update from sparkleup

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object.md

@@ -301,13 +301,37 @@ It's maddening. I've never been so frustrated by the fact that I felt I was putt
 
 Holding her paw! What garbage.
 
-I talk with her like I talk with strangers. I make a stranger out of myself, it seems, though she has not said anything about the way I have been acting. I reread each message countless times before sending it just to make sure that it is plausibly normal, that I am not in some way tipping my hand, that I am being kind without being intrusive, that I am being invested without being obsessed.
+I talk with her like I talk with strangers, at least whenever we near this topic. I make a stranger out of myself, it seems, though she has not said anything about the way I have been acting. I reread each message countless times before sending it just to make sure that it is plausibly normal, that I am not in some way tipping my hand, that I am being kind without being intrusive, that I am being invested without being obsessed.
 
 I am not comfortable with this change in myself, but I will continue to work on it.
 
-What we did talk about, however, was much of what I spoke about with Jeremy yesterday, about how I left seminary.
+What we did talk about, however, was much of what I spoke about with Jeremy yesterday, about how I left seminary. She knew this fact, of course. I am not secretive about my spirituality, of course, just as she is not shy about her lack thereof.
 
-(Dee talks to Kay but chickens out trying to bring up emotions, and instead brings up the topic of leaving the church)
+What she did not know, however, was that I had left willingly. At some point along the way, she had picked up on the idea that perhaps I had been ushered out unwillingly. When pressed as to why, she said, "Oh, I don't know. I suppose I had guessed that you were gay or into out-species relationships or something."
+
+My reply: "Oh goodness, no. Not something I particularly have a problem, but I can confirm that my preferences remain quite straight and quite coyote." This probably would have been the best time for me to broach the topic, but I can point to this spot definitively as where I chickened out. Instead, I continued, "What lead to that assessment? I'm curious."
+
+"I'm not sure. You're a bit hard to read, perhaps, and so I took that as there being some sort of internal conflict."
+
+"I think I'm just terrible at communicating," I replied.
+
+"Also a possibility!"
+
+From there I explained much of what I had talked about earlier, about how I started to doubt the church, rather than my faith or scriptures, and yet how my decision to leave had come suddenly enough to surprise even myself.
+
+Now that I write this and think about her comment, though, I do wonder: the administration of the seminary let me go with surprising ease. The attempts to keep me along the path to the clergy were faint at best, and I was able to simply walk away from the vocation with little impact to my standing within my own congregation and essentially no strife from the seminary itself.
+
+Why was this? In a church whose adherents continue to dwindle, why was there so little attempt to keep me around? Was it because I strove to reassure them that there were no hints of apostasy? Was it because they, on some level, agreed with me?
+
+Or was it because of me? Was it because they did not see a fit for me? For someone neurodivergent, outside the narrow spectrum of neurotypicality that they themselves held to so strongly? Was it because I was a pest? Were I to reapply, would I be welcomed back, even if I have better learned to function within society through whatever masking they might appreciate?
+
+Was I preempting them asking me to leave by leaving, myself?
+
+I don't know how I feel about this thought. I will pray on it, of course, but as much as the church is in service of God, I do not think that this is necessarily his domain.
+
+Perhaps I should get in touch with the school, or maybe some of my old classmates.
+
+I suppose this is just what I needed: another impossible social problem. At thirty, I would think that I ought to have grown out of these by now.
 
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