You Have to Come Out to Yourself First

This is how it works for me: once I’ve got even partial clarity in my mind about what I want to write, all cleverness in presentation begins to fail.  Hopefully cleverness reappears in some relatively pleasant-to-read form.  

There are going to be some changes here on An Irreverent Ruckus.  For starters, I’ll be writing more.  I’m a touch pent up.  I’ve wanted to write more for two years now, and have all kinds of drafts started.  In 2021, my plan is to purge the drafts folder, polish them to a semi-gloss, and get them posted.  Done is better than perfect.  

What’s kept me from writing?  I think I hinted at it in a previous post; it honestly boils down to: I’ve cared about what people will think.  

In neurotic detail: I know that I’ve changed in ways that might surprise my good friends from other chapters of my life.  Sure we’ve got social media, but we don’t have genuine time together anymore.  There’s no intimacy, no privacy, where we could really share about the events of our lives and how we’re responding to them.  I know I have changed, and it seems likely that in 10+ years, my friends probably have too.  But we don’t know the fabric of each others’ daily lives anymore, where it’s frayed and where we’ve been more intentional about maintenance.  Things I once dedicated myself to now seem pointless and unworthy of my attention - and since I just don’t know if anything like that has happened to my friends’ perceptions, I have been shy to lay it out there, for fear of offending or being misunderstood.  

Because let’s keep THIS perfectly clear: I love my friends and ache that time and distance have worn at our bond to one another.  

It would be so, so much better, to be able to gather for a week at some mountain or beach getaway, turn off all devices, and just pay attention to one another once again.  To ask one another, where were you when … happened?  What did you first think, and what shaped your response?  Did your response change over time?  Girl, how you livin’??!  

I’ve wanted to write about my experiences and what’s changed in me - but my fear of even more (perceived) strain on longstanding-but-now-distant connections has kept me quiet.  Yet I’ve realized, if I never share these things, no one knows me.  And that’s definitely no good.  

Like I said, neurotic detail.  I don’t think pre-social-media relationships had an equivalent to this particular and very self-imposed peer pressure.  And maybe I’m the only one imposing this, and others with long-distance relationships don’t worry like I have.  In the past, if you moved away from friends and acquaintances, you’d just lose touch with most of them.  You might still call and write letters with a few, and even plan to travel and see them occasionally.  But it would be a situation of general radio silence, and then small bursts of real time together.  

Nowadays, you might move (in my case, you might move dozens of times) but a simulation of all your relationships both strong and weak, is permanently available.  Yet it has no privacy, and vanishingly rare real-time interaction.  It is a delight to be online at the same time as an old friend, and quickly exchange messages, but never have I ever had more than a few minutes available for these moments.  Either I or they need to log off and get on with the day.  

I’ve thought about this a great deal as I settled into life in Sandpoint.  It’s been hard to find and then really develop strong friendships.  There are some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known here.  Strong, intelligent, healthy men and women who all care about making this place a good place.  But (fact of adulthood) our daily lives do not overlap often; we don’t all work together, have life partners who know each other, have children in the same schools or even all have children, etc etc etc.  Our work and weekend schedules don’t even match, so time available for socializing shrinks.  And maybe you noticed… there is also a pandemic, which squashed even more opportunities.  The pandemic definitely set me back in this regard, as I was just beginning to get closer-to-regular (for me) amounts of socializing with new friends here.  Being included in some of their annual “traditions” - the homemade style when everyone lives far from family of origin and builds new ones together - was incredibly touching.  When I got home from a simple, spontaneous clothing swap last winter, I actually wept in gratitude.  And then in the spring, it all stopped.  

Because moving and building relationships is always a slower process in adult life, and then, you know, 2020, my social media connections grew in importance and emotional impact.  I do think we’ve all experienced some of this, due to the pandemic.  Without face-to-face interactions, mediated interactions ballooned in importance but fail to give us everything we really seek in human connection.  I’m actually grateful to have had “essential” work at a grocery store, because I got some real interaction with people almost every day, and going to work off-line was a hard limit on how much social media I consumed.  But we all have been going through weirdness this year, and I guess I’m trying to share how the general weirdness was this particular weirdness for me.  Just another one of those conversations I wish we were having in real life, holed up together in a mountain cabin.  

The ballooning importance of my connections on social media made it harder to express myself, paradoxically.  (Did I use that right? I think so.)  While I’ve changed a great deal and I can plainly see that I differed in opinion compared to many close friends, I didn’t want to air that difference on such an impersonal platform.  I don’t want my page to become an argument.  I don’t want to cause argument and unpleasantness on friends’ pages.  Facebook is the only social media I have (I’m considering trying some others this year), and it is a merciless public square.  Not the place to catch up with real relationships and all the nuanced experiences we’ve had that can’t be fully expressed online.  So I often don’t share what I really think, and I usually don’t enter conversations where I might.  The only enthusiasm I expressed was for safely personal topics, whether mine or yours.  

