Imagine that you have come to a strange place. You don’t know a single person, and in a way, you are not even really sure who you are. Everything seems entirely new, and you don’t know where to begin.
All you know is that you had to move forward.
All you know is that you have a job to do.
But you know you’re lost.
That’s what the world can look like to many of us. Actually... this is what the world looks like to most of us. Even when we are given great opportunities, we still feel the weight of the unknown. We are lost. What’s worse, the GPS can only tell us how to get where we know we are supposed to go.
So what do you do if you don’t know where to go? Who you are supposed to be in a new place?
You go somewhere familiar, somewhere that reminds you why you came to this new place.
This sort of place is where you grew up, where you learned something about who you are and why you are on this Earth. It is a place where you learned how to love honestly, and it is a place that taught you how to be loved honestly. Most importantly, it is a place where you struggled like you are currently struggling, and in that space you were loved and supported until you got out.
But your struggles were not taken away.
No. That struggle was real, and those who shared that space with you understood that struggle. They understood how much it hurt that they knew exactly when it would be the worst and when it would get better.
In that space, you were welcome, struggle and all.
Now there are two versions of these safe spaces. The first is transient, and they motivate you to keep pushing, to keep moving forward. These sorts of places are good at the height of your struggles, but they are not going to sustain you in the long haul. The second is constant, and it is everlasting. This second place is challenging, but it permeates throughout the world and is everlasting. However, it is much more difficult to enter the second without encouragement.
Allow me to share an example of each.
I will start with the transient community.
It’s no secret that my current project has me down. I took on the work of a particularly lucky (and perhaps a bit talented) undergraduate, and I have been playing catch-up for the past six months. I thought I belonged, but I realized that I knew nothing, that I didn’t really have the skills I thought I had, and I could not make my cerebellum images look anything like my friend could.
I spent several weeks buried in mouse tissues that I am allergic to, determined to finally get quality results, the sort that my advisor would be proud of, the sort that my former undergraduate could produce in a single trial. My eyes burned from the allergens, thus hiding the tears that burned in my eyes from the frustration I felt each day walking in to the lab.
Even with one solid figure, I felt completely drained, forgotten, and overwhelmed.
But then I got to go to the Chicago Cytoskeleton Club.
While everyone there was not the same sort of biologist as me, we were all bound by similar experiences. We all knew how difficult it was to justify the importance of our work to the broader community. We all knew that microscope cameras rarely showed the same processes we could see with our own eyes. We all knew that science was more fun with jokes. We all knew the struggles, and we were all supportive of one another.
In my advisor’s talk, he explicitly stated why our project was so difficult to do, more specifically, he explained why I was struggling.
My advisor knew everything, but he was not going to take away my struggles.
My name appeared next to my undergrad’s name.
As lame as it sounds, I knew that I belonged in that space. I belonged with the scientists in the Cytoskeleton, and I belonged in the Vaughan lab as our in vivo expert. Even though it was difficult in the moment, this work would be an important aspect of our lab's history.
I was not afraid to fail anymore. This transient community reminded me of my purpose in the Vaughan lab and in the Cytoskeleton Community.
The meeting ended, and I had to get back to work.
But this sort of community did not tell me who I am. It did not tell me who I am going to be, and it did not tell me if I was going to be the best version of myself in the end. That is because the labs, the meetings, and the universities are transient communities. They cannot define who you are at your core.
That is for the everlasting community.
I will tell you Dear Readers about my everlasting community.
When I was a young girl, I came to this community frequently. There were people of all ages, races, vocations, and ideas. People were different, and yet they were all the same. They were heroes in the community and reformed criminals alike. They were friends and family.
As a child, I did not understand this community.
In fact, I rarely paid attention to the people around me.
All I knew was that when I was in that space that I was belonged. I heard stories about the many great people who came before me, people who were flawed but had love in their hearts. The older folk would eat a particularly simple meal as I snacked on whatever my mom brought for my siblings and me.
Sometimes we were late, and boy did we make noise.
But people smiled.
I grew up in this space. I grew up with people understanding the disruptions my family and me caused, and I learned that it was ok to be myself wherever I went. I grew up with people who smiled at me, and I learned how to make friends with strangers of all backgrounds. I grew up with warmth and love.
And in the end, I knew I belonged to this community, even if I messed up.
When I grew up, and lost my way, this community cried out the loudest. This everlasting community wanted me, even if I was loud and obnoxious and losing my sense of reality. This everlasting community wanted the real Felicity, the Felicity who danced for no reason and laughed at every pun that came her way.
That community was, is, and always will be the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church is still the one place that I know who I am and where I am meant to go. No matter what happens in my life, no matter who I become, no matter the confusion or hurt, I will always belong to the Church. I belong because I am loved, just as every person in the world is loved.
Had my parents not brought me in to the church as a young girl, with all of the strange faces, I do not know if I would have come to this understanding so easily.
My parents were not ashamed of my siblings and me. They encouraged us to sit in the main church, and they helped us find our way in the seemingly routine community of the Catholic Church. Because my parents brought me in to the community, I learned that my true self would always be loved and accepted.
Now I am an adult, trying to find myself in this crazy world, and I know that I have a safe space. I know that no matter where I go that I can find a Catholic Church and that the Mass will be the same. I know that I can see a smile from a kind stranger and offer them a Sign of Peace. I know that there are many searching souls that are willing to love me for me.
The Church knows I struggle, but She loves me for it.
Now I am sitting in Mass, looking in to the eyes of young children who do not understand where they are sitting. The parents apologize to me for the distraction, but honestly it is the greatest honor to be distracted by a child in Mass.
Why?
Because I get to show the children that I love them for who they are, just as the Catholic Church did for me as a young girl.
Thank you Moms and Dads who bring their children to Mass. Thank you for bringing them in to the main church and letting them be themselves. As a child who learned to be her true self from the pews, it is the greatest blessing that a child can receive. By allowing your child to grow up from the pews, you are giving them the gift of an everlasting community who will always remind them of their worth.
Your child may never be able to explain why they go to Mass or why they feel so safe in that space.
People as me often why I am such a confident woman, why I am so happy on the hardest days, why I am so…Felicity. Here’s my answer:
It’s because my parents brought little Felicity to Mass.
Thank you Mom and Dad. I love y’all.
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