Last week I reached a fun milestone that I have done only one other time in my life- reaching 100,000 miles driven by me in my car. It might sound silly but I love numbers and have been anticipating this 6 digit spread on my dashboard for the last few weeks. I was nervous I would be hitting this milestone while in the throes of onsetting Norovirus but I was able to hit that 100k without spewing puke everywhere. Although with the slew of illnesses I’ve dealt with while driving my car to and from LA’s network of Urgent Cares (strep throat c, carpet beetle hives, diverticulitis, etc) it did seem fitting that almost reaching that number was in step with another “how did I get this one” illness.
The last time I hit 100k was with my old silver Honda Accord that I got when I was 16. A car that allowed me the first freedoms of slowly stepping away from religion. A car that let me drive to shows that were not held in churches, smoke a cigarette for the first time and a car that got me to Los Angeles in the first place. But it was still a car that drove me to church every week, sometimes multiple times a week and a car that was by my side during my entire Christian college experience. Even though I was unknowingly leaving my religion, that car was still driving me to the pulpit.
However this car never has driven me to church. Since getting it I have not attended one church service and it’s the clearest indication of how wide the gap that separates me from “Bible Beth.” This car has given me over ten years of the best and worst memories and turned Los Angeles into my lifelong home. Every single one of those one hundred thousand miles have been driven in the state of California. During my tenure of driving this car I’ve proudly ran two marathons and was diagnosed with a colon disease on New Year’s Eve at the absolute height of LA covid. I also recently found a parking spot directly in front of the apartment I lost my virginity in, something that never actually happened while I was dating that person but also another indicator of how far I’ve come since owning this car. The person I was when I came here is over 100,000 miles from the person I am today and for the first time that former person feels like a stranger. It feels like at every stage of maturing there’s still something about the former age that felt tangible to me, whether it be music or friends. But for the most part who I am right now is godless and loves Harry Styles. I have nothing to prove to anyone with a band I downloaded on Limewire anymore and the thrill of winning a theological debate is so outdated to me that I even groan that my younger self felt so immersed in that world.
I think the scars of religion follow everyone who is ex-evangelical and it’s truly a if you know, you know scenario. Sure we are all familiar with youth group but I’m sad for the teenager I could have been if she was just allowed to show her bellybutton and say damn instead of being forced into speaking in tongues and making purity pledges. There’s a line in a song on Taylor Swift’s new album where she sings with a cracking voice to “give her back her girlhood” and it strikes me every time I hear it from the perspective of wanting my girlhood back from the church that stole it from me. They stripped me from thinking my body was mine and forced me to believe it belonged to some spiritual man floating around in the heavens. Purity culture would say it’s designed to keep people from having the dreaded and sinful sex before marriage but its design is inherently dangerous to a person’s health. From not getting the HPV vaccine till my early thirties- something that will actually kill me rather than their forced perception that having sex before marriage will send me to hell- to just the general knowledge of sex education, purity culture can cause lifelong complications to a person’s body. I can viscerally remember one of my pastors telling the guys in our Sunday School class that their wives are impure if they don’t bleed on their wedding night, something anatomically false and a dangerous way to embolden men with violence against women.
As a teenager I never allowed myself to live in my body and at times it even felt like my body carried shame because it desired sex. Having big boobs was hard because a lot of my church was into dancing and jumping around during worship but I had it so engrained in me that no matter how many sports bras I wore, it was still scandalous to have my double d’s bouncing around in full sight of some Joshua who might stumble watching them. I also do believe it gave me an excuse to not jump up and down during worship because I also… did not want to. It never appealed to me and because of that I always felt like a sinner because why can’t I feel God? What about me is stopping him from moving me like my peers, all joyfully jumping and crying with their hands raised?
I never felt anything in church which was grounds for speculation that I was sinning or worse that for some reason God didn’t want me. Tying into the fact that deeply embedded into my brain chemistry was thoughts of abandonment it was truly a detrimental experience that held onto me throughout my teenage years. Maybe, pastors, it is bad to communicate to young people who are still forming frontal lobes that just because you’re not feeling some deep tingling sensation that you are in fact a Bad Person who Will Burn Forever. Maybe there is other stuff going on that we can’t just throw up to “God” and walk away because we aren’t actually treating the problem, just deflecting it to the air.
So 100,000 miles later and I’m still writing about the crevices in which religious trauma is still hiding within my body at the same time loving my body more than ever. Loving who I am as an adult and grateful my girlhood was salvaged by my womanhood. As my the miles click higher and higher I am reminded how far I’ve come in a world that still holds so many people hostage to imaginary beliefs that are detrimental to their mental health. A few weeks ago it felt so freeing to jump around at a Harry Styles concert without abandonment because it felt like I was healing from all those years of forced worship services where moving like that felt sinful. And I can also boldly say I felt more that night than I did in almost 20 years of church.
Things I HAD TO Google While Writing This Newsletter:
La Roche Posay moisturizer because it literally healed my skin barrier and I’ve been out for weeks but I’m too lazy to get someone at Target to come and open the locked shelf for me (did not buy)
Vintage Florida Marlins Gear because I am going to watch more Marlins games this year and am excited for their Friday games in which they will now be wearing their vintage colors (also did not buy)
The Dodgers promotional giveaway calendar
Hoka running shorts for my upcoming half marathon in April (did not buy)
“Country Gentlemen Aesthetic”…… stay tuned
Copywriting jobs at Pleasing (coming for you Harry) (also any copywriting jobs, they don’t have to be related to the fruit man)
Two quick Facebook Marketplace check ins in which I found nothing
And this Caroline Calloway mini doc on Vice that I was only able to make it to minute 15 before exiting out