April 19th 1998: Lost Enlightenment – Talk of Kiss

I don’t know whether it was out of obligation, boredom, or maybe something deeper but went to church this morning. Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m a Catholic – baptism, communion and confirmation and apart from the last two years or so, I went to church almost every Sunday since I could remember. And I hated every second of it.

Despite my animosity towards the physical act of going to church, I still somehow found a certain level of comfort there, you know? A kind of ‘everything will be alright’ feeling, I know I couldn’t appreciate that when I was younger, but now amidst the turmoil and confusion that is my life, I want to see if maybe its still there. Because I’ll tell you, right now whatever it is that I have that passes for a life these days seems to be coated with complete and utter chaos. All the dope, the petty crime, turmoil with every single person I come into contact with, and now, as I think it has always been, I realize how much I truly despise myself and the things I do. So this is it, this is why I decided to go to mass today; ‘cause at least it might be some place where I find a little serenity.

So, I sat there for an entire hour, I really wanted to give this a shot, I took in every word of the sermon as if it were oxygen, essential to living. I nodded at the gospel; I stood when I was supposed to stand, kneeled when I was supposed to kneel and sang when I was supposed to sing.

I gave it a real, honest to goodness shot, and after that hour of religious bombardment was up, after I put my donation in the basket and made the sign of the cross at communion, even after I prayed to God like a mother fucker to “Please, just let me have some peace” What did I find? NOTHING, not a goddamn thing, no spiritual enlightenment, no sense of comfort or even hope, nothing, just complete and utter emptiness like I have always felt.

It made me sad, very sad, the feeling that there was nothing, not a goddamned thing that would make me feel, just a little, more complete, not even church. I was disenchanted by the whole ordeal, was God not there for me? Had he given up on me like all the others? He couldn’t have, I mean even when everything around you has been turned to shit and you don’t know where you stand, at least God is supposed to be there… right?

Oh God! There really is nothing left for me. Before I went to church I thought I had some spiritual enlightenment to eventually look forward to but was more lost now than I was before. I bolted up out of my pew, pissed off and disappointed, I didn’t know whether I wanted to cry or to scream “FUCK YOU!” to the altar. So I forfeited the decision making process and headed to the men’s room, and fixed in church.

I sat alone for the rest of the day, just kind of reflective, I was still really confused about this whole Janice situation and despite how much dope I put in myself, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that God too had abandoned me. I just sat there for hours staring off at a blank wall as if what I had that passed for a thought process could somehow make everything be okay. Needless to say it didn’t work, nothing became okay, it just got worse and my drug soaked brain ran circles around itself on the issues at hand while I realized that I needed to decorate my walls, they were looking desperately desolate… much like everything else in my life.

As much as I could try to talk to God, it didn’t seem as if he would answer me any time soon. I talked Janice so that I could hopefully get at least one of these issues resolved.

She called me, which is odd because she hardly ever does these days. We proceeded with the typical ambiguous chit-chat. Then after a while, I couldn’t help but to talk about what happened this past week. I really don’t have the energy to get into the specifics of the conversation but it really wasn’t the cathartic experience that I was quite hoping for. She dodged the topic as much as she could then just made vague statements that hid what she really thought about the situation. I understand that it may not be the most comfortable subject to talk about so I just kind of dropped it after I saw that she really didn’t want to get into it.

I don’t know maybe I’m just old fashioned you know, I’m not really hip with the times I mean I still have the same music in my CD player since 1993 for Christ’s sake, but to me kissing stands for something, its not a completely plutonic thing unless its stated as so. You know, I’ve had my share of drunken female encounters but I was the only one in any form of drunken stupor that evening. Anyways, what I’m really trying to get at is that I just want to know if it meant anything. And if it didn’t, great, but please tell me why then, was it out of boredom? what?

We both just agreed to leave it at that and kind of bury it right then and there. It really wasn’t the closure I sought but I just didn’t have it in me to be pulling fucking teeth this evening. There was more chit-chat and eventually I just trailed off. Yet again I was lost and confused, twice in one day on two paramount matters. I told myself “I don’t care” and fixed to try and realize that thought before I passed out in my chair.