hallelujah by and by

The other day I was IMing with my high school best friend, Bethany.  We are both pretty awful at keeping in touch with people but she still knows way more than I do about our high school friends and what they're doing with their lives.  Who has babies, who's on their third husband, who's in jail.  The good stuff.  Somewhere in the middle of the conversation she mentioned that my first high school boyfriend - who we shall call Robert, as that is not his name - now preaches part time.

What? I typed.  He's preaching? Where?

At their church, she typed back. 

Oh dear, I typed. Then, thank you God thank you God thank you God.  Thank you God you knew what you were doing. 

I breathed a sigh of relief, once more for the way my life has spilled about, running over pages and pages, in ways I never expected.  I remember struggling with those feelings of this is not the one for me.  I so wanted him to be my one, although I can't quite remember why.  He was a perfectly nice, decent person,  came from a nice family, all of that.  He had a car by our sophomore year and one of the best things about being his girlfriend was that he would pick me up from school, and when school was over, drop me off at home.  I can smell the inside of that car as I peck out these words. Robert was the nicest of young men, no parent could ask for a better first boyfriend for their innocent daughter.  We didn't kiss for the first six months- could you ask for a more chaste relationship? I think not. 

I still remember the first time I went to a 'sing' at a church in his denomination - I can't really explain his denomination but we'll just call it a small country Baptist church where girls who wear makeup, well, they're not quite Jezebels but they are certainly flirting with danger.  My church (Missionary Baptist) was strict but looked almost lenient compared to theirs. Anyway, so I went to hear people sing, and when the first person opened her mouth, I almost fell out of the pew.  Not from the Spirit, but from horror.  I scanned the faces of the congregation, looking for some sign that the sound I was hearing surely wasn't the sound THEY were hearing, that perhaps I had fallen into a timewarp tunnel straight to hell, where people thought they were singing but were truly only hitting every fourth note with a measure of accuracy.  And keys were strewn about willy nilly, with no thought for the circle of 5ths.  It was dreadful.  And no one really knew it, and if they did know, they were sworn to some secret pact where the password is always the same - "Bless their heart.  They sure do love the Lord."  Then they kept on listening to the out of tune piano, and beating time with their heels. 

Call me catty, call me mean.  I'm going to get deeper with this.  I look at where I was then - God almighty, fourteen years old and heartbroken at sixteen when he went away to singing school and fell for some girl from Bogalusa.  I remember I watched all of Forrest Gump waiting for him to come see me, waiting for the sound his car made as it came around the curve. I was devastated when he broke up with me, and let me tell you, I do a pretty good job with heartbreak.  It fulfills all my dramatic tendencies.  When I love, I love hard, and I don't let go for a long time.  This is all starting to sound like a Fleetwood Mac song. 

Yet to think - who would I be, if I were still with him? If we had a perfectly appropriate country church wedding, with sherbet punch, and mints in the paper cups? If our dreams always led us back to within the county line? That instead of reading Vogue and A.S. Byatt and Kathleen Norris and Donna Tartt, I would read - who knows what? Surely an author who didn't say 'fucked unto the Lord'? Would I have stumbled and found my way, found a church which welcomes questions, validates my voice and my gender, which requires their ministers to be educated, to ask the hard questions of life and faith? Or would my voice have become so small, my questions rolling under the feet of the head of household, the head of the church? Would I have been happy in the tiny box of life so simply lived,  or would I glance out my kitchen window while washing dishes, praying for Jesus to step out from the clouds, to whisk me away?

Sunday Scribblings

Comments

[lizardek]

Oh Samiam, you gave me chills with this one.

[tinker]

Heartbreak though it may have been at the time - it sounds like, ultimately, that break-up was a blessing to be counted!

[Paris Parfait]

This is a great "what might have been" story. I'm so glad things worked out for you the way they have, rather than the way they could. Lovely post!

[keith]

Let's face it - you "escaped". Now give your thanks and look back and yawn, understanding all the while that you were led by the spirit to where you are nurtured and there is no going back. You are able to "see" the dead end that so many of our country church experiences every Sunday and the lack of enlightenment that is alive and well in the church today.

Congrats - you made it.

[keith]

Let's face it - you "escaped". Now give your thanks and look back and yawn, understanding all the while that you were led by the spirit to where you are nurtured and there is no going back. You are able to "see" the dead end that so many of our country church experiences every Sunday and the lack of enlightenment that is alive and well in the church today.

Congrats - you made it.

[la vie en rose]

they always say hindsight's 20/20. when you're in the middle of the drama and the heartache it's so hard to think, maybe this is for the best. isn't it great when the universe confirms that, yes, it was taking care of us all along... i feel this way ALL the time when i think about my ex-husband. at the time my divorce totally sucked! TOTALLY. but now i trully believe it was the best thing to ever happen to me.

[Lori-Lyn]

What a powerful post. (You must think I'm stalking your blog. I've been lurking for a while but lately, I feel the urge to comment on everything that you write. I love it here!)

[Rebekah]

Thank God you were rejected by that boy - sweet and dedicated as I'm sure he is to his way of life and way of worshipping. There was more for you... more questions, more challenges, deeper truth. God did not want that mind of yours to be stifled in all its glory. That other life was definitely not for you!

[kerry]

your last question and the fact that you aren't standing at that window waiting for that makes me believe that everything does happen for a reason.. that you are at the windows you are meant to be at.

[Marilyn]

Remind me to never sing around YOU! (You're mean!) :) I love where you went with this prompt...and I adore the last line. I can't tell you how many weddings I attended when I was still in my teens...high school sweethearts gettin' hitched left and right. I never understood how someone could think the FIRST was necessarily the BEST. Out of all those marriages, there are countless divorces...and only one couple still together. "Robert" did you a big favor by breaking your young heart...and thank God he did.

[Serena]

The thought of an alternate reality like that made me nauseous. I, too, have done the 'what-ifs' when hearing of old boyfriends, and I'm with you on being thankful that God sure knows what he's doing.

[Lisa]

Great post. I'd have to agree with everyone else that you are better off that he broke your heart. What if's worst case senerio could have ben you would have never been truly able to be you. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

[Bethany]

Hehe....Sam dear. I never told you anyone was in jail! Did I? If I did, I forgot who... You make me look positively catty!

Poor "Robert". Of course, I think you know how I feel about him! :D