A Way to Run Away

 

I felt like running away today. I wanted to escape. So I did, back to 2012, through thoughts I had recorded during that time. Here are a few ....

"September 3, 2012.   I spend so much time trying to find value in suffering. I do that because when people find out that I was in a monastery for 29 years, they expect me to have regrets. Yes, that’s the constant temptation. If I don’t find something valuable in those years, then it's just a big loss. So perhaps I overdo my efforts to find value in suffering."

"I thought when I left the monastery, I would make a name for myself faster than I have.  And so here I am, still struggling and waiting to write a memoir because I think that I don’t know enough, I don’t write well enough, I don’t think many would be interested in my story. I don’t want it to be just a story. I want it to be a reflection, poignant and soul-searching. I want it to speak to people so they can identify with it, that it opens up something for them as much as it opens up things for me."

 

"And so, yes, I really do try to find some kind of meaning from the suffering that I’ve been through, and I don’t want my story to be the “poor me, victim.” I want it to be lessons learned, a journey made, with all the struggles and obstacles that helped me reach a new plateau, the ultimate desire of my heart that I haven’t found yet. In leaving I thought I would find it, but I haven’t found it yet. Not in college, not in relationships, not in work, or even in writing. My writing reaches a very, very small audience. Though they find it fascinating, most people are not interested. It’s like I’m still in the corner somehow, not knowing how I’m going to get out."

 

"Perhaps that’s my story. We were put in the corner when we were taken out of school to be homeschooled. I still find myself in that corner, not knowing how to get out. I think I’m out of it only to find that I’m still there. Thinking I’m beginning to become integrated with the culture of my times and having things happen and words said that make me feel I'll never be understood, like I am still in that corner."

"July 6, 2012.    I’m thinking about honesty, and how I’m learning how dishonest I really am. But perhaps the word I really mean is authentic. I don’t like people to know my past. I hide the fact that I lived in a monastery 29 years. I try to act like everyone else. And I’m really not like others."

 

"When you’ve been in a monastery for 29 years, you are different, and that’s something you struggle to accept. It’s not just the training to be a monastic nun.  When you live a life of sacrifice, you are called upon to be generous and you work really, really hard. It does something to you in a way that’s hard to describe. Sometimes I can’t connect with people....."

 

"I also learned to live with little because of monastic poverty. They tried to train us not to want, but everyone wants. You can’t train that out of a person. What happens is, I guess when you live that way for so long you learn that you don’t need a lot..."

"October 20, 2012.   The tears want to come. I wonder how often we don't let the tears come. We hold it all in. I know that's what I tell my clients, don't keep trying to hold it in. It's okay to cry. I'm not sure if I'm crying because I'm tired, or I feel all alone, or I have to fight panic at my financial situation, or I just feel still abandoned by God....."