I closed my steno pad after the most recent entry, fully intending that that would be the last entry that I would write. The discernment, after all, was complete, even if only for a little while, and I no longer needed to puzzle it out on paper.
"That's bullshit and you know it," Jeremy laughed when I told him this fact.
I felt my ears redden. "You think I'll keep writing about it?"
"Of course I do, Dee. It's just how you work. I think you reached a milestone with this, and I'm honestly proud of you. You were always courageous, you know. You can think of it like a hill, you had to push and push and push through enough, and you kept doing so even if you didn't really know you were. Then you hit the tipping point at the top of the hill and that courage came through and did its job."
I nodded and mumbled a thanks.
"So, yes, you reached a milestone, but the work isn't over, I think. Are you ready to just drop back into your old friendship with Kay?"
After a moment's thought, I shook my head. "No. It's changed things plenty. The last few days feel like a renegotiation of boundaries. It feels like we're both being really careful around the other."
"Right," he said. "I imagine you'll have to learn how to be friends again, and that that friendship will look different."
"You think I should keep journaling on it, then?"
"I don't think you have a choice, bud," he laughed. "The stuff you sent me was you doing your best to process all of this, and I could see the work taking place. You just admitted the work will continue, so, yeah, keep it up. And anyway, you talk about your advisor saying that he would have been concerned if you *were* losing your faith, and Kay says that you writing her an email to tell her how you feel is the most you thing ever. I think you're basically stuck journaling."
It was my turn to laugh. "Right, right, okay. I'll keep it up, then."
"And hey, you can pull a lot of your thoughts on discernment and such out into a book or hell, clean these up and turn them into a memoir. It's not like this stuff is useful to only you."
That's been lingering with me, but I remain unsure. I could, yes, and maybe it would provide some sort of entertainment, but that would mean going through and editing everything up. Even just the process of transferring notes from paper to computer so that I could email them to Jeremy had been rough enough, being confronted by that Dee of a few months back, struggling with the most basic language of actually liking someone.
I do agree with the first point that Jeremy made, though. I really ought to keep journaling. It's good for me, and I don't think I could ever really stop, after going through this.
So, yes. The work continues.
Kay broached the subject of stopping by UI Sawtooth for a concert some day and spending a bit of time together. The doors to friendship remain open, and I don't imagine that it will be intolerably awkward, but it will still present challenges. Would hugging be too awkward? Should we spend the whole trip together much like we did the last one?
As the next step of my spiritual discernment, I have reached out to the parish priest about offering free mental health counseling to less fortunate members of the congregation or those who stop by the mission the church runs in town and he is going to set up a meeting with the bishop of the diocese to see if there's space for such in a church-sanctioned context. I think that I would be happy enough to volunteer such on my own. It's not the spiritual counseling that I had once planned on after my undergrad, but it is something far more in my area of expertise and comfort.
All these things are part of the work, though. Work is part of life, and life goes on. I still see my clients. I still watch videos and talk about my days with Kay. I still go to mass. I still think about the past year when I write. I still get rides out to the edge of Sawtooth or over to a trail head and walk until my feet ache and I am gasping in the pine-scented, dusty air.
