religious. Imagine someone with deep convictions listening and caring for the people who frequent a bar. It might have been the perfect place to inspire souls or at least to stop someone from driving drunk or in a moment of drunken desire have sex in a bathroom stall. That is something I would later witness in the real world. Oh, and while working in Alaska, I had a room mate that would finish her late night shift, drag some male home and proceed to "get it on" in the bottom bunk while I tried to sleep a few feet above. I got so used to it that if I woke, I usually went back to sleep. She thought I was an uptight prude. I was sure the word "skank" defined her. Half way through the season, I moved in with a newly made friend who lead a much tamer existence. Before I did, my first roommate created a story for the employee newspaper about my being a Mennonite who had a near encounter with a grizzly on an overnight backpacking trip into the park. At first, it made me furious but since it was all fiction, my fury quickly passed. She never knew that I'd been Sister Mary Carol and there was no way I'd ever tell her. She would have really turned it up a notch and tried to shock me every chance she could. I would have tried to play it cool every chance I could just to spite her. This roomie was always called "Wild Child". I have no memory of her real name.
There was another reason, I told very few people about my past. The pain of leaving was still hard to bear. It wasn't leaving the craziness and all the verbally abusive behavior. It was a huge relief to close the door on all of that, at least all of that from the Sisters. What was so difficult for me to recover from was the damage done to my soul and psyche. For a long time after I left, I couldn't really talk about the things that had happened while I was in the convent without shaking like a leaf. The trauma had left its mark. I know first hand what post-traumatic stress disorder feels like. I don't wish it on any one.
The hardest thing to relinquish was the death of an ideal. I'd wanted to live in a better, kinder world only to step in a world that in so many ways was more cruel than any I'd had known. People who were supposed to be the epitome of good in the world, were paper dolls lacking depth, substance and often a good moral core. They were corrupted by power, by their own sense of self-importance. The safe haven, the benevolent mentors I was so eager to find within the convent didn't exist. While my motives were complicated and some less than pure or motivated by neurosis, the youthful earnestness with which I sought a better life, a better way to live was genuine. I was crushed by the disappointment in the real world, in the convent, in some within the Church hierarchy, with the ugliness within some of the Sister's hearts. They/It became my own horrendous Medusa, a Gorgon that tried to turn my heart to stone. Maybe the Gorgon was successful for a while. I tried to pretend I was stone to spare myself some of the trauma and disappointment.
Stone makes too hard a place to rest, to find peace. I could not stay there. I had to keep moving, keep living, keep experiencing life. My plans for my life hadn't worked out. I was angry. I was angry at God. Stronger than anger was my fear. I was terrified of what lie ahead in the real world after discovering what hell existed within convent walls. How could my experience be so different from other people who enter religious orders? What had I done wrong? What was wrong with me? These were questions that haunted me. Leaving felt like failure. It's why I struggled for so long to make the decision to "save myself" and leave. The redemption that I sought was not found there.
When I finally did leave, there were people in my life who believed I'd "turned my back on my vocation."
I was told that "I can't be friends with you any more. I don't approve of what you had done."
I didn't argue. I didn't tell them what convent life was really like. I didn't want to rob them of their child-like belief, their innocence. Their minds were already closed. Did I have a right to try and open them? I let them be. They had a faith in the order of the world that did not want to be disturbed by fact or one person's truth. They thought I was wrong for leaving. I would be even more wrong for telling my side of the story so I never bothered. I didn't need them as friends but the rejection still hurt. It was yet another cruelty on a mountain of many others.
There is no answer to "why did this happen to me?" For years, in agony, I'd searched for one. At last, I can say "It simply was." Life very rarely has gone as planned for me. I've often had to live "worse case scenario." The unexpected has shaken my tree over and over again. I have fallen to the ground many times. Each time, I have gotten up, climbed the tree and fallen again. It has gotten easier, this process of rise and fall. I fall less now and when I do, I have learned how to land so as to hurt the least. It still hurts. Yet, as the years have fallen away and time becomes more valuable, spending too much time agonizing over the "whys" of life has proven a waste of time. Blaming, holding on to bitterness or guilt just gets in my way.
The second half of my life has brought more challenges to my happiness, my peace of mind, and my security than I would never have dreamed of back in those early years. If I'd known what I would walk into one day, I wouldn't have found the courage to continue. Not knowing everything is a wonderful benefit. If I hadn't faced later challenges, I would have also missed out on the greatest joys in my life.
My story could be one of repeated failures, disappointments, and unsuccessful attempts to become "some one". At mid-life, I have almost no external signs of success as defined by the modern world. Instead, my life is a story of so much more than material success and accomplishment. Life has carved me. I have been forever altered by everything that has happened . The bad things, the things that threatened to crush me, have not. I have survived. I have proven resilient. I have learned that the most important thing in life is to love. Everything that happens must serve that love. I've had to rise above myself and my human failings to honor that love. How often I have failed love, yet love remains all that matters.
"We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him." Romans 8:28. As I looked in an old Bible for the piece of scripture quoted above, a card dropped out. On the card was a prayer that I had copied while in the convent, during one of the darkest times. I remember clinging to the hope that the words would some day prove themselves true. I think they have.
O Lord, do not remember
all the sufferings others have inflicted upon us.
Remember instead the good that has brought thanks to the suffering,
--our comradeship,
--our loyalty,
--our courage,
--our generosity,
--the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this.
And when they come to judgment, let all the good
that their injustices have brought forth be their forgiveness."
No source was cited when copied all those years ago. Some day I hope to thank the author. Maybe we can toss one back at Barnacle Bill's.
No comments:
Post a Comment