practicing christian???

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Following through on my invite to church from a staff member at the Hostel One Centro, I came home from having lunch with Martin and Izzy (I remembered!). Izzy made this wonderful dish with chicken and rice and peas and carrots, very delicious. We had wine afterward and watched an episode of Married with Children (still funny after what, ten years?) M & I had plans to visit a few galleries, they invited me along, though I had to return to my schoolbooks and work on my midterm. I had a good hour before I would have to leave with Erminda. We took trains I had never taken in the past, far. Really far. I had no idea where I was. We met up with her sister and from another station took another train far out, freaking nuts. We finally reached her neighborhood when Danny Jones called asking if I wanted to go out later, maybe Chueca (I would have to dodge Black & White), I told him that I was attending a Christian church with a Dominican friend and her sister. We reached her home and Erminda sat me down with drinks and small snacks. I changed the channel to Kiss TV, non-stop music videos, nothing like in the states with commercial after commercial. I'm not sure what had taken so long for us to finally leave, I was getting tired sitting down, I had been running around all morning, I went from cafe to cafe studying, then lunch, then more studying, and ended up sitting watching music television. Finally church.
I was nervous and kinda of emotional about the entire experience. I kept thinking of what my father would think about my going to Church abroad, and more so a Christian church. I explained to Erminda that my coming out didn't really go so well with my father, that he is a very religious man and how it is unacceptable within the eyes of Go_. She didn't understand, maybe the words, the semantics were lost in the translation, though I did my best. Sitting there in church I began to think about why I had stopped attending services, and the only justifiable reason was how very guilty and ashamed I felt every time. Being gay in a religious family is difficult, it is difficult to seek out answers to questions, and even to come to a point of self actualization that there is nothing internally evil with who I am. It took me years to like myself, and more to love myself. I am a recovering self-harmer, (with the scars as proof) and worked those specific issues through medication, therapy, self diagnosis and a future plan of improvement. Years of experience and all the advice I can really give out is: plans help construct a viable future (even if that future is a lonely one).

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