Yes, if climbing the political ladder were our highest priority, being active members among their ranks would definitely benefit us and open numerous doors.
To a certain point. Because I’m also certain there’s an invisible rainbow ceiling, based on what I personally know about many of the members’ beliefs.
Plus, we don’t commoditize our spirituality like that. I prefer to keep it separate and far apart from my work, the way the Constitution outlined in the first amendment, thank you very much.
That brings me back to this morning’s sermon.
Blessings.
It’s taken me my entire life to reach this point, the ability to truly appreciate what I have, instead of looking back at what I lost. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully rid myself of my secret mourning, because there’s still a part of me which feels like I failed, and that failure led to the outcome.
Didn’t I? Perhaps it was hubris on my part that I couldn’t recognize, at the time.
That maybe my ghost had a good reason for disappearing and going silent on me. Maybe he felt it was his only recourse, at the time.
I cannot accept that I am blameless, because it would mean I horribly misjudged someone I spent seven years of my life with and believed would be my forever. That puts the logical onus onmyfailings.
I must have failed him, somehow.
Then again, I should stop looking back before I trip over the future. Still, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some mistake I made.
Because if I did, I damn sure never want to repeat it. Even after ten years married to Daniel, and nearly four years before that while we were dating, I still struggle with those insecurities.
First days still suck.
A quiet, insidious voice deep inside me insists I am a faker, a fraud.
That I don’t belong here. Not really.
My husband continues to quietly reassure me by his every action, shows me with his love and devotion, that he’s not going anywhere.
One day, maybe it’ll be enough for me to stop second-guessing myself all the time.
I hope.
Maybe this will be the year I finally convince myself to delete the old e-mail account Daniel doesn’t know about. The one where I have an overflowing drafts folder from unsent e-mails I had to write to scourge the darkness from me before it dragged me under.
I haven’t actually sent an e-mail from that account in a while. It’s the same principle as writing a letter to someone and then burning it.
It’s part of my process, though. I know I’ve hit a plateau and should be well past the point of moving on. Except not having to deal with that particular item has allowed me to not think about it as deeply as deleting the account would then force me to.
Besides, sometimes I go through and read everything I’ve sent or written over the years to remind myself exactly how far I have come in that time.
Daniel knows the most pertinent facts about my ghost, except his name, and that’s for the best. My ghost has haunted enough of my life and my relationship with Daniel. I don’t need my boy pinning an actual name and face to him.
Or, worse, researching and perhaps putting his own energy into figuring out some way to level the field.
Which, without Daniel knowing it, could accidentally blow back on him—and us—in ways he has no ability to predict. Because telling him all the details about my ghost would also mean laying down the law to him in a way he’d chafe over. There are invisible, poisonous barbs that could catch him without him knowing until it’s too late.
See, my boy despises it when he feels I’ve been wronged. He turns into a vicious honey badger and wants to get revenge on my part. Except he has no immunity to the poison in the sting he could suffer should he learn enough to home in on this particular target.
I know damn well over the years Daniel’s occasionally tugged on strings to throw roadblocks to stymie, or downright sabotage, people who he feels have crossed my path in ways he doesn’t like.
The worst one, which I’ve never asked him about but I suspect he’s guilty of, is cratering the marriage, career, and reputation of Tom Archibald Smith. Tom was a Texas senator’s chief of staff.Wasbeing the key word. He had to resign in disgrace after pictures and video of Tom fucking his children’s nanny, while his wife and children were out of town at his in-laws’ house, were plastered all over the Internet.
And sent to several high-ranking members of his church back in Texas.
A strict Evangelical church.
