Growing Up Slowly... (Pt I) (the very short autobiography of a Hobbit...)

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll realise that I'm the kind of person who's not very good with decisions, and who has the emotional life of a very fast complicated roller coaster.

Usually when I have a very important decision to make, I worry about it for at least four weeks beforehand, and eventually reach the stage where I'm so neurotic about it, that I just give in to circumstance. Part of my hesistancy to actually step out and make a decision is based on the fear of the consequences, and I guess I share that with lot's of people.

I've been to-ing and fro-ing (I've always liked that phrase!) mentally and emotionally for a long time now about the whole subject of "Church".

Before people who read this go "oh sheesh, is that all?!", give me a moment to explain...

I've been brought up in the Christian faith since I was born, my dad is a pastor, and most of my family share the same faith. I've been brought up to say and do all the right things, and I know the "ettiquette of church" inside and out. There was a time in my life when this was all there was to it, I didn't question it because... well... why would I?

At age 9 I experienced God in a new way, whereby I suddenly realised this whole Christianity thing was about how me and Him (God/Jesus) got on, and that I needed to decide whether I was going to trust Him to help me live my life or not. For me, it was a decision that was either all or nothing, not because He was forcing me to make that, but because I needed to decide.

Once that decision had been made, I was happy to just get on in school, and leave the whole "being a Christian" thing up to Him. I did all the things I was told were good for Christians to do, (read the bible, pray etc) and I managed to get through my teen years relatively ok. They were quite lonely years, as I didn't really have any friends, but me & God got on with it and it was ok.

Once I reached sixth form, things started to change. (obviously!) Suddenly there were all these women where the girls used to be, all around me, and I didn't understand them, and I was mystified at how they provoked shyness in me at the slightest little smile, how they could make me nervous just by walking up to me, and how totally inadequate I felt around them.

This strange effect that women had, carried on all through sixth form, and it was exaggerated by the fact that I had spent so much time on my own previously. I didn't really know how to talk to people, and my social skills were quite poor. This led to me having some very nasty panic attacks, where I couldn't physically walk in to the sixth form common room, otherwise I'd start sweating and going red and stumbling over my words. This meant that I usually sat on the stairs to the science block all dinner time on my own, just staring out into the playground, or just aimlessly walking round the grounds. Occasionally I would pick up the courage to go in to the common room, and then I'd sit in the corner on my own, fastidiously taking my specs off every five minutes, and obsessively cleaning them, making sure to do anything, even if it made me look stupid, to avoid eye contact with anyone.

I remember once I got so bad I concentrated on a piece of the carpet in the common room, and sat there for two hours staring at it because I couldn't do anything else; to engage in a conversation with anyone would have been a nightmare for me. When the bell rang, I got up and went to my next lesson, with a headache, because I'd been staring so long at this one square of carpet. I guess people had tried to talk to me during those two hours, but I was so busy being in my own safe, secure place that I didn't hear them.

Occasionally I did talk to people, but most of my peers thought I was wierd. It's only now that I can look back and see how strange I must have looked.

Meanwhile, in Church, I was absolutely fine. I could talk to anyone, carry out a conversation and laugh and joke, because these were people I trusted and knew, and had grown up with. The service, the hymns, the bible readings, all of these were things I knew well, and almost "breathed"; they were air for me, and I could understand them.

When I got to uni, I had to change a bit, and forced myself to speak to some people, who eventually became friends. Again, I still got very shy and nervous, and found it difficult to socialise with people, and foreign concepts like "beer" and "the pub" and "parties" confused me and made me nervous, so I avoided them. This made me isolate myself a bit more I guess.

I got through Uni and had changed quite a bit, I was having conversations with people, and interacting like I hadn't before. Still, there was this shyness and nervousness that I felt was still going on under the surface...