"Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."
~~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I came across the above quote by Emerson this morning while browsing the internet. I posted it on my Facebook wall, as is my habit, but for some reason, I couldn't get the quote out of my thoughts, and I ruminated about the way this applies to my life, and to my recovery from Mormonism.
I took a big step a couple of weeks ago, and applied for grad school. Making this move in my life is a huge deal for me, one of the most pivotal steps in reclaiming my life, my identity, and in discovering what I want to be "when I grow up".
You see, when I was a little girl, like millions of other little Mormon girls, nobody every asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. For a Mormon girl, there's only one right answer; one thing that God has in mind for you, and that is to be a wife and a mother. I performed this duty right on cue, doing everything this role encompasses. I never even dreamed that I could have been something else, that I might have wanted to be a teacher, a doctor, a therapist, an artist, a dancer, a cruise ship director, or a scientist.
Don't get my wrong, I have no problem with a woman (or man for that matter) being a stay at home parent, if that is their choice. The key word here, is choice. Some will say that I always had a choice, and I suppose that they are right, if I wanted to disappoint God, and disobey Him, thereby earning his wrath and losing my ticket to heaven. I did as I was commanded, and didn't even bother to dream of anything else.
In the 2 1/2 years since leaving Mormonism, I have changed a great deal. I feel like I have woken up from a long sleep and stepped into a colorful world, full of stunning, interesting people, and innumerable options for the rest of my life. I am attacking life with zest, with enthusiasm, like a starving refugee, presented with a mouth-watering buffet. Still, there's been a sadness in my soul, a weight, filled with regret for all of the years which had been stolen from me. I spent so many years living a lie, years which I will never get back.
As I talk to other women, I feel this same burden in their hearts, a grief that is so profound that it nearly takes one's breath away. What might we have been? What would we have dreamed of being when we were young, had we been allowed to dream? How can we possibly ever be made whole? The sad (or happy) fact is that we can't change the past. Like flowing water, like fluid seas, the past has gone, moved on to another realm, and we cannot get it back.
But, and this is what touched me today about the Emerson quote, I can stop being a slave to my past. What use are tears shed over a career that I might have had? They benefit me nothing. Certainly there is grieving to be done, as there is after any trauma, but, if I weep too long, sorrow too much, or hold this weight in my soul, then my past of Mormonism is still my master. So now, in my new life, my rebirth, I will plunge deep into the sublime seas of my future, and swim far. I will live the dreams of the little girl inside me, who has aged a bit now (or a lot), seize my power, and overlook the old.
I will make a difference in this new life of mine. I will live, I will dream, I will wear flowers in my hair, I will soar, I will dance, I will twirl in circles in a field of daisies, I will spread sparkly fairy dust over the whole world, I will sing, I will roar, and I will rejoice, for I am shackled no longer.
