How My Dreams Changed
What do I do now? That’s what I really wanted to know when I turned 28, and things began to change dramatically in my life yet again. I had made a drastic and unexpected decision to re-enter the Catholic Church. I was finished with school after being a student almost my entire life. My biological clock was ticking, and suddenly I could really feel it. I had spent several months debating heavily whether to try and move to New York and dive into the more competitive art world there. Or maybe I’d better move somewhere else in the world, toss the dice, and take whatever college teaching job I could get. That was the best way to get into the professor business, after all.
At the same time, when I was honest about it, I had a sort of family feeling about myself. It ran counter to everything I had been telling myself for years. I had always believed up until then that my art career was THE most important goal in my life. I thought my identity as an artist was the highest and most special thing about me. I had sacrificed so much for it. To my anguish, I had even gotten an abortion when I was in college, for fear that having the baby would get in the way of my dreams of artistic success. Now, particularly in light of my conversion to Catholicism, everything was starting to look very different.
The old familiar dream of living in NY and ‘making it’ in the art-world had a tinge of bitterness for me now. It still appealed to my sense of pride—I knew I was good, and I could certainly do it. Yet ever since I had begun to give my life over to Christ, little by little, the glamour of prestige and praise had been steadily losing its power over me. Even though The Big Apple was just a quick bus ride away from where I lived in Philadelphia, I didn’t even feel like visiting anymore.
I hadn’t lost my passion by any means—but my perspective on my work life had changed. Somehow making it on the ‘world-stage’ wasn’t the end-all-be-all of existence anymore. Obviously, there was something bigger, and I wanted to be a part of it—yet I knew it didn’t gel with my former aspirations.
It was a tough decision. I had a lot going for me in Philadelphia. I was making art, showing in galleries and teaching students independently now. I had a job selling art supplies which I quite enjoyed. I had the quintessential urban loft studio situation, making large scale art in a repurposed factory building in a budding artists’ enclave in North Philly. I also adored my recovery community, working every day to help addicts turn their lives over to Christ with zeal and abandon. I had just found an amazing community of believers at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, and was falling in love with the faith. Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly-shove” as my sponsor called it—the grungy, post-industrial melting-pot with its historic buildings and down-to-earth working class vibe was the setting for all of that. Plus, New York City was just an hour and a half away. My roommate even had a marketing job over there, commuting in a couple days a week. Certainly I could break into that scene if I stuck around. I could show my work in New York—an artist’s benchmark of success. It seemed like the sky was the limit on what I could do and become.
Yet after much heavy-hearted and serious deliberation, I realized that I was being called back to Seattle. Part of me hated the idea. How could I give up on all these opportunities? Yet, in the still, quiet recesses of my heart, I was yearning to go back. One night, after I had prayed to God to please let me know what I should do for the umpteenth time, I woke up startled from a half-sleep to a loud, internal voice that said, clear as a bell: “YOU CAN GO HOME NOW.”
That did it. I knew exactly what I needed to do: go home and be with my family; be a good aunt and a good sister and a good daughter; figure out how to actually live as a Catholic, and ultimately learn how create a family of my own. This was really what I wanted most in the world.
I called my dad and, having just retired, he was elated to come and help me move back. We decided to make a road trip of it. He flew out to meet me and we loaded up my things into a U-Haul and headed back across the country. It was an an intense trip, being in that truck cabin with my dad for nine days in a row. We visited historic sites. It was healing.
We visited Akron, the ‘mecca’ of 12-step recovery. We visited the house of ‘Dr. Bob’, co-founder of the original 12-step group, Alcoholics Anonymous, which was now a little museum run by volunteers. We went to a meeting of the oldest existing AA group in the country, ‘The King’s School Group,’ founded back in the 30’s when the original Akron group got too big to be held at Dr. Bob’s house on Ardmoor street. We talked about the Catholic faith and about recovery. We saw the country—a complete cross section of it. I painted it in watercolors looking out the window of the truck cabin.
Finally, I was beginning to get a real idea of who I am; where I come from. Everything made sense. It was beautiful. It felt like the honeymoon of my faith. I was so happy that I felt a little scared, to be honest. I felt I could die at anytime, and that would honestly be okay with me. I was floating on winged feet to Holy Mass or Adoration almost every day; reading the Catechism, learning to pray the Rosary, and to going to Confession as often as I could—every couple of days, in fact. I couldn’t get enough.
Changing Goals Bring New Challenges
Then, as things do in this life, that golden period began to pass. I had made a wonderful new beginning, but now the real challenges of my new direction in life were setting-in. Catholicism as an ideal was still unassailably attractive, yet actually applying Catholic teaching and morality in all areas of life presented new difficulties. I still had so much baggage. Not only that, after a year or so of getting my feet wet; learning how to do everything in my life as a Catholic, I had now set my sites on the main attraction: marriage. Yet I had no idea how to handle myself or what to do.
Emotionally, I was basket case. I burst into tears around people a lot (still do sometimes). I couldn’t always tell if I was dressed appropriately or modestly (looking back, I often wasn’t). I said things that were obvious and natural to me and people looked at me like I had three heads (not always a bad thing, but still kinda tough to deal with). I felt as strange to my new social life as a sensitive, inexperienced teenager—but I was now in my 30s–and the clock was ticking even faster. I knew I wanted to get married and have a family, but how could I do it?
I’d had a lot of experience with men in the past. I’d been in more relationships than I care to recount here. I had been very much in love several times. I had lived with various men, sometimes for years. I had been willing—expected—to marry a particular man at least once. Yet, never had I experienced anything like chastity in a relationship. Never had I practiced anything like Christian dating or courtship. Now, newly reformed and ready to live a chaste, moral, sober Catholic life—and become happily married—I had no clue how to go about it.
Obviously, there were many things I had to learn. I only hoped that God would make it possible for me to catch up before it was too late for me. He did help me—but I had to deliberately and strenuously go against what I had previously been taught, and what I had long practiced up until then.
To find out more, read on in Dating as Countercultural (part 2).
Grow Up and Marry! 