Dear Diary/Blog

Its been awhile since I got personal or deep on here annnd I feel the itch to do so again. My cousin Brittany gave me the book "A Complicated Kindness" by Canadian author Miriam Toews. My brief review of the book is that it seems like if you want to become a famous Canadian female writer you have to write fiction that is dark. Toews does such a good job at writing a dark book that I became depressed everytime I was in the process of reading it. Yet, I read on because Britt got it for me, and said that the reason she got it for me was because of my own faith situation.

The story is set in the seventies and the main character is part of a tight knit Manitoba mennonite community. Here is an excerpt where she expresses her displeasure with her faith community that echos with my own thoughts and feeelings.

He wanted me to define specifically what it was about the world that I wanted to experience. Smoking, drinking, writhing on a dance floor to the Rolling Stones? Not exactly, I told him, although I did think highly of Exile on Main Street. Then what? he kept asking me. Crime, drugs, promiscuity? No, I said, that wasn’t it either. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I ended up saying stupid stuff like I just want to be myself, I just want to do things without wondering if they're a sin or not. I want to be free. I want to know what it’s like to be forgiven by another human being (I was stoned, obviously) and not have to wait around all my life anxiously wondering if I’m an okay person or not and having to die to find out.
I wanted to experience goodness and humanity outside of any religious framework. I remember making finger quotations in the air when I said religious framework. God, I’m an asshole. I told him that if I heard one more person say it wasn’t up to him or her to judge, it was up to God, while, at the same time, they were judging their freakin' heads off every minute of every day (I mean basically they had judged that the entire world was evil) I would put a sawed-off .22 in my mouth and pull the trigger.

I told him I didn’t know what the big deal was about eternal life anyway. It seemed creepy to want to live forever. And that’s when he threw me out. I’m not saying he was wrong or anything, I just couldn’t ever figure out what was going on. It seemed like we were in some kind of absurd avant-garde theatre, the way our conversations sometimes went.

I've come from a tight knit faith community, and I'm frustrated with the confines of it. I want to just be normal, thats all. The background I come from is brethren, it was open but still rigid. My friend Dave, on the other hand came to the open brethren community from one that was closed. This was a community similiar to that of the Mennonite one in A.C.K.. I've heard stories about it, and how the women were treated like crap, and people either follow rigidly or rebel glamoursly. So Dave if your reading this, you may want to take a gander at "A Complicated Kindness".

Oh and PS, my roomie who is from Manitoba is from a mennonite community, and has friends who are related to the author Miriam Toews.

Romantically speaking I am finding myself attracted to someone I've tried to get over because I know that their isn't an interest on his end. When I first met him I wasn't that interested in him, he seemed too pretentious, but after talking with him.....I realized that their was more to him than meets the eye. He's intelligent, witty, and genuine. He thinks about things and he can read people really well. I like that he is empathetic, and compassionate...but I know to him I'm just a friend. Plus I think I might just like him because I like the chase just as much as any other guy does.
I swear I'm a fool. I have two guys who are interested in me, and I'm not interested back. Both very good men, but ya, not interested.