The Secret Struggle

Old Habit Fights Back

I was beginning to accept myself. I had come full circle. I'd begun as a prude little church girl and had then gone full blown into practically pagan girl pretending to be a Christian to come all the way back to being a church girl who did a few things that she would have never done before. I'd let myself drink alcohol at times. I tried not to drink too much, but I usually ended up having a drink a day, unless I didn't see Noel, because she was the one who had the alcohol. There was no way I could ever get away with sneaking it into my dorm room. I'd get in so much trouble it wouldn't be funny. My language had stayed about the same. I never said words in front of people, accept Noel on rare occasions, but I still thought them a lot an said them when I was by myself. I had for the most part put my sexuality under wraps. I had very few cases where I m*sturbated anymore. I had too much going on. Hanging out with Noel during my free time took up most of the time where I used to masturbate, and when I was about to go to sleep I was usually too tired from doing so much during the day that I didn't think about sex at all.

I sat in class and tried to pay attention, but I was just too tired. It seemed like I was always doing something. When I wasn't in school, I was doing homework. When I wasn't doing homework, I was at work. And when I wasn't doing any of that, I was with Noel. I had very little time when I wasn't doing anything and it was beginning to take it's toll on me because I was beyond tired.

I did everything I could to keep myself awake, and I'd done a pretty good job about it. I'd taken to doing a bit of writing when I was getting bored in class. I would just get some paper out and then start writing, trying to fit it into the story that I'd been writing. It was basically my story, but as a fictional story. It was about a Christian girl who tried to get out of herself and try to be free. She went off and did things that she would have never done before. I wasn't sure where I was going to go with it quite yet. I was sort of looking for that in my own life. I wasn't sure how much I wanted God, or how much I wanted to let Him go. I was still fighting that.

I looked up at the clock and saw that there was only a few minutes left in class, so I gathered up my paper that I had been writing my story on, and shoved it into my backpack so that I could later type it up so that it would be in my computer.

When I got back to my dorm room, I wasn't really feeling up to doing homework, so I grabbed my Kindle and began to read one of the books that I had recently purchased. It was a book that Noel had told me about. She had thought it was good and thought it would be a good read for me. Apparently it was a memior of some girl's life that was like me and went through some of the same stuff that I've been through. So I took her word for it, and so far it had been interesting.

I grabbed for the bottle of beer and took a sip of it and then set it back down on my nightstand. This had become a nightly occurence for me. I'd always got to bed with a beer or two and basically just drink myself to sleep. I would drink and cry about my shitty life. At times I would even yell at God for how worthless He had been to me.

On Sunday mornings I would have a beer, and most days smoke a little, then take a shower, and clean myself up and then head off to church. I wanted to give off the right impression that I was a good girl, so I hid all of the stuff that I did that I knew no one would approve of. They didn't need to know. This was my own life. They didn't need to know shit.

I continued on for weeks. I was still in my early 20s, so I did what most people my age did. I'd go to bars or clubs and then parties. I'd work during the week and then spend my weekends doing drugs and, when I was really down, having sex with guys. It was clear I'd fallen a long ways from God.

Of course, I didn't truly give a damn about God. He was far away, so I just didn't care. He didn't seem to care about me, so I wouldn't waste my time caring about Him. If He wanted to be distant, I'd make sure I was as far away from Him as I could get. And when I did see Him getting closer, I'd yell out a "Fuck you, get the hell away from me." I figured that would smite Him.