So, I just want to say thanks. As I was sitting here reading this, it occurred ot me that something about our dialogue somehow helped me to identify, and answer, an internal conflict that has been plaguing me for a few years now.
It occured to me, that, I feel like I sold myself out. By that I mean, there was a time when I felt so strong in my convictions, whether or not I felt them to be religiously based, or just based on my combining all the things around me into patterns I saw as right or wrong, and then after the crumbling of a first and only relationship, I suddenly found myself not caring anymore, as if a bubble had been burst.
I realize now that what was really bugging me was that I had fallen into a relationship, into many things, but in a way that still allowed me to adhere to my values - there was so much that I didn't do, that we both didn't do - because we had the same values.
Once that ended, for some reason, now, I remember, it through me into this downward spiral where I started to question everythng -I started to drink, I stopped caring about things I used to. I felt somehow as though everything I thought was possible, suddenlyh wasn't, and that, those values that I thought I managed to find a happy medium of, in another person, were also false. I was always very isolated from other punjabi and/or sikh people my age - and when I started to see what the rest of them were like, something inside sort of crumbled, and its funny I didnt remember that moment until today. It was almost as though my values, or the hope I had that I coudl somewhoe live a life where my values and those of the world around me matched, died too. I cant really think of any other way to explain it.
Now that it;s been a few years, and I guess I'm at that age where you start to want to think ahead, I feel so weighted down by all the things that have happened to me since. I feel like a dumb girl who didn't know any better, and now I've seen so many things that don't match what I thought the world was, that I dont know how to go back. Its like one event changed all the rule sfor me, and I went through this fog for so long, because I lost faith in my reasons for those rules, and now for the first time I can accept myself and those rules again.
And the worst part is, I want to go back to that person I was before -- I am terrified that I am 'ruined', and that there isn't a place for me anywhere because of it. Be it gender based, cultural, or even, religious -- how far do you have to stray to be a lost cause - or is there such a thing?
What do you do when you strayed away from your own convictions, and then realize your error once all your pain is gone and you're not blinded by it anymore?