hi loves. as always, thanks for being here. i adore you and your support for this writer-dreamer. this is another memoir excerpt, from section 3 (coming home), and shit gets really fucking real in this one.
I found an old journal from 2012. I was cleaning up my belongings, which obviously means I was tidying and going through everything as I went (anyone else do this… or are you normal?)
The entry was from when I was first dating the man I later married. I was writing about the negative experiences I was having with this guy, pouring my little 18-year-old heart out, as I wrote about how degrading it felt to have to ask for love, how awful it was when he was negative and critical, and how I needed God to change his heart.
I was so sure this guy was wrong, and unable to give me the love and connection I desired, yet my default was to seek a higher being to change him, instead of leaving?
If your eyebrows have lowered and your eyes widened and your mouth slightly gaped open at that ridiculous sentiment, you’re not alone. I read that and was like... “what the fuck, Jasmine?!” But here’s the thing... I was so desperate to change the narrative of myself — the “back and forth dater” that I had been told I was by my church leaders — that I felt like I HAD to stick this one out, I HAD to make it work.
Yep, I’d been told by adults since I was 15 that I shouldn’t be dating. I was told that I shouldn’t feel my feelings. That my attraction to people was sinful. That my desire to date and explore and experiment was a detriment to my capacity as a leader. They held promotion over my head and threatened me with its loss if I continued on my current path. I started dating this guy, and I knew I had to stick it out, or I’d suffer further shunning by the people who had taught me that their approval was everything.
I had adopted this identity that my church leaders had given me, and I had adopted their rules and messages about what was right and good, and what was bad and wrong. Even the unspoken messages are still messages. I was so determined to be seen in a particular way, that I ignored all of the warning signs. I spent 6 years in a relationship where I kept gritting my teeth, saying “it’ll work, it has to.” I didn’t know in 2012, when I wrote those words, there would come a time where what I thought, would matter at all, let alone that it would be what would matter most. I had never considered myself, in all of this. I didn’t know there would come a time where my teeth hurt from being grit too tightly, where my jaw ached and my tongue bled and I could not carry on another step without losing myself.
How wild, that we are taught to listen in this way, that we are taught to ignore our self — that our inherent self is inherently evil, whereas our leaders and our God are inherently good.
Even wider society, teaches us to listen to the shallow places, the immediate feelings and desires, without braving deeper places.
But I, we, you, are worthy of trust.
We are worthy of the deeper places.
The connection with myself should be the most important, my primary connection. This means I don’t have to be determined to be seen in a particular way, or to make it as “X” to be accepted into a circle. I need only be all that I am, and to continue learning all I am, and to continue unlearning the ways of being labelled wrong or bad.
Here’s the thing: It’s so fucking normal to date boys. (WhoAQAAehhahaWHOA what!) It’s normal to date people. To love them. To break up and move on. It's normal to experiment with love and connection. It's good to do so. It's healthy. But I was taught that it was shameful. I was taught that I was ruining myself. I was taught that I was giving my love out to too many people.
And so when this guy came, I felt like I had no other option.
I had to choose — them, their acceptance, my community... or, me.
I felt like I had no choice.
I chose them.
I read this journal entry and I wanted to rage, and cry, and to combust myself into smithereens. Sitting on the floor of my home-office, I felt such an absolute frustration with myself. How could I have let this happen? How could I have been so ignorant? How could I have missed the mark so much? I imagined all the ways it could have gone instead — I imagined breaking it off and going to New York and travelling and dating someone who was committed to doing the work and how different my life might have been. But at the same time, I felt a wave of compassion for 18-year old me.
I did the best with the information I had.
You’ve likely found yourself in a similar position — regretting a decision or a non-decision you made as a younger-version of yourself. But regret doesn’t serve us. It doesn’t allow us to grow. It doesn’t help us make better decisions next time. It keeps us living in that moment, reliving it, over and over. It keeps us festering, and wondering. It blocks up our decision making and keeps us on the defensive. I picture that young version of myself now and I just have so much compassion for her. She was doing the best with the information she had. She was doing her best to navigate a leadership culture that was trying to keep her chained. She was doing her best to seek love. She was doing her best to find nurturing spaces. She had been taught for so long how to see herself, and she was doing her best to navigate that. Sure, she didn’t need to see herself that way, but when you’ve heard something for a long time, when it’s been drilled into you outright, and subtly too, you know it’s not that easy to just do something different. So of course I made the decision I did. Of course I asked God to change a man instead of leaving him. Of course.
I’ve decided to forgive myself.
I hope you do too.
We need to forgive ourselves for the decisions we made. We were doing the best we could with the information we had. We need to choose to forgive. To move forward. To hug our child-selves and thank them for trying their best. It’s only when we forgive ourselves that we can start to come home to ourselves — to integrate the parts of ourselves that existed that make us cringe or cry or confuse us.
In Christianity, I was not the full version of myself. I was part-myself, part-who they wanted me to be.
And I forgive myself for who I was.
And I forgive myself for what I thought.
And I am so, so grateful to be here, now.