unexpected
a name from the past
appears on my screen
my world tilts on its axis
forgetting for a moment
I am not the same

how easy to slip
back into old habits
back into anger
back to proecting myself
at all costs
seeking desperately to belong

suddenly
I'm the scared almost ten year old
still looking 
for a place to belong
at twenty
and even thirty years old

but I'm not
I have grown
I own my story

I understand now
what he meant in my life
why he had such power to hurt
what he taught me
and I can look back in gratitude
almost

gratitude
for believing in me
loving me
not trying to change me
accepting me
unconditionally
seeing worth and value
and beauty in me

gratitude
almost, but not quite
claiming my vulnerable story is new
old habits of fear
dig sharp claws deep

then I lived unknowing
unthinking
giving away my power
stuck in fear and shame

now I live 
understanding
able to choose
acceptance
forgiveness
gratitude

Written April 11, 2012 and originally published on my old blog.

Apparently I’ve forgotten things I knew then and also there were things then I hadn’t even begun to figure out. The story of that friendship makes much more sense now on this side of the closet door.

Also looking back … it never really was about unconditional love and acceptance, but that was how I experienced it at the time and how I remembered it when I wrote this. This side of the closet door and this far in the journey out of the toxic theology of evangelical Christianity, I have a different understanding of what those things mean.