who are you?

My anxiety has been getting the best of me lately. This question keeps coming back to me over and over and over again. I don't know the answer. That slightly frightens me. The thing is, I know what I want. At least I think I do. But I feel far away from the means to achieve what it is that I want.

I never feel like I am good enough. Never good enough in so many ways. Never pretty enough, never small enough, never smart enough, never funny enough, never clever enough. I've found that I drag myself into this downward spiral of self-loathing or self-pity more often in the last six months. I feel like I know what it is that brings me here, but I don't like to admit it to myself.

I haven't gone to church since the end of March. Parts of me misses it, misses the familiarity and the feeling of it all. Another part of me is afraid to return, to admit to myself that I need it in my life. That my imperfect soul can be healed there.

The thing is, it isn't the institution or the people there that do the healing. I have the hardest time with people at church. Not everyone, but just the few people who drive me absolutely crazy in my head with their "everything is perfect and I love church" gimmick. Drives me nuts. I shouldn't be saying these things, but I think it all the time. I know these people mean well, or they try, but I cannot, can not, stand that mentality. At all. I want to see flaws, imperfection, failure even. Because I see myself as so incredibly imperfect and I feel that those imperfections are visible to everyone around me. I don't want to feel alone.

What I do think is good and real about church is its ability to bring me closer to God. I think that God sees church as a way of me saying, "All right. I need you. I'm here. And this is place is supposed to be an outlet for spirituality, so this is me trying." In that respect, I don't think it matters what church you attend, who you feel you are speaking/praying to, or where you are. Church could be somewhere where you are alone in nature. It could be in a chapel surrounded by 200 other people. It could be on your front porch. Doesn't matter, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, obviously there are some aspects of an established religion and those meetings that are helpful in many ways, with lessons and discussions and so on. But the point I'm getting at here is that the desire for a spiritual relationship with God exists. I know I want that in my life but the relationship itself is very faint. It has grown increasingly dim in the last six months. I think I want it back.

I didn't intend for this post to become about my spiritual struggle. At all. I actually was originally wanting to go on a rant about my stupid want for a relationship. But it looks like I need different relationships in my life first. My relationship with God and my relationship with myself. We'll see if this is all still with me when I wake in the morning.