When people ask me how I’m doing, I know I should say, “Fine.” And I usually do. I think there has only been one person who asked me that and I told her I was bored or depressed or something, but that I didn’t care enough to actually figure it out. To that person, I probably should have just said “Fine.” I guess I really just wanted to add “awkward” to my feelings repertoire.
Mostly I think I’m bored. I’ve been wanting to write something about this but it just seems like it doesn’t bother me that much to not feel anything about anything, until I sit down and start a blog post about it. And then I start to feel things. Specifically, I start to feel things about my lack of feelings. It feels bad. It feels like I’m very sad. Not with my life, but my memories of feelings make me feel sad. I start by having memories of feeling sad when I fought with my husband, or feeling really happy when one of my kids did something super amazing. I feel sad now because I miss those feelings.
So you can probably imagine that this apathy I have towards everything has extended into a lot of areas of my life. I’m tired. I’m barely Mormon right now. I still go to church (sacrament meeting) and the other two meetings I stay for about as long as I can stave off my inevitable anxiety attack. I don’t even know what the trigger is. I’m bored, but also there are people in there, lots of people, lots of people talking about feeling the spirit, about feeling charitable and kind and loving, and about caring about other people, about people we don’t know. I don’t understand and I don’t like it and it doesn’t feel right. I’ve walked out of many meetings crying because it was uncomfortable unbearable. Mothers Day 2016, they said, “Talk to your neighbor about your feelings” about a passage of scripture, and I stood up, burst into tears, and walked home, barefoot, in pouring rain.
So I stick around, close(ish) to the church, trying out coffee, trying out tea, because these things seem to help a lot of my kind of people, people I look up to, unwind and destress and have easier times navigating life. I stopped debating for hours and hours before going to R rated movies. I guess I just feel like I might just be bored and in that case, I might come back. And it’s not that I want an excuse to sin. That’s always a really popular thing to say to people who are transitioning out of the church, and I’ve heard it a lot and haven’t even told many people about my near-exit. Coffee and tea are still gross and now I don’t worry so much about dying and going to hell on the way home from the movies, but it’s not about me feeling like I’ve been missing out on things. I feel like I might come back (if the church ever lightens up on gays and stops inadvertently squashing everyone with a vag), so I’m not out of it completely. I feel bored and I feel like boredom and basically not caring is not a good reason to quit things you’ve done for 30 years. Because maybe I won’t always be bored, and maybe the church won’t always be a jerk.
There is a lot of talk of eternal life, eternal families, living forever. And so much back and forth and discord about what that actually means and what’s required. I don’t know what goes on after this life, but eternal life sounds awful. It’s comforting to people, I guess. But it makes more sense to me that we live this life and then settle down in the ground and then we are done. There is something really spectacular about that, about knowing that this is it, that this is what we get, and make the most of it. But I could just be bored.
Post-edit: Wow, that kind of came out of nowhere, and might have sounded angrier than it was supposed to. Don’t read into it.
Other than breaking up with the church (we’re actually just on a break, I think maybe), I have no motivation to do anything. Diet and exercise sounds like something extra I need to do, and so does work. I don’t avoid it because I’m not a hard worker. I wouldn’t actually say I avoid it. I just don’t know where to find the motivation for it. In the past I’ve been a very hard worker (and a lot thinner). I was always able to find a job. I have been to what seems like 5,000 interviews in the past month and a half because I feel like I should get a job. I feel like I should have something else to care about that I likely won’t care about. And the last person who interviewed me and then “went another direction” told me that I just didn’t seem to care that much about whether I got the job or not. Shock. Awe. Et cetera.
There have been a lot of really horrendous things happening in the world. I recognize that. But even these horrible things, I just can’t get myself to put together the right words. I can’t formulate anything comforting or wise. I’d like to feel awful. I wish I was tormented at night because of these things, some extra really close to home things. But I literally cannot dig anything up out of my heart to feel the right things or even fake the right things to say. Someone tell me what to say. I’d like to be that person who gives hugs at the right times and says things at the right time. The last time I saw my therapist, he said I needed a friend. I’m not sure who wants to be friends with someone who doesn’t actually value relationships, but I guess if anyone wants in, I’m here. Let me know. I’m not doing anything. Let’s talk for a minute and then ignore each other.
Peace.
And breathe. And post this.
Brittany Thinks 
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