Tag Archives: Southern

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Finding (and Un-Defining) a Faith for Me

Coming from a ruthless, unforgiving Southern Baptist background in the heart of the infamous Bible belt – once my mom was old enough to leave the church, she went as fast as she could in her early 80’s up-do and pumps.

Wanting to find a religion that would not only suit the words she read, but the spirituality she craved, she tried all sorts of different options as a 20-something. She dipped her toes into all of the waters her past congregation would have found unholy, and submerged herself into learning what she could about what other people believe and why it means so much to them. By the time she met my father, she was active at the Unity Center of Christianity – where they would eventually marry – and a few years later, when I made my grand entrance into the world, she wanted to place some structure on my faith. And so, like she always had before, she prayed for a sign from God about where to go to find that open-minded, yet not too liberal, mindset she craved.

As the heavens always seem to do, they delivered an unspoken guidance to my family.

And so, I was raised in a tiny-church-that-could on the winding back roads of Western North Carolina. My mother swears the first time we went to look at what would be our home, she drove past this hidden chapel and her bones told her this was the place to give her blue-eyed little girl a proper upbringing. Or as proper as one can get with my low-key parents, anyways.

This Methodist church taught me the basic fundamentals of good and bad, guided me through adolescence, and hosted my piano recitals during my childhood. It was there that I met my very first best friend, became a Girl Scout, learned how to make (and appropriately destroy) sloppy Joe sandwiches, and how to jump rope. The backyard of this church, along with the basketball ring I never grew tall enough to touch, is as familiar to me as the address I still write on my tax returns.

Once I passed my driver’s test, my mom stopped forcing me to attend church. She encouraged me to seek out my own beliefs, figure out who (or what) I wanted to worship, and what morality I wanted to base my life upon. Trusting I was mature enough to handle the exposure of diverse religions and ideologies, she suggested a few different places to give a shot. She even offered me gas money.

And so I started on a pilgrimage to find an undefined faith that fit me.

I attended a Catholic mass, where I learned the art of rising and standing (over and over) and how to respectfully decline communion because I was not confirmed. I tried out a Pentecostal church, where though they seemed incredibly passionate about their faith, I found myself a little frightened by the use of a language I couldn’t understand (and wasn’t convinced they could as well). I visited a Synagogue, where while beliefs are slightly different, they have a certain majesty to the depth of commitment and tradition that other fundamentals do not have (or at least express). I took a shot at meditation in my mother’s meditation room and my youthful, easily-distracted nature kept me from falling into any realm of anything. Unless Ancy Land counts, that is.

Now quite some years later, I find myself unsure about religion. I’m not Catholic. I’m not setting snakes free, unafraid of their poison. I did not convert to Judaism. I have yet to figure out how to meditate, even at the yogi-endorsed locations of the Lower East Side. I am still, technically, a member of the Methodist community- but I do not go to church regularly. Sometimes I feel like I should and I love hearing the bells on my walk to the gym Sunday mornings. At some point, I will attend one of those Gospel services around my Harlem neighborhood  -the fire eluding from them is simply intoxicating, not to mention they gave me free cake last summer.

To be honest, I’m not sure what I consider myself. I hear people toss around words like “spiritual” and “religious” over cocktails and o’dourves constantly, without giving it a second thought. Maybe a byproduct of my mother’s curiosity, but I’ve read countless books and asked people the ideas behind their belief systems and as adults who are not forced into stockings, socks-with-bows, and Sunday-best dresses, how we decide about a being above.

This blog is not about religion. But it is about love. I’m not a theologian, I’m not ordained by any church, or accredited by a university – but if there is one central theme I discovered in my quest to find my own ideology, it is love. The name of their savior or where or how its followers practice their rituals shouldn’t be a question, but rather if they are leading a life that’s based on a belief of an unconditional love. If they have a dedication, an honor, a profound respect, and continuous committment to a love they trust will never turn its back on them. That even when relationships fail, wars are declared -in our homes or around the world, when jobs are lost, when money is tight, when disasters strike that we can’t understand, we can trust in a higher power to be present.

When no one else will listen, when no one else is around, when no one else proves dependable, when no other sentence can ease our troubled mind – something we can’t see, but we can somehow hear and feel, appears.

