And Then I Made Myself

And Then I Made Myself

my honeymoon with God ended the moment I discovered how crazy it was to think that I cannot allow myself to be weak or flawed not even in my own private space, because he is…watching and he knows everything because he IS everything and everywhere, every time. and if he sees how I allow negative thoughts to invade my being and negative behavior to corrupt my soul, how I lose my hope and faith, how I let my emotions just be, then he won’t consider me worthy of his love anymore. and I am gonna end up in hell where I am not gonna know anybody, because everybody around seemed so…lovable, so worthy, so heaven-ready. prepackaged perfections, plus cute dimples as a bonus. how did they do it? what does that even mean, to be lovable unconditionally? be the best at math? spell words backwards? save the world and everybody in it? but I can do that too! yes, I can do that too…

so, I said yes against all the red flags, the marriage came and after many years of witnessing dirty socks in the middle of the living room and shaving cream on the bathroom mirror just about every single day and no sex because sex means closeness and what God wants that, we need boundaries, such as death, I kind of started leaving the dishes in the sink too. out of fronde. what the heck. tit for tat, isn’t that what love is? I mean, let’s make Satan laugh a little, keep his sarcasm alive, give him some material for his stand up routine.

back home, I went out in the wilderness a lot, being that in the forest or the top of mountains or out in the field, walking by rows of sun flower, corn, strawberries and watermelon. my favorite spot was a 500 years old ruin by the river in my town. sitting out there, and let it all out, throwing everything in the wind, back at you, God, here, have some wordless screams for desert. just screaming and hollering, hollering and ooouuuuaaaaiiiieeee-ing out there with no witness, just the incongruent clouds and startled eagles. God never came to take me home, make me a warm tea, hug me and tell me everything is gonna be ok, honey… and it was so fucking liberating to just be human, made of light dirt, not to conform anymore to anybody’s expectations and standards and demands and just be. like in „just be.” breathing, be, end of story.

then the first crisis, first domestic fights, insults across the table, when I thought, who are you to judge me? I mean, did you ever look at yourself in the mirror, God? You have everything you want, so it’s really easy to be perfect and lovable and everything else when you can make a nebula coming out of your ear. you can breath toward me and I can puff, the ant I am can disappear in the thin air and nobody would ever even ask where I went! but if that would happen to you, the entire universe would fricking collapse, that’s how vital you are in this excruciatingly absurd narrative which I am not sure if I am dreaming about it or living in it anymore.

I am tired of this bullshit with you having all the tools to be perfect and me having what the fuck? nothing. whatever you give me. so just leave me alone, I am gonna lock myself in the office, chew the pages of a book or eat the keyboard screaming for attention, you can have the remote control and watch your stupid television, and see you again at the dinner table where we can fake a complacent conversation about nothing over dried chops and flake mash potatoes. because I ain’t share anything of value with you anymore until YOU show me first how much you love ME. go move a mountain for me, how about that, God? if I am that precious to you. make it rain.

predictably enough, like with all the other Gods who fell in love with this world before, partially or totally, the many affairs followed. God started playing around, having favorites, then he didn’t come home one night, then when he came, he said the soup is not salty enough and threw the plate on the wall, slashed my paintings, broke my window to the world, uprooted my favorite tree, took my shadow away, because God is entitled to be furious, we mortals are not. God is always always furious because of my sins. our sins. it’s my fault. always. or theirs – his many wives, why can’t they just behave, man! why can we just be grateful for what we have and love him even more when he is not even there anymore. you know, the silence treatment? from behind those incongruent clouds. what can a guy do in such situations? make it worse and abandon the ship, go find a greener pasture, flood this one, make another one out of marshmallow maybe, if the dirt was such a bad choice in the first place.

then it came the divorce and God sat there, looking at the paperwork to be signed, maybe not believing that I finally did it? that I left. who knows what he was thinking? I thought that he was thinking what other shit to drop on my shoulders so he can find out, do I still have my faith and instead of counting my blessings, do I still wanna go up the mountain and scare off the poor eagles with my wordless screams?

Yes, sir, that’s what I wanted to do and that’s exactly what I did. in my imagination only, because at that time, I was driving through the bloody hot desert with a one and a half year old child. my child. couldn’t even cry, I would have awaken the baby…

and that’s when the honeymoon with myself started. I became my own sort of God, created my own little world for my baby and I, the two of us, eating pizza on the bare floor, no more bullshit tantrums why aren’t I perfect? that’s when I started loving my own eyelashes. how softly they can help bring down the night, rest in peace, soul. here, a gentle caress.

after some centuries that felt like years, after the dirt became clay and the hands worked hard at modeling, after the oven baked the core and the paint went on and the glaze brought the light on the outside and the fresh water hold the inside together, after my own big bang and my own mystics took over my own little world… that’s when he asked me out again. I just want to be friends, he said. I looked at him, from the height of my new found godliness and I said, how about that? but, ok. let’s see how it goes. however, I have to warn you, God. I am not the same woman anymore. I am not your woman anymore. I am my own goddess now. I made myself.

I made myself.