Image from BreneBrown.com,
quote from "Rising Strong" by Brene Brown

William Bridges, who I read numerous times as a Sister, calls it the "neutral zone". Brene Brown calls it "the middle", "the rumble", "act two".
Either way, it's messy.
And it's been a messy two (almost three) years.

I traveled to St Louis and was able to re-connect and heal in a way I wouldn't have otherwise (see previous entry). I entered and subsequently exited my first romantic relationship last summer. I am one year closer towards completing my Master's of Social Work (many more semesters to go) and made new friends because of it.

It's been messy because I've doubted myself in so many different ways, because I've been afraid to tell my story...and because, as I found out most recently, I'm still discovering who I am.

This past semester was a hard one. I was crazy stressed because I was promoted into a much more demanding job. One of my classes had piles of readings, podcasts, or videos every week. And well, just in general, there's a reason that my program is ranked nationally and is #5 in Texas. I've never worked so hard academically in my life.

So, because the semester was so stressful, I needed to give myself a reward to look forward to. So, I booked a surprise vacation through Pack Up + Go. I'd go the weekend after the semester ended and two weeks before the summer semester started.

I booked it and then forgot about it. I was too wrapped up in work and all the papers I had to do. When everything was said and done and my vacation approached, I began to share with my friends. Their reaction was surprising:

"By yourself? I never imagined you'd be the type of person to do that, but good for you!"

"I never thought you'd do that but I guess I should have figured it out based on you living in Bolivia and all"

It surprised me because adventures (by myself) is a huge part of who I am.
Or at least, I thought it was.
But then I realized so much of my solo adventuring was in the past - choosing to attend schools where I knew no one, traveling to foreign countries by myself, making daring choices. All before I joined the Sisters.

That's the thing with the messy middle. You're still figuring it out. What's changed, what's stayed the same. What your vocation may be. Taking steps towards vulnerability, that those little steps of courage lead to even bigger leaps.

I struggled with shame for not working hard enough or good enough in my new promotion and pushed myself to work through the stress.
I struggled with shame over feeling pressured to be in a romantic relationship.
I even struggled with shame over my own story and felt compelled to hide it at all costs.

But something happened.

I started to let go.

I stepped down from my promotion. I now work in a lower position, both in terms of the totem pole and in stress. But I'm more peaceful.
I stopped listening to other people and realized I am much more than a potential girlfriend or wife.
I started sharing my story. In fact, most of my classmates know that I was a Sister and it's led to beautiful conversations and connections.

And I started solo-adventuring again. My first solo adventure since I joined the Sisters back in 2011 and/or left in 2016. (Pack Up + Go sent me to Denver, by the way.) Solo-adventuring was just as amazing as I remembered it being.
And I re-discovered that part of me that loves new adventures; I returned energized and refreshed as if I had woken up from a long sleep.

The middle is messy, but it pays to let go.
It pays to be courageous.

As Margaret (Molly) Brown, a great woman I learned about on my trip to Denver, said "I am a daughter of adventure. This means I never experience a dull moment and must be prepared for any eventuality . . . That's my arc. It's a good one, too, for a person who had rather make a snap-out than a fade-out of life."

Be brave. Don't be afraid of the middle.

The Haunting of an Awkward Question

The conversation shouldn't have been an awkward one. That is, if I were normal, if I were like any 32 year old.
But I'm not, so instead, it turned awkward and I wanted to crawl under a rock.

How I felt during this conversation

I'm new to my work and we were all sharing details of our lives in the office, so an intern innocently asked: "So, Amanda, do you have any kids?"
"Nope."
"You married?"
"Nope."
"But you're 32...do you just not want to get married?"

Oh, God.
I will admit that I brushed this off as the intern being a young college student and not having learned the prudence I learned was taught in religious life.

"It's not that." Pause. All right, I need to give more details here or they're just going to fill in the blanks. "Okay, so I was a nun and left just a year ago."

After the initial "WHAT?!?!" and "WHOA!", she paused and said "But it's been a year already. You're not married or anything. What have you been doing with your life?"

I know she asked this innocently (once again, young college student), but I was taken back. I mumbled something about things don't happen that fast and I changed the subject. But I couldn't get the question out of mind:

"But it's been a year already. What have you been doing with your life?"

What have I been doing with my life? Have I been doing anything with my life?
I feared the answer was "nothing".

