The Box of "Just How Things Are"

In a place like the dark and dingy bar where the 21 year-old woman sat nursing her 7&7, no one but the bartender really notices or cares why anyone else is there. It is one of the places you can go to go to be faceless and indistinguishable from the shadows.

At least this is what she told herself as she sat, staring into the cubes of ice, circling the two skinny cocktail straws with her finger and running scenarios over and over in her mind.

These were the last plans she would ever make for her life - how to end it. Each of the different ways she considered posed a variety of problems. Slashing her wrists was too dramatic and messy. A car wreck could possibly put other people in danger which she did not want to do as she didn't want to harm anyone else.

She didn't want pain either. There had been enough of that in her life. Not so much physical pain, rather it was the kind that goes far deeper where you cannot see the cuts and bruises - but it is always there, beneath the surface. So, however she did it, she wanted it to be painless and not too much trouble for anyone else. She wished there was some way that she could simply evaporate. An overdose of sleeping pills seemed the next best thing.

While wondering whether over-the-counter pills would be strong enough and how many she would have to take to do the job, she was drawn into the warm light of her cocktail. Despite the dim shadowiness of the bar, the ice cubes were like mini prisms and reflected the tiny flame of the votive candle on her table and made the tumbler actually appear as if it were lit. She momentarily forgot why she was there as she found the soft amber glow peaceful, mesmerizing, even strangely comforting.

The brief daydream took her away from her plans for a moment and she wondered how someone gets to the place where she was. How did she wind up in that dark and lonely bar, contemplating ways to end her life? She lost count of the days since she had a shower or bath. She couldn't remember the last time she curled her hair or put on make-up. Yet, it was not so very long before that she was excited with visions and plans for her future which included an education and a career.

Far away from those visions and plans for her future, she, instead, was working on a factory assembly line requiring her to wear gloves, a hair net and protective clothing. Her job was to monitor a rope of bubble gum, thick as an under-the-sink water pipe as it exited out of one monstrous machine and rolled along a conveyor belt into another.

It amazed her what the machines could do as one manufactured the bubble gum into the rope while the other cut wrapped and packaged it for selling. But as the rope was transported from one machine to another along the conveyor belt, it took a human to keep the rope straight and from bunching up and jamming the process. This is what she had done all of that day and would do the next day and the day after, until they put her on another machine where she would place little round candies in trays or something similar for eight hours except for two fifteen minute breaks and forty-five minutes for lunch.

It's the kind of job someone does if they believe they are incapable of doing anything else. Of course, it could be a summer job in between school terms while working towards an education. Even though it was the summertime, this wasn't a summer job. She wasn't working towards anything else - at least not any more.

Whatever she had loved the most, whatever she cherished would unfailingly disappear from her life. It happened too many times and the message finally sunk in - stop trying. She was finally convinced that nothing about her life was really her own, the damage could not be repaired and there was nothing to convince her it was worth continuing.

She took another sip and as she rested the glass back onto its soaked cardboard coaster, she noticed that the ice cubes had taken on a shape that resembled building blocks. It then dawned on her that the answer to her question of how she got there was hidden in the ice cubes at the very bottom of the glass, where one block is placed on top of the other until you can no longer see the foundation, but just the whole structure.

You look at the structure and think that is just the way it is, the way things are. But, sometimes, despite how it may appear, things are not the way they are supposed to be. It is not until you go back to the beginning to understand how things came to be and how they went wrong.

As she gazed into the glass, her mind drifted to a memory of a time many years ago when she was four-years old. As her eyes lost focus in the daydream, the blur transformed the glass into the window of her bedroom where she stood watching the other neighborhood children playing in the street. It would have been obvious to anyone how she was, in so many ways, just an ordinary child - so much like those outside.

Scattered around her bedroom floor were various dolls, a play kitchen stove with a plastic tea set, a slinky, an etch-a-sketch and a stuffed green dog wearing a black hat and a red bow tie that she had named Fritz.

Every day she experienced life through a veil of mystery which kept her spellbound and curious for more. Simple things, like sultry summer days, hummingbirds and bumblebees zipping around her front porch fascinated and delighted her.

Simply watching the ever-changing colors of the sky at sunset was a thrill for her. She pondered over how the sky could be so breathtakingly beautiful even with the ominousness of impending darkness at the same time. She was as amazed by the velvety texture of the bright red hibiscus flowers just outside of the front door as she was to the how and why of the moon never quite being the same as it was the night before.