And I’ll admit to some moments of passionate weakness.  I failed at restraint a few times.  I’ll admit I opted to “snooze for 30 days” a few people who were continually posting things which tempted me to angry argument.  (I did it for you!)  This year on social media was ridiculous: while I craved knowing all about friends’ posts, and would be on a brain-chemical roller-coaster because of it, I stuffed and silenced my response most of the time.  

Have we had enough neurotic detail from Cara yet?  I think probably so.  All this is to say, I’d like to share a lot more.  But other than this post, I won’t be sharing links to my blog.  If you’re interested, you can find the blog.  My nerves on facebook are shot.  Yes it’s my neurotic problem, and I’m working around it in a way that is probably overwrought and unnecessary.  

I love you, and I want you to know who I am, but I am afraid of the social media arena.  There’s the truth.  Good job Cara. 

So I want to write more.  I will write more.  And some of it might be a surprise.  Allowing myself the illusion of this-isn’t-on-social-media will help me do so.  Whew.  

What other changes around here?  I don’t have a new tagline in mind yet, but I know the focus of this blog is going to shift.  It’ll take time to know what the tagline might need to become.  But “A former pastor, getting out of debt, in a fast slow lane” is going to have to give way.  It’s still true, but I want to write about more than that tagline implies. 

While it was a huge change several years ago, being a former pastor doesn’t actually form much of my sense of self anymore.  There are stories to tell about this shift, and it definitely matters, but it’s not “at the surface” all the time anymore.  

I am still getting out of debt, and there is a LOT to say about this journey, but I’m getting more and more excited about what I want to do afterwards.  They say that when you have a big goal, knowing “your why” is important to stay motivated.  My “why” has shifted.  At the start, my “why” I wanted to get out of debt wasn’t so noble.  I wanted to prove a few people wrong.  And while there is still a deep streak of “underestimate me, that’ll be fun” in my efforts, I’ve been experiencing something new: hopefulness and anticipation.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s getting bright enough to actually look around and think about the future.  I can’t fix the meaning of my life, much less my blog, to getting out of debt, because pretty soon I will be!  

In the years since I started the blog, I’ve found things I’m keen to pursue.  Some of them I already do, and some of them will take a financial effort post-debt.  Stay tuned.  :) 

And how about that fast slow lane?  I actually sold my Honda Ruckus this summer… can I even call myself Irreverent Ruckus anymore?  I’m going to.  

The scooter served me well for four years.  In the mild climate of the Puget Sound, it was a totally adequate vehicle, once I invested in some rain gear.  But Idaho winter is no joke, and no amount of wearable weather protection would be enough.  Even though I walk almost everywhere on a day-to-day basis, I need to drive on the highway to see my family and to go to church.  The shape that my lifestyle has taken here in Idaho necessitates an enclosed vehicle, even though it’s about once a week.  

In my very first blog post, I had some fun reflecting on living in a “fast slow lane,” by which I meant that I might not be on a road to serious wealth or influence, but I have the tools and determination to do well.  I’m fortunate, more fortunate than many, and most of that is sheer gift.  My family is intact, and loving and supportive.  I’m well-educated (and paying for it!).  This makes my “slow lane” lifestyle and aspirations still a much “faster” lane than someone starting from scratch, or with a deficit of family support or a poor education.  

And in this regard, compared to the very first IR post, are the greatest changes in me.  The ones I desire to “come out” about.  The truth is I’m a recovering progressive, a former left-leaner, I’m totally disillusioned with and now horrified by identity politics, and, gasp, have become pro-life.  I was once called a confused libertarian, and that might be about right, if we have to use labels.  But don’t hold me to it, because what that word means is different to a lot of different people using it.  And I don’t use if for myself, actually.  

Do we have to use labels, really?  I wish not - because none of the ones I’ve seen really work for me anymore, and I know they don’t work for a lot of my friends either.  I bet the labels don’t really work for anyone… except for people whose interests are served by keeping people in neat little categories and stoking the perception that society is a win-lose proposition and the just-so-labelled teams actually play with a group strategy.  Newsflash: they don’t.  And we all lose when this perception dominates.  

Getting from where I’ve been to where I am is definitely something I want to write about.  The above two paragraphs are the tiniest nutshell, inadequately holding so much.  

As ever, the demands of daily life call.  I’ll post and I’m off to work.  Hope to “see” you and hear from you, maybe by email or in the comments here (I think they’re enabled and I’ll check asap).  

Much love, and happy new year!