I do believe in God. But I’m probably not the best devotee and I certainty don’t visit his blog everyday. I feel awkward praying and usually end up writing instead of speaking. I’ve always been more loyal before a test, when I’m scared, or when I anticipate the departure of someone or something I’d like to stay. But on days like today, where I commence in the rules of Lent, regardless of the lack of my Catholic-ness, I can’t help but feel a sense of connectivity. In an odd way I’ll explain at a later date, I think he/she (not sure which gender I’d like to assign to God, if any at all) has a gentle way of guiding my life -through things I stumble upon, from pennies that seem to fall from the blue abyss, and by giving me who I need, when I need them. I’ve felt alone, I’ve been depressed, I’ve wanted to find a man to give me love – but I’ve never felt abandoned  by a power beyond myself.

I’m not sure it is a relationship I can define or one where I give more than I take, yet it soothes me when other efforts do not. I believe that something, more dynamic than a human, and in a place away from this planet, has my best interest at heart. And while I don’t always get those things or those people who I want, I am challenged with accepting the simplicity of my needs that always find themselves met. And the strength I derive from a silent plea or praise in the middle of a busy New York train that lets me know I’m heading in the right direction, and I’m safe.

My sacrifices for Lent – no more Diet Pepsi and cutting back on the makeup – have the intention of making me a better, healthier person in the spirit of Christian traditions. And while I can never be guaranteed the way I lead my life, the decisions I make, or the company I keep will grant me a happy afterlife or an upgrade in my second life – I’m at least going to do this act of love. Not only in the honor of the holy-whomever, but in the name of the better me it is helping me to become.

PS: Jennifer from Cincinnati, OH completed Love Addict’s survey and won a fabulous glass from Lolita and perfume set fromPacifica. Love Addict will be doing another giveaway soon, so make sure to take the survey for your chance to win! Congrats Jen and thanks for reading!

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And the Storm Will Rise

There are certain things people say that you’ll never forget: the first time a man tells you he loves you (even if he’s merely a boy at the time), when someone ridicules you publicly, or when you have a heart-to-heart with your mom, not as your mother, but as your friend. I remember each of these moments in my own life, but if someone were to ask me my favorite, most memorable phrase anyone ever said to me, it’d be:

“Well you’re like a Southern summer storm in the middle of August, aren’t ya, now?”

I can’t tell you the woman’s name, but it was a friend-of-a-friend at some family reunion I attended in North Carolina when I was 17. Having only been in my presence for about ten minutes, this older lady decked out in pearls and with nails so perfectly manicured you’d think she lived in a salon, literally nailed who I am in fifteen words.

For those of you who have not had the privilege to experience a thunderstorm in the Southern region of the United States – I hope you do someday. They are beautiful. Out of nowhere, unforgiving gray clouds encircle the endless sky, enticing bursts of sound and light in every direction. The rain with a scent so intoxicating, so vibrant you yearn to step outside to inhale as deeply as you can. But, if you’re educated by the ways of the countryside, you dare not step off of your porch, but allow the storm to capture your attention from afar. Leaving the security of your steps would be quite risky and with the aging Oak trees swaying helplessly in the sweeping winds, you can only imagine what they could do to you, the barefoot and sticky with sweat observer you are.

And then, almost as easily as the storm came, it leaves. Its noise, its electricity, its saturation, and its perfume trail off into a space beyond the Blue Ridge mountaintops you’ve never crossed. It is only then, when the branches rest from their dancing, the daffodils face the sun as it breaks through the clouds, that the real beauty reveals itself.

As everything comes back to life and still at the same time, and the color returns to the fields and the atmosphere…an echoing silence that’s as vivid and consuming as any sound on the Earth, captures the Southern afternoon. It’s simply quiet.

Perhaps the lady didn’t know what she was saying to me when she called me a summer storm, but something tells me that with her accent and the way she sipped her sweet tea – she did. When a relationship comes to a close, when a man leaves me before I’m ready to be left, when I don’t hear from a guy who I was convinced was intrigued by me, or when I feel like I failed at something I thought I deserved, I hear her words ringing loud and clear in my head.

Am I really as messy as a summer storm? Or is love the storm we all chase after, but never quite catch?

When I’m falling in love, I see myself enveloped in a tornado, shaking around aggressively, feeling the rush of lust wash away all of my fears, all of my insecurities, and capture me in a breeze I can’t (and don’t want to) fight. Instead of hiding behind a door, I dodge through it. I tease the storm with my laughter, with my ever-believing, ever-childlike spirit, and I feel unbreakable, unstoppable, and full of a fire I know could never be drowned with rainfall.

