Knitting a Soul

(Initially put to paper July 8, 2015)

I know I need to write. I just don't know that I have the words for it.

I feel deep loss. I have been depressed for the past 3 or 4 weeks. I was doing fairly well for about a month after my excommunication, but then I began to feel myself sinking into a place of hurt. Soul loss.

I am having a hard time finding connection, on a spiritual level. I am having a hard time finding meaning and balance in my life again. What once was my stability, my guide, that with which I weighed and measured my life is no longer a part of it. I know I am more than my church. But for my entire life, it was the lens through which I saw the world, found value and purpose - through the guidance, teachings and directions my membership in the church pointed me.

There are things within the church I would be happy to give up, and things I need and want to hang on to. But if you were to ask me to name what those things are, I'm not sure I could. Familiarity? Community? Tradition? Stability? I don't know how to hang onto the good, and let go of the hurtful.

I wish I could just make a clean break. Push it aside and away from me. Let it go. But I'm not ready to do that. There is something holding me here. Something I can't let go of.

I worry I will get bitter and cynical. Those things don't look or feel good on me. But I feel I could easily slip into those feelings.

My loyalty is to my Savior. I've just never had to try to experience Him separate from the LDS Church. I fear letting go of something (the Church) that might, at some future time, be what I need it to be for me again. What it once was for me. But I am also appreciating the feeling of  not worrying about or answering to an organization. Answering only to myself and my Savior. What does He want from me? What do I want from me? If I cut ties with the church on an emotional and physical level, will my relationship with my Savior suffer? Will I lose more of myself than I have already?

How do I find myself outside of the confines by which I once defined myself? How do I move to find myself without losing myself?