Forgive me Father, for I have been living my best life. I took a six year hiatus from church, and I don’t plan on going back again. I’ve gotta be honest, or what’s the point?
When I was a kid, going to mass was at best a chore, and at its worst crawling within the confines of a cage. Church and home were environments that taught me to crumple up into something shapeless that would fit inside a box someone else had labeled “good.”
Growing up in my parent’s household meant attending weekend Mass was non-negotiable. I learned how to use all of my wit and drain all of my resources in order to survive that dreaded holy hour. Mass was a chance to stretch my imagination into new dimensions; to imagine the present reality was something tolerable.
Sometimes I’d stare straight into the sun peeking through the tall chapel windows until my eyes felt like they were bleeding and had permanent sun damage. It was all worth the price of admission to live entertainment. I closed my eyes and the curtain would rise to a light show of cascading colors and waves and shapes that would reverberate against the black canvas draped upon the backs of my eyelids.
One time when I was 9 or 10 my family sat behind a couple with a baby. At first I just thought the baby was really cute, and I made eye contact for a socially unacceptable period of time, which didn’t seem to faze either of us. I began having one sided staring contests with her, damning her to hell everytime I blinked. Before I knew it, 20 minutes had gone by. I spent the next half an hour watching her crawl around the pew with seething envy. Wish I could do that.
Needless to say, I found the baby to be an effective distraction from my dull reality. The mass passed by before I knew it.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but after this experience I became addicted to sitting near small children at church.
“Second to last row on the left,” I’d murmur to my Mom after I’d scoped out a potential prospect.
“There’s already a family sitting there,” she’d reply.
“I need that spot,” I’d whisper with venom, terrified of the idea of having to try to pay attention to the priest.
This isn’t to say there weren’t ever entertaining moments in church. The priest’s homily was the make or break part of the mass, as it was the only part of the hour when he could freestyle.
For about 5 years my family’s parish hosted a priest who often referenced pop music in his homily. The only moments I ever actively opened my ears during mass were when Father Morgan would smoothly slide into a tangent about a song by Elton John or Beyonce or as I specifically recall him saying, “Ke$ha, with a dollar sign.”
An amusing five to eight minute homily meant you were out of mass after about 45 minutes. A 20-25 minute homily meant you stumbled out of the chapel blinded by what you faintly remember you’d once called the sun, over an hour and 15 minutes after mass started.
Once I reached high school the strictly enforced regimen of attending Sunday 10am mass was derailed by a crisscrossing schedule of soccer games, swim meets, and my first job as a swim instructor. This period overlapped with a steady increase in the frequency and intensity of the fights between my Dad and I. The more I rebelled the more he aimed to control; forming an avalanche crystallized with the dissonance of building resentment. We’d go days without speaking and when I couldn’t go to mass on Sunday with the rest of the family he would drop me off at the 4:30 evening mass on Saturday to “learn a thing or two.”
I’d grumble my way out of the car, letting it be known that I would rather be going anywhere else above or below ground. I’d scuttle across the small church courtyard toward the side entrance. I’d pimp walk through the chapel, dab up Father Morgan, pretend I didn’t notice Deacon John wink at me, and then hang a sharp right down a drafty hallway. I’d walk past the rows of classrooms where toddlers did crafts with the nuns during mass and duck into the women’s bathroom, finally releasing a deep breath.
Free at last, I’d lock myself in the handicap stall. Ahhh, the handicap stall, so luxuriously spacious and devoid of anyone telling me what to do or how to be. One could spend an hour there.
And I did.
I’d dig a worn school copy of Julius Caesar, or whatever classic novel my English homework was based off of that week, out of my skirt’s stretchy waistband and find a comfortable position to take for the hour while the echo of the church choir’s hymns drifted down the hall and leaked under the bathroom door like a rattling ghost of what used to be my guilty conscience.
More often than not, certain disturbances would disrupt the peace of my holy sanctuary.
When I heard the bathroom door open I’d catch my heart in my throat as I thought,
They know! They know I’ve been in here for a half an hour perched like a gargoyle on this wretched toilet seat! They must be here to escort me to the confessional.
As the perpetrator lurched deeper into my territory, I’d stop reading, as if they could hear my mind processing words. I’d watch their soft soled black shoes step into the stall beside me, and pray no one else would come in. There were only two stalls in the bathroom; suspicions would quickly arise.
I knew what I was doing would be considered strange to the outside eye, but I was blinded by the avalanche slowly overtaking me at home. I was 17 and had no idea what I was supposed to be, but I knew it wasn’t hiding on a toilet seat.
It was also during these moments that I paused and realized old people take a long time to take a piss. “Who does she think she is,” I’d think. “Leaving mass for this long? The nerve! She won’t even make the Eucharist.”
As a kid, I was a fervent believer that the receiving of the Eucharist was the best part of the mass. If an hour-long mass were a marathon, the receiving of the Eucharist was the 20th mile aid station. We’d all line up in our best outfits to wait our turn for a cardboard bite; a much-needed pick-me-up after 45 minutes of dissociating. The sip of wine was enough to make me black out as an eight year old, especially after the fifth of Tito’s I pounded in the parking lot.
The receiving of the Eucharist was a chance to get up and stretch your legs, while discreetly surveying the chapel to search for your CCD school crush. If you spotted him, you’d smooth down your hair with your sparkly pink headband that was all the rage according to second graders in 2009, and sashay back to your pew pretending you didn’t know, and didn’t care, that he was there.
If your crush’s family hadn’t dragged him to 10am mass, then you could only hope to see some of your homies in the house. One time my family was sitting in the front pew of the chapel because my Dad was participating in the mass as a lector. Sitting in front of the chapel meant you got a front row seat to observe who showed up to mass that week as they filed into line for communion.
At Christmas Eve mass I watched my friend Maeve receive communion, and do the sign of the cross as she solemnly walked past the altar. I thought about how we’d gone to a party the week before, and I’d watched her snort lines of some things off of anything. Cover your ears and clutch your rosary before I tell you what I was up to.
As Maeve rounded the corner to head back to her family’s pew we made eye contact. Her cheeks puffed out and her lips tightened as she suppressed a laugh, and I sank my head in between my clasped hands to calm the earthquake of laughter rumbling within me. Meave and I were phonies and we knew it. We were in attendance out of respect for our loved one’s beliefs, and to meet our family somewhere between our chosen beliefs and theirs.
Why do some decide church is just not our thing? Many reasons. Some don’t believe in God, some don’t feel the Church aligns with their personal values, some don’t have the time, some are Jewish, and some of us took it very seriously when Billy Joel told us, “Only the Good Die Young.”
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