She loved the smell of hot tarmac and how it glistened like a mirage on really warm days, the feeling of cool blades of grass between her toes and her first splash of the season in the inflatable paddling pool.

Each day brought new phenomena that were bigger than she had words for. So, she satisfied her curiosity with explanations generated within her own imagination.

Her days were measured not in minutes and hours but by the wax and wane of her own energy, unencumbered and without boundaries - until that moment when it was as if she were looking into a crystal ball. Between herself and the outside world was a faint and fragmented reflection of herself that revealed a divide running far deeper than could be measured in physical distances. She was too young to understand it, but it chilled her to her very core to feel that power of the invisible.

As the ice cream truck came trundling around the corner onto her street, the jingle was quickly drowned out by shrieks of excitement. Seeing the children rush to greet the truck magnified the contrast of herself alone and barely visible in the reflection. It wasn't just the sweet, cold treats that she craved. She longed to be part of that swarm to the little side window where the vendor leaned out as the children called out their selections and proudly offered payment with allowance money. She figured it must be that the whole ensemble of these somehow made the ice cream taste that much better.

Though she could see the other children, they could not see her. It was a story without words but the theme never to be forgotten and replayed in different ways from that point onwards.

The story was about how children, as they grow up, develop at least four different versions of themselves. Each of these versions are shaped through the experience of life and relationships with others.

There is the person you feel that you are, then there is the person you think you are, the person other people tell you that you are and the composite person you create in your mind based on your interactions or non-interactions with others.

Most children just live life in the version of themselves that they feel from the inside, what comes without thought but flows naturally. But, then eventually, there are demands for them to be different than how they feel in order to conform to rules of the world outside of themselves. How those demands are delivered, whether lovingly or coldly, with a comforting embrace or shouted angrily at them from a distance, play a part in shaping a child's demeanor.

In those few moments, the four-year old girl felt a new version of herself being created by the separation of herself, kept apart from the other children.

This version of herself was alien to anything she felt or thought. The pane of glass became a symbol for a barrier which would have never come to her naturally. It was taught and enforced. The barrier divided the saved from the unsaved, the righteous from the evil. It divided those going to heaven on one side from those going to hell on the other.

In the days and years to follow, the gap between herself and the world would continue to widen. That magical sense of awe and mystery of the nature surrounding her began to fall away as she slowly tuned out the version of herself she felt from inside to focus on the reality taught to her by her mother - the daughter of a Pentecostal minister. She was reminded quite forcefully on a daily basis that Jesus was going to return to earth and gather the believers. It was the rapture that would happen any day, any moment, that consumed her thoughts.

And, just like the smell of pancakes and sausages while her mother cooked breakfast or the crisp feel of her clothes after being washed and ironed, talk of the pending rapture was woven into the everyday household conversations and rituals. It was discussed as if it was expected at any moment and as ordinary as traffic and termites.

As the years went on, the young girl spent countless summer hours alone under a sprawling oak tree and reading the Bible, especially the book of Revelation. The prophecies were dark, even frightening but the thrill from reading them kept her occupied for hours on end as she waited for the heavens to open, trumpets to sound, angels to appear and believers such as herself to be taken up to heaven in the blink of an eye.

She, then, tried to imagine what eternity in heaven would be like, thinking as far forward as she could and then beyond that and, again, beyond that. Day after day, she waited and filled her time and her diary with thoughts about the Bible and her love for Jesus.

In this ultra-fundamentalist landscape, the world and the reality in which it was experienced was simple. It went like this. The only truth was the Bible. The only reality was the way the world and all living things were described in the Bible. All answers to life could be found in the old and new testaments.

The young girl, herself, was meant to fit into a pre-formed mold where there were rigid walls conscripting what she would be, how she would live and the meaning of her existence.

On the few occasions that she showed signs of deviating from the template, she was quickly and forcefully reminded of the reason for her being – to follow the Bible as the word of God, to resist the devil/Satan/Lucifer (all of the names this representative of the dark force goes by), to be an obedient daughter which meant serving the Lord in the manner her parents prescribed, and to spread the gospel so as many people could be saved as possible before the day of judgement. The only version of herself allowed to thrive was the person others told her that she was. Therefore, it became essential to bury whatever felt like a natural and real part of her personality underneath this required exterior.

