But I Try, I Try

(I've had fragments of "Modern Love" stuck in my head all day, yes.)

Today Little Foot and I went to church.

It was our second time attending this particular church - the first was their family Easter service, where she got to pet a rabbit - and I think we will be going back somewhat regularly. I'm thinking of joining the choir; I miss doing music with people, regularly. (It'll have to wait until I can leave Little Foot with other folks of an evening so I can attend rehearsals, but...)

I miss a lot of things.

I'm lonely.

It's a weird sort of loneliness, not one that can be fixed with family, or close friends, the people who have sustained me for so long; it's the sort of loneliness that can only be healed by a broader community, a different layer of system. If it takes a family to make a healthy person, maybe it takes a community to make a healthy family. Maybe. Maybe now that I have Little Foot, that's what I need.

And I'm lonely.

I'm lonely for fellowship, for shared religious feeling. I have my own work, I have the people I share small group with, and I'm alone. And my work is as much soul-devouring as it is soul-feeding, it consumes all of me in order to meet what I need, and there is nothing left to cradle me and give me rest. There is nothing left for me, no temple that holds my first time anymore, and the shells claiming the names of temples all have Top's Disease and I. Will not. Rest. With tyrants.



We went to church, and watched from the balcony (where there is space for littles to run around without disrupting the service), and when the sermon turned to youth participation she said, "AAAAAAH!" and was audible downstairs.

I searched for local Unitarian Welcoming congregations, and this one has music up front, music and other pagan members and a stray poly-activist, and it is friendly. And maybe I'll be able to be at home here, shy me, awkward me who is afraid of joining things out of the surety that I will not be wanted. But yet it feels friendly, even to me.

Today I filled out a card to get the church bulletin.