I am no closer to finding out my vocation in life, no closer to marrying anyone (or even going out with anyone), certainly no closer to having kids.
I am closer to starting graduate school for my MSW...and by closer, I mean I've filled out most of the application. So really, not that close.
I am no closer to any kind of promotion or salary increase. I switched jobs twice this year and I'm now in a job I like, but one that won't be my permanent career.
Everything has remained the same since the day I left - same apartment, same car, even the same friends.

Maybe it's true, maybe I haven't done anything in a year.

I won't deny it; I sulked around with those truths for a few weeks, even through Christmas. I had a year and I did nothing. I felt as if I had failed myself, failed God who had this great plan for me, and, in a way, even failed those who supported me leaving the community. I wallowed in shame.

Life with the Daughters was so packed with ministry, prayer, meetings, conferences, etc. Every moment was filled with purpose. Now that I was by myself...was I just wasting my life because I didn't have a "purpose" of being a wife or mother?

But, as I let myself reflect on it, I realized that while I may not have done the logical "next steps" or what the world would expect of me, there were some accomplishments this past year:

I am no closer to finding out my vocation in life, but I started writing again and am deeply in love with its pains and joys.
I am no closer to finding out my vocation in life, but I've gained some self-confidence, which can only aid in the search.
I am no closer to my MSW as of right now, but I have learned many lessons in ethics, motivational interviewing, etc by experience.
I am no closer to any kind of promotion or salary increase, but I'm happy in my job and isn't that what counts?
Everything has remained the same since the day I left, but I have gained some great friends from church that I didn't have a year ago that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Everything has remained the same since the day I left, but I've grieved my past and kept walking ahead.

I pray that, if that question comes up again, I can say with confidence: "Actually, I did a lot."

Can I Royally Screw Up God's Plan?

I was playing a magazine scavenger hunt with my after-schoolers when my cell phone began to ring. I was using it as a timer for the competition, so the cell phone was right there in my hand.
And it was  LOUD.

I muted the phone quickly and looked down – it was the organization that just a few days earlier had offered me a job (and I eagerly accepted). Why were they calling? Did something go wrong? There was no way I could answer – not with four loud elementary schoolers alone in a classroom – so I cringed as I watched the organization leave a voicemail.

My voice of anxiety went in a million different directions:

- did I eat or drink something that made my drug test come up as a false positive?

- was there some mistake in my background check?

- were they rescinding the offer because they found someone better?

Once the kids left and in the small window of time I had before my adult education class came in, I called the organization's office. The woman who called was already gone and her voicemail stated that she wouldn't be free until the afternoon tomorrow. My heart sank as I thought of all the waiting.

The next morning, as I drove to work, I kept thinking about the phone call the day before (because, of course, I am who I am. Anxiety is probably one of my most annoying attributes). I was excited about this job. The job was with a very reputable non-profit that does great work and the position would be interesting and challenging. And to think that all that excitement might be gone in the blink of an eye...

As I agonized over it, I started thinking about God's plan. If God's plan for me was to work for this organization, He would make it happen, right? But yet, I seem to subconsciously believe I have the power to royally screw it up somehow.

God is writing a story in me. I like to imagine He's at a typewriter in a study surrounded by leather books, maybe with a comfortable red chair. I imagine some kind of wonderful mix of Belle's library in Beauty and the Beast, the Hogwarts library, and Sherlock's office.

Maybe those leather books are other people's stories that He pulls out so our stories can intertwine. Maybe the books are there just because He knows I love the smell of books and the sound of a typewriter.

Why is it I think that I can rush into the study like a little child who doesn’t know any better and scribble with crayon over all those future chapters God has already written, causing Him to be frazzled and re-write those chapters, never as good as the first time? (Interestingly enough, that’s exactly what I had to do with this blog post because Blogger lost it the first time. God has a sense of humor.)

But faith tells me that the truth is, even if I do scribble over those pages, God has some magical crayon eraser. And the chapters are fine with no need for a re-write or even editing. (Because, as you know, God has perfect spelling and grammar.)

And it may turn out that the chapters don't go the way I predict anyway, for the best or worst. After all, that's what makes a good story, right? Who would have predicted that Harry Potter was being protected and cared for all that time by...oh wait, maybe some people haven't read the books/seen the movies? All right, I won't give it away, but you get the point.

It may turn out that there was a "yes" to one of those anxious questions I asked myself when I received that call. But that doesn't mean I went over God's head and screwed up some marvelous future for myself. It means I dust off my feet, find out and fix what went wrong for next time (if necessary), and move on. Because God has something else in store. 