She was reminded daily that there was a constant and endless battle over her soul. The battle was between Jesus and the devil and it was outside of her control. Past midnight, when the house was dark and everyone was in bed was when the battle was the fiercest. The middle of the night was when the little girl felt the most vulnerable and it was when the devil was the most scary and persistent. She had been told that Satan can take over your body and mind and make you do things against your will, very bad things. This thought consumed her.

Sometimes terror seized her when she was alone in the dark. Getting out of bed, even to go down the hall, was out of the question, just in case she should happen to glance into a mirror. Fearful that she might see a demon in the reflection, she would lie petrified and still, paralyzed by her imaginings. She wondered about the thoughts running through her head. Were they her own or were they whispers of a demon telling her things?

This chilling thought that her body and mind could become the vessel for this sinister intruder and the list of things it might make her do often kept her awake. She felt she must constantly remain on guard against this invisible, insidious and relentless predator.

She stopped asking her parents for comfort since they only confirmed that the devil was real and her fear and worry were justified. So, she kept a night light glowing like an ever-burning vigil near her bed, hoping this would be enough light to keep the devil away. As an extra safeguard, she did her best to confine her thoughts to only safe things such as reciting bible verses or softly singing hymns to herself.

The constant focus on Jesus and the Bible cast a shadow over every single activity. It was also her only safeguard against the fears ever present in her mind. The persisting spiritual battle left such a narrow perimeter in which to live her life, eclipsing things like confidence in herself and simple joys.

There was no chance she would ever be just an ordinary kid.

She was told that, even though she could not see him, Jesus was everywhere. He was always watching and judging her every thought and action. She accepted her parents' words as truth. But then, what four-year old doesn't?

The idea of having someone continuously watching her made her anxious and self-conscious. But, along with so many other things, her anxiety and self-consciousness went into that box of “just how things are” and, as part of the reality of this world in her head that had been created for her. She learned to live with it.

The young girl noticed that very few of the children at school shared the same Jesus-devil, rapture consciousness that consumed her. But, she had been told, again with authority, that anyone, including children, who did not believe these things would be punished for eternity. There was a lake of fire. There would be gnashing of teeth and banging of heads on brimstone. Not wishing for anyone including herself to be sentenced to this horrible existence, it became her personal mission to convert as many classmates as possible.

First they had to ask forgiveness for being a sinner because everyone is a sinner. The second was to accept Jesus Christ as the one who has saved you from your sins. Then, finally, you must obey the rules. Everything was in terms of extremes. Even the tiniest action or simplest thought had an extreme consequence. There were rules to follow and sins to be avoided. Some of these were:

Playing cards - which, assumed to be associated with gambling and fortune telling, were not even allowed in the house
Going to the movies - for the bad influences
Dancing - including ballet and tap dancing because it allows weakness where the devil can take you over
Wearing make-up of any kind, it's unnatural and provokes evil things like vanity
Listening to any secular, non-gospel music, with the exception of classical
Having pierced ears for being a defilement of God's creation
Lying - not just morally and ethically wrong - but a sin
Smoking - not just bad for health - but a sin
Drinking alcohol of any kind and any quantity. This was not about health but it was about toxicity of the soul and the assumption that all drinking leads to getting drunk. Alcohol was a sin.

Her mother made it clear that not only was the little girl not to do these things, she wasn't to mingle with other children who did or whose parents did. If the rapture were to happen while she was with a friend who did these things or at a house where these activities took place, she might get left behind. So, people who did things on the sin list were treated as if they had a disease and were to be avoided, except to try to convert them.

And, when she asked her mother why it had to be that way, the answer was always the same. With angry eyes, elbows flared and hands anchored firmly on her hips, she'd reply "that's just how things are."

With science and most of literature outside of the Bible being considered secular, both unworthy of study and untrue, it became impossible to do well in school or to evolve a social life naturally. To the outside world, she was an oddball. It was a very narrow perimeter in which she could live her life with very few freedoms and an excess of judgement at home. She, in turn, learned to be judgemental and could not relate to others in a normal way.

Instead of growing out of them, these distinctions only became more magnified over time. School increasingly became a social nightmare, something to endure and agonizingly so. Like Paul in the Bible and the persecutions he suffered in prison, she was assured that this was part of the sacrifice for her faith and, though seemingly unbearable at times, it would be worth it in the afterlife. As she felt helpless to change any of it anyway, she learned to live with it. Although, it did mean finding a variety of alternative routes to walk home from school to avoid being beat up by the bullies.

