I guess a good question to ask now is what were these two lives. Now, this is a very difficult question for me to explore because as I said in my first entry I am just arriving at where I was before this "trip" so this is still very fresh. In any case, this blog is yet another way for me to clear this part of my life so here it is.
One life is an associate pastor that seems to be made for the job. In that role I bend over backwards to do everything right and learn my job well. I mean, I genuinely enjoy it I love aspects of it, it really is within what I feel to be my "call". So the image projected onto me is a very idealized version of a perfect person who happens to look like me. Apparently some people think the world of me and I seem to be showing them they are right. So the play continues and I learn and study my part as well as I can and am getting better and better at it. Soon maneuvering in this "role" becomes almost second nature to me. The problem is that I also begin to see it as a role I am playing and that allows the me that is "truer" to feel neglected or insufficient. So, welcome the second life.
The second life is the me that does not have to be perfect. It has the basic components of who I should be ( I did not that then, it isn't until now that I've realized that). It is the person who is eager to explore life in a way that is open minded and varied. It is a person who cherishes company and is eager to discover others, someone who likes fun that sometimes does go overboard, But more of who I should be later after the intro. The second life is also one which dislikes the title of pastor and increasingly begins to hate the persona that title makes one be. So I begin to, at first, delay telling new people about what I do and then towards the farthest part of my trip, at the bottom of these two years, out right lying about life.