Until of course, I hear the thunder.

Or it shakes the ground so violently that mud splashes up against my calves. And lighting strikes a breathless few feet away from me, and though they say it never strikes twice, I start to remember what it’s like to feel the sting of heartbreak, to have that feeling in places you didn’t know existed that tells you “It’s over. It’s just so over.”

And like the same sweet child who ran to escape the unexpected summer rain and the disaster that often followed it, I dive back into my safe place with my hair and my cheeks damp, my mascara creating paintings on my face, and as if I wasn’t soaked enough – I cry. As if I wasn’t messy from the outside free-for-all I just came from, I shield my eyes with my grimy-hands, smearing the wetness even deeper. So deep it feels like it becomes ingrained in my blood and pours out of the hole that I hoped wouldn’t be put in my heart…again.

When I love, I love intensely. I love powerfully and profoundly. I make no excuses for how I feel and I give away pieces I should probably keep to myself – but I do it willingly. I do it with the rush of a hurricane, the destruction of a tsunami, and the intensity of a volcano erupting.

And I do it over and over again. With each and every single man who is lucky enough to be loved by the likes of a Southern summer storm.

In going through this journey, as raging and unpredictable as it seems to be, I thought I may lose some of my splendor. Some of that unyielding optimism that makes me believe my Mr. Right (who may be a Mr. Northern Storm, perhaps) exists, of that passion that helps me string together words and fight my way out of any disaster. I thought maybe, that tailwind that so many men, so many friends, so many people have often said they get mesmerized by…would leave with the addiction.

But then I realized, the best part of the storm isn’t the storm itself, but the calm that follows it. As much as a mess in a dress I am at times, especially when I’m drowning in a flood of new love, being a little cyclone means I find my peace eventually. I accept that no voyage, where it be one I travel alone or with a first (or fifth) mate, is ever safe from rocky waters. That while the storm will always rise, it will also fall – and it is there, you test your lungs and your legs out for size. And with the same strength that made the winds blow, the rain fall, and the leaves rattle and shake in all of the relationships I’ve experienced, I’ve been just as sturdy to stand after they were over.

To stop being a hot mess for a hot minute. To ring the water out of my hair and wipe away the stains on my knees, in between my toes, and on my fingertips. To step out of the drenched clothes and slip into something dry and warm. To open that backdoor and feel the summer breeze float through my ringlets.

And let myself inhale not only the end of the storm, but the colorful promise illuminating the sky. The one that makes you remember no matter how much hell a storm gives you or how much hell you are – there is always something waiting in the horizons you can’t see, in the cityscapes you always wished were in your view, but never quite were.

That somehow, no matter how detrimental the raging waters or how threatening the daunting clouds were – we’d never trade them for anything. Because without the storm, we can’t appreciate the sweet stillness that comes with the sun.

P.S. Confessions of a Love Addict is making Valentine’s Day more about the single ladies and less about flowers that’ll die in a day. Submit your Valentine here.

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A Dive Into the Unknown

As a huge adrenalin junkie who absolutely adores all things fast, dangerous, and super-high (heels included) – when I was given the opportunity to go bungee jumping last year, I gladly accepted the challenge.

The experience wasn’t in some exotic land off of a waterfall or a bridge into tropical waters – but rather, just part of the attractions at a North Carolina stupidly-small town that catered to the country-bumpkin in all of us. At the time, I was dating Mr. Idea and it was the only “weekend getaway” he could afford. Nevertheless, I was excited to be with someone who was willing to take the plunge into a large blow-up pillow from the top of a 65-foot tower.

We climbed a winding staircase chatting and mentally preparing ourselves for the moment when we turned the corner, caught a glimpse of the cascading mountains in the distance…and all of the people who looked super tiny below us. We took our place in line, and because it was one of the items on my ever-flowing bucket list, I wanted to go first. Mr. Idea stood behind me, tickling my waist, and pulling me into him – and I noticed a girl, probably around 13, royally freaking out in front of me. After a few minutes of observing her, I gathered that not only was she alone, but she really, truly did not want to nose-dive off of this platform like I did.