So, I waited to make that phone call. And repeated to myself that the God has already typed out those pages, whatever they are, and there was nothing I could do personally to screw it up.Instead of scribbling or even worrying about my scribbles, maybe I should just lean back in the red chair, listen to the keystrokes, and enjoy the book smell.

Yup, that sounds good to me.

(Update: As I tried to relax in that red chair some two weeks ago, my phone rang again...before 12pm even. Everything was fine. They were officially offering me the job. I start on Monday. 
Hearing about the job - and even getting it - is another example of God writing my story. If you were part of that story, regardless of your role, I hope you know how grateful I am.)

Being 'the Other': Owning a Different Kind of Story

I often feel like ‘the other’ – part of a group of people that no one knows how to deal with or react to.
There’s married people, parents (who may or may not be married), widowed, divorced, singles, religious…and then there’s me.

Yes, I am single, but I don’t identify at all with the single life, or at least those that are single and around my age (32).
Why? Because singles that are in their 30s have usually spent the past decade or so dating, perhaps having at least one long-term partner along the line, exploring different careers maybe.
Me, on the other hand? Not so much. I voluntarily lived a life of celibacy. I explored different careers, yes, but not really through my own choice (not that I minded). I moved around the whole country, but again not through my own choice (again, not that I minded). My long-term partner was God.

Except for my work, the rest of my life feels stagnant. Since leaving the Sisters, I haven’t gained many other friends, though I kept those I already had. I did join an all-female Bible study group at church, which helped a little, though I tend to only see them on Sunday nights. Almost all the women (just by happenstance) are divorced, a stage of life that I can relate to the most, and, as you can guess, they are almost all older. [Truthfully, I think this tendency to form friendships with older generations stem from the average age of those I lived with when I was a Sister.]
Because I mostly only see that group on Sunday nights and because the rest of my friends have families, I lack friends to do spontaneous things with…like go to festivals or try out a new restaurant or just hang out.

So, I do many things alone. Having an introvert side, I don’t mind this too much. But doing so, I realized how much society assumes we do everything in groups.
I even had someone try to skip ahead of me in an ice cream shop once because he assumed I was waiting for a friend.  I wasn’t – just getting some pistachio gelato on a nice night. And there was one time in church that they squeezed so many in the pew that I wondered if I was going to be asked to move to a different part of the church because it was obvious I was the only one in the pew by myself.
And pretty much everywhere, I’ve rarely had anyone talk to me when I’m alone.

Oftentimes, if I share my story, many (regardless of age, religion, or vocation in life) don’t know how to react to my story of being a Sister, leaving, and then the grief of transition – that is, if I even feel vulnerable enough to share that last part. Usually I get a shocked face, a “wow, that’s interesting!”, and the conversation ends. When I was deeply sharing with someone once, I was told “I can’t relate to your story at all”, which I’ll admit made me feel sad. That comment truly did make me feel like ‘the other’ – like saying ‘you’re different than the rest of us and I just can’t understand that’.

Brené Brown once wrote

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

The truth is all that – my vocational discernment, being a Sister for five years, leaving, and the transition to lay life – is all part of my story. I can’t erase nor would I want to, really. The key is to embrace who I am, who I was, and what happened. I can’t pretend I’m anyone else. It may seem like it makes me more acceptable but, really, it just makes me more fragmented.

Being ‘the other’ – at least for now – is part of that story. On some days, when being alone is difficult or when I hear comments that emphasize my “different-ness”, it’s easy to give up. It’s easy to believe this is the way it’ll always be. But maybe it’s realizing I’m different, maybe it’s reflecting on the murk of my story, that allows me to pick up the shards left of my brokenness.

And hopefully, one day, I’ll find people, like most of the friends I have right now, who understand my story or at least feel comfortable with its uniqueness.

If I think about it, if there’s one thing I’ve been this past year, it’s brave. I’ve stepped into the unknown by becoming a lay woman. I’ve wrestled with grief, having lost my lifestyle, my community, and even some friends. I’ve chosen to remain in a city with no family and only a handful of friends. I changed jobs in September, leaving the ministry I knew for three years. Does that mean I haven’t been fearful? Or depressed? Or lonely? Oh God, no. Ask any of my friends. They can share those times they’ve had to calm me down. Yet, I feel that bravery doesn’t exclude those emotions but it means choosing to wade through it all anyway.

Sometimes bravery is in the small things, in trudging through life when it feels like it’s not going forward, in going out of your comfort zone, in sharing your story anyway, in believing God has a bigger plan.

I may be ‘the other’ for a long time. But screw that. I don’t have to be anyone else. My story is mine. And everyone’s story is worthy of being told and listened to.