a freedom all my own

I hadn’t meant to. I really hadn’t wanted to do a lot of things in my life. I hadn’t wanted to spend every weekend of my childhood water skiing. I hadn’t wanted to play Monopoly as my family’s only source of bonding (the game often did more harm than good). I hadn’t wanted to date my first girlfriend, she had this odd cheese like smell. I hadn’t wanted a dog for my 10th birthday, I had asked very clearly for a hairless cat. I hadn’t wanted to study theology in college and I most certainly hadn’t ever had an ounce of desire in my heart to become a minister.

But I had done all of these things. Some out of my own volition, but most out of others. I didn’t want to disappoint. You know when you’re a child and you break the flower vase after you father has told you thirty-two and a half times to stop running in the living room? Then he looks at you, riddled with a very obvious sort of anger, and says “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.” That shit was the fucking worst, wasn’t it? I wish more people got angry at me instead of disappointed. Anger is powerful, so powerful, that we can’t hang on to it for all that long. It’s like a wave, it consumes us, and then it’s moved on, probably never to be seen again. But disappointment, well he is a very different being. Disappointment drills a hole very quietly, very slyly into the side of your head. And he lodges himself in your mind. He cooks breakfast lunch and dinner, watches movies, plays darts, reads the daily paper in your mind. That little twerp will live a full and happy life in your mind if you never address. And while he’s cooking and throwing darts and reading, he’s also infecting his host. Disappointment is what made my father show up to every one of my stupid little league games with the expectation of my failure. Disappointment is what made me become a minister. But my dad was the head of the church and it was expected that I did…so I did.

I bet you’re thinking, you sure swear quite a bit for being a minister… is that allowed? And I would say no it’s probably not allowed, but I’m not a minister anymore. And also, to be fair, I was a pretty shitty minister even when I was one. I would swear like a sailor in my mind. I was doing pre-marital counseling for this couple one time- which now that I think about it made no fucking sense whatsoever because my mind was the furthest thing from marriage at the time. I had the least business telling them how to approach theirs. Anyways, even to an idiot like me it was pretty clear they shouldn’t be getting married. It came out later that the guy was involved in an affair at the time… he probably still it now. Anyways, they just kept talking and talking until we were two hours over our meeting time. I didn’t have the heart to kick them out though. I didn’t want to disappoint, you know. I got so annoyed at one point I started cussing them out in my head. Now, using the sage wisdom that comes with age, I can see that I should have just told them, politely, that I had another appointment coming up soon and would see them next week. But at the spry age of 23 I didn’t do that. I hurled ungodly insults at them in my mind. I’m a tragedy.

Defrocked, they called it - when they fire you from the ministry I mean. I thought that was such a strange word when I first heard it. Annoying, really. There’s a lot of words that annoy me. Specifically, pretentious ones. Defrock sounds awfully pretentious doesn’t it? It sounds French, and French people are almost always pretentious. It sounds like it would watch the school bully steal your lunch and then tell you were foolish to get school lunch anyways. It’s garbage food, Defrock would say, that’ll give you diabetes. Defrock, what a bastard.

I’m still not entirely sure why or how exactly I was defrocked. I think it had something to do with the premarital sex I was having and the considerable amount of weed I was smoking. I wish I could tell you that I feel just rotten about the whole thing, but I don’t. My girlfriend is really pretty phenomenal, and we enjoy engaging in some sexual relations from time to time. Sue me. Also, weed is fucking good. I don’t feel like I need to say much more.

I was defrocked on a Thursday afternoon. We had our pastor meetings on Thursday afternoons in the moldy little room that always had the ac on way to high. They lasted like three hours and they were one of the many banes of my existence. God however, who despite my nihilistic outlook I know to be very much real, smiled down upon me on said Thursday afternoon. The defrocking… defrockment… defrockenization took place at the very beginning of the three-hour meeting. I don’t quite remember all that was said, just that my father had the same look on his face that he had when I broke vases as a child. That fucker disappointment.

I remember being kind of disoriented as I walked out of the church, across the parking lot, up to my car. I felt so light, gravity had ceased to affect me. I was fearful and overwhelmed, not because I was experiencing such a grand loss but because I was experiencing such a gain. At this current moment, my father was probably the most disappointed he could ever be. The worst had happened and yet, here I stood, alive and well. I was invincible.

As I unlocked my car, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the facts that I hadn’t wanted this car- I hadn’t wanted to be a minister and I hadn’t wanted this car. My father had suggested it He had also paid for it. It had been a gift for completing seminary. It was a 2005 Toyota Prius. Great gas mileage, terrible acceleration. And as a man of 25 years, I must admit, acceleration is a bit more important than gas mileage.

“Bust the window”.

I would’ve sworn I heard the voice of God. Now I’m fairly certain it was not the voice of God, but actually the voice of my own impulsivity. Still, I listened.

I popped open the trunk… the hatchback I suppose, and I ripped out the bag of golf clubs my parents had given me for Christmas that year. Coolly, I pulled out the driver, clasped two hands around its base, and swung it around a few times like a bat. Then, I smashed in every window of that 2004, fuel efficient Prius.

And I walked home. The owner of something that I wanted. A freedom all my own.