I pulled away from Mr. Idea, patted her shoulder, and asked if she was alright. She instantly burst into tears, said her dad was waiting below, and she thought she wanted to bungee jump, but now is terrified. My southern comfort came out as I wrapped my arms around her, reassured her that if she didn’t want to jump, she certainly didn’t have to, and that I was sure her dad would understand what she called “wasting his money” (Had he minded, I would have gladly given him the $25 fee that I paid). She tucked herself away in my chest and asked if I would walk her back down the stairs. Mr. Idea rubbed my back and asked me if I wanted him to wait, and I told him to just go on without me. Now, I was invested in this scared teen.

The closer we got to the ground, the more she started the breathe, and the less she cried and held on to me. By the time we reached the first level, her father had walked up to meet her, and hen she laid eyes on him, she spurted out apologies between sniffles. He just picked up all 95-pounds of her, consoled her, and ran his fingers through her hair. He then thanked me and she waved good-bye as they walked away, seeing me as this stranger who came to her rescue. I watched them leave for a minute before making my way back up the tower, my legs and my heart heavy from the exhaustion. And once I finally made it to the edge and the instructor was checking all my straps and buckles and giving me pointers and direction- I finally realized what I was doing.

I looked down at the ground with crowds watching, including Mr. Idea who successfully completed his jump and was now shouting up words of encouragement. I looked over at the instructor-dude, who did not look very charming or college-educated, or even like he cared too awful much, and wondered if I was comfortable placing my trust in him. I looked down at the many clips and cords wrapped around me and the wires attaching me to the tower and questioned if one of the never-fail contraptions, had ever, well…failed.

Clearly noticing I was spacing out, the instructor asked, “Ms., are you ready to jump?”

Now, nearly two years later, I open my eyes and see myself on a slightly different platform that’s not as elevated, but the stakes seem even higher. My palms are just as sweaty, I find myself searching for intriguing excuses to turn around, and the support that promises to protect me from plummeting – seems a little shaky.

In every dating situation where imagining a future doesn’t seem so far fetched – there comes a point where you feel yourself on the edge of an emotional cliff and you have two decisions: to jump or to leave.

Once you’ve experienced this pivotal call of heads or tails, love or fail – you know what it feels like to be falling for someone. You can feel your lips curling at the thought of them, your mind wondering into their direction, your heart anticipating the next time you’ll see them or hear from them. You can feel it when you’re enveloped in their arms, reading an e-mail written just for you, or when you meet their eyes.  More than likely- your friends and family notice a difference too, and if they are anything like mine, they are inquisitive into the glow behind your beaming cheeks.

And with this realization that you are falling and you know you must decide if the jump is worth the possible destruction – you become scared shitless. (Pardon my language, but it is really the best way to describe it).

Evaluating the risk becomes a personal strategy and mental coping mechansim where you make deals with yourself: “Okay, if I do act like I really do like him, if I do tell him how I feel, and he rejects me – I’ll still be okay. I will still be able to get up, go to work, and make that happy hour on Thursday. I’ll be cool. And who knows, he may even feel the same way! He could be falling too! ” But then, your emotional side takes over and pleads: “But it will hurt!! OMG, Lindsay, don’t you remember what it felt like? You’ll want to go home, crawl into bed, and those 10 pounds are gonna come back with all the cake you’ll be downing. It isn’t worth it.”

But does love or the chance of it, always have to be so black and white? Does it always have to be to fall or to protect? To take a deep breath and move forward or tuck your tail, throw up your flag to surrender? To walk forward or to walk away? To be the girl who needs to be escorted down 65-feet or the girl who takes a step off the platform, no matter how scary it is?

Is it impossible to fall into shades of gray?

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t falling for Mr. Possibility and I’d also be telling a white lie if I didn’t admit it makes me a little uneasy and fearful for my heart that has experienced a fair share of breaks. But, as I’m realizing with this journey – not everything can fit into one of two categories. Not everything needs a big red bow on it of approval or a scary red “x” of rejection. And in terms of love – where guarntees are never made – falling into the unknown is just part of the game. Plus – regardless if it is in the form of cords and cables, or friends, margaritas, or strangers on tall platforms – we will always have some type of support to back us up if we need it.

So while hesitation is rightfully-justified when we’re about to take a plunge (the instructor had to count to three twice for me) – there is no better feeling, no better thrill, no better rush than the moment where you decide that regardless of the outcome or the final destination, diving into the unknown is less risky than turning around and always wondering…if you should have just held your breath, said a prayer, and jumped in.