The Places That Made Me and Unmade Me

Confessions of a Late Bloomer Part 6

Before I ever learned to shrink myself inside relationships,
I learned to shrink myself inside a system that told me it was love.

Before the heartbreaks with names and faces,
there was a different kind of heartbreak.
A quieter one.
A belonging that asked me to be small.

I started going to church in middle school.
It gave me something I’d been quietly craving,
a place to belong.
A place to laugh.
A place to have sweet, silly moments where, for once, it felt like I was allowed to be all of me.

If I’m honest, it was also a place to meet boys.
We crammed into closets side-by-side, hips brushing in the dark during made-up versions of hide and seek.
It was summer camps and freedom.
Capture the flag and chubby bunny contests.
Laughter that felt endless.
Friendships that felt real.
A kind of freedom tucked inside the structure of sermons and songs.
A joy woven through the rituals we didn’t question yet.

The lessons were never the main event.
But they still found their way in.
Subtle at first, then sharper.

That’s where I first met shame.
Purity culture.
The quiet reordering of my worth into second place, behind men.

I was handed shame and told it was a delicacy.
Taught that sex was beautiful, but only if I kept it untouched, unseen, unknown.
That if I only ever gave myself to one person, I’d never even know what I was missing.
As if ignorance could protect me from heartbreak.
As if shrinking my experience could somehow make it holy.

I’m thankful for some of it, too.
A youth leader was the first to see a gift in me,
to call out my ability to mentor others.
A best friend pushed me onto a stage without warning,
trusting I could speak to a room full of teens before I believed it myself.

But somewhere along the way, the ceilings closed in.

When the gift grew too big,
when the voice grew too confident,
I was told to sit down.
That leadership was for men.
That women were meant to play supporting roles.

Inside those walls, a body I already felt awkward inside of
was labeled dangerous.
Something meant to be hidden, covered, saved,
and later used for my husband’s pleasure,
not a home for my own spirit.

I watched a friend get shunned for moving in with her fiancé a few weeks before their wedding,
while the gossipers, the leering husbands, the too-long hugs and too-tight squeezes were quietly forgiven.
Because “boys will be boys.”
Because men’s desires were inevitable,
and women’s bodies the temptation that caused them.

Belonging came with conditions:
Be pure.
Be modest.
Be small.
Be grateful.

And even as a teenager, I could feel the fracture.
The way certain sins were shouted from the pulpit,
while others were quietly ignored.
The way grace was rationed out like a prize,
depending on how well you stayed inside the lines.

It was a club.
And the thing about clubs is, they aren’t about love.
They’re about loyalty.
About obedience.
About making sure you always know who’s inside, and who’s out.

And once you saw it for what it was,
you could never unsee it.

It was a place where belonging felt real,
but only as long as you stayed inside those lines.

Letting go of religion wasn’t easy.
It wasn’t angry, or loud.
It was slow.
Like shedding a skin that no longer fit.
Like loosening a knot you didn’t even realize you’d tied around your own heart.

There are parts of it I will always be grateful for:
The laughter.
The friendships.
The first glimpses of what it meant to be seen.

And there are parts I had to mourn:
The shame.
The shrinking.
The rules dressed up as love.

I didn’t leave faith.
I left the walls that made me believe belonging had to be earned by disappearing parts of myself.

Because now, faith has become something deeper than a building.
Wider than rules.
More alive than fear.

Faith has become something more than church,
and deeper than religion.
It’s stitched into the way I trust myself now.
The way I listen.
The way I stay soft without shrinking.

Religion touched the edges of love.
It lured me in with promises of certainty,
a life of checked boxes, clear lines, and knowing where I stood.
But real love was never meant to be a transaction.
It was always meant to be a risk.
A surrender.
A celebration.

This life isn’t about rules or conformity.
It’s not about limitations or restrictions.
The soul purpose is love.
Connection.
Celebration.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ❤