With her family, she attended church almost every day of the week, There were Bible studies, socials, choir, and revival meetings. Outside of going to church, praying or reading the Bible, there were no activities that were guilt-free.

There was an ongoing tug-of-war with other emerging interests (or “wild ideas” as her mother called them). First, she wanted to be a ballet dancer - which was just plain devil's work. Then, there was ice skating for which she seemed to have a natural talent.

Speeding around the rink and feeling the cold air on her face felt like the closest you could get to flying without leaving the ground. In a very short time, she had taught herself how to spin on one foot and do small jumps. But, ice skating was an occasional church social thing to do and never meant to be anything else. For her to develop her skills, to actually be good enough to compete as a figure skater would set her apart and take her outside of that die-cast she was meant to fit into. Plus, it would take away from church time. Being an ice skater was out of the question.

When she discovered tennis during PE at school, she found out she had a knack for that and, though it did not give her quite the same thrill as ice skating, it would be a nice substitute. She could build on her skills and play competitively - or so she thought. Butanythingoutside of the church that required parental support, involvement or investment was taboo. Eventually, she too accepted her mother's designation of herself as a "dreamer" and learned not to take herself or her interests too seriously either.

She was a girl and "growing up a godly woman" was supposed to be the singular most important focus in her life. Everything else was secondary. Even though things happened that greatly upset her, such as the hypocrisy she witnessed and the absolute hatefulness and abuses of some people, even from family members and within the church. It did not matter whether she was happy or miserable or even whether she was treated or felt like she belonged to the group. One thing was clear. She had no other choice.Whatever hardships she had, they were meant to be endured with faith and gratitude. Some of these hardships were constantly being bullied both at church and at school. Then, there was her frustration from not being allowed to join any girl clubs outside of the church because they were seen as having too "secular" of a focus. If she dared to be honest with herself, she felt cheated. But whatever bad feelings she had over her isolation and not being allowed to participate in normal social activities most certainly came from the devil inside her head, trying to tempt her away.

"For every problem you think you have in your life," her mother told her, "you should think about Job in the Bible, he had it much worse than you." The stock solution for every crisis was either comparison with someone in the Bible, a verse, a passage and prayer. It mostly came down to giving all her worries over to Jesus, as she was assured and comforted by the knowledge that he would take care of them.

A girl soon grows up and, Incrementally, she began to see and started paying more attention to the life outside of the walls of her house and outside the rituals of the church. She reasoned that, unless the rapture happened before graduation from high school, it would not be possible to survive on just reading the Bible and praying.

Or The death of a dream

In her senior year of high school, the young woman was hit with another "wild idea". She had fallen in love - with the French language. She had only enrolled in the class to meet her foreign language requirements but it was a delightful surprise to discover how much she enjoyed it.

Learning French provided a new way of speaking and thinking. It seemed to come easily to her. It was not long before she was even dreaming in French - which amused her.

France was a different part of the world, far away from where she was. She would often close her eyes and imagine what it would be like to be there.

She didn't realize it at the time, but immersing herself in the French language studies awakened a new version of herself from within. It opened a new window through which she could see herself outside of the cloistered existence of her home, the church and even the bullies.

Speaking French unleashed a sense of passion and a vibrancy within herself she had not remembered feeling before in her life. Studying the French culture was strangely seductive and titillating. Though she would have never admitted it out loud for fear of sacrilege, it is possible that she did so well because it was an escape to neutral territory, away from the constant judgement and the extremes.

At the end of the first term, a very exciting thing happened. She was so good at French that her teacher recommended her for a study program in Provence.

She was thrilled! The recommendation and prospect of studying in France almost made up for every bad thing that she endured. Being truly successful at something had its own form of redemption.

However, the study abroad program required parental permission and it cost money - money that she didn't have. Though her parents could afford it, in their view, it was just another wild idea and much too "worldly" of a thing for their daughter to do. Who knows what influences she might get from the other students or from living in a foreign country?

But it was the best way to truly master the French language. And, being fluent would open up a whole new world for her, she argued. She could teach. It could pave the way to an interesting potential future in international relations, working for the UN or for a global organization. Keeping in line with her upbringing, it would have been useful even as a missionary’s wife in French speaking countries.

Despite the argument for all the positives, those with the money and power to choose for her decided their daughter did not need a whole new world opened up for her by studying in France. "You don’t always get what you want," her mother admonished, brushing the whole idea off in the same tone as she would respond to her daughter's wish for a new dress or a new pair of shoes when she was a child.

So, not going to France was another item with the label “just how things are” which was shoved in her face, along a demand that the program not be mentioned again.

Instead, the young woman got a job as a waitress. She never understood why studying in France was forbidden for the possible bad influences she might encounter, yet her parents were fine about it when she got a job serving food to drunks, derelicts and truck drivers while working the graveyard shift at a coffee shop.

In one pocket of her uniform, she kept her tips and order form. In the other, she carried a tiny New Testament as a sort of talisman to protect her from the dangers of the world in the middle of the night.

One night a customer at the coffee shop asked her why she was so happy, always had a smile on her face. Her answer was that she had Jesus. Like the eye of the storm, it was her focus on Jesus who kept her looking up in the face of all the cruelties and corruption around her.

The Bible said that when people hurt you, you turn the other cheek. When she was 12 years old, it was the worst day in her life when her mother killed her dog in front of her to teach it a lesson. Then, in the same year, and in what can only be construed as a blatant and horrible betrayal of trust, the bullying went way too far and a youth leader at the church violated her. That same night, he led a youth Bible study and prayer group as if nothing had happened.

After that, her teachers at school never wondered why she seemed distracted, why she didn't do homework, and couldn't seem to concentrate. They simply ridiculed her and accused her of being lazy. But, it hurt to concentrate. It made her feel as if her head was going to explode.

They labelled her an underachiever and recommended that she see a psychologist to help find out what was hindering her motivation. But psychologists were tools of the devil in her mother's opinion.

On the young girl's part, she could only reason that these terrible occurrences must have been trials sent to test her faith. It was also an early lesson that things like dignity and self-esteem were insignificant and non-essential. Whatever thoughts and feelings she had about what happened to her, they were not important compared to being a disciple of Christ. And, being a disciple made anything that happened to her inconsequential. In heaven, they would not matter. So, they should not matter now. These events and her feelings about them all went into the "just how things are” box and, though not without tears and plenty of them, she turned the other cheek.

When the pastor of the church their family attended was caught and confronted for embezzling, half of the congregation attributed it to a moment of weakness and to the devil’s temptations. The other half viewed his actions as unpardonable. Within her own household, the incident was another thing that was thrown into the "just how things are” box. Refusing to see him as anything but a "godly man", her mother insisted that their family still support him both financially and with their loyal presence when he started a new church.

This "just how things are” box was a receptacle for any uncomfortable truths that complicated life with deviation from the expectations of what should be. The box was a deep, black abyss in which things would be thrown and forgotten. Being able to dispose of what was confusing or undesirable made it easier to keep a focus on the simplicity of the rules. The one thing that was missing from the "just how things are” box was accountability. But, in a place where forgiveness absolves the need for answers or justice, accountability isn’t required.

So, the young woman was working at the coffee shop and she was good at it. So good that they took her off the graveyard shift and put her onto the dinner shift.

Around the time she started working as a waitress, she had also begun spending time with a friend. He was her first real friend outside of the church, a non-believer. But, she liked the way that he thought deeply about things and was not afraid to explore and analyze different philosophies and beliefs to try and understand them.

Sometimes they walked around the mall together. They would go into a bookstore and he showed her different books on philosophies and religions. He would tell her about the latest theory he was reading, his enjoyment of metaphysics and ponderings over the origins of the universe. Normally, she should have found this kind of talk as dark and alarming, as if coming from an agent of the devil. But, instead, she found his enthusiasm and curiosity inspiring and calming.

Their friendship created a safe haven to ask herself the questions she dare never ask before. And, with him, the answers were more exploratory and more about "what if?" rather than the rigidity that she was used to. It was the first time that she fully allowed herself to toy with the idea that maybe there was more to life and the purpose of human existence than the over-simplified ideology she was forcefully expected to accept as truth.

She had been raised with the austerity of absolutes. He had been raised with and encouraged to have an open mind, to think in terms of possibilities with regards to spirituality and religion. Though there was not always agreement, the discussions provided a new avenue for thought and opened up a refreshing and much less harsh, black or white, way to view the world.