After a 5-week penance from my Orthodox online community, Oikonomia, I’ve learned a lot about myself, the faith, those in it, real values that I can carry with me through life. I intended on not writing these types of autobiographical posts, but this one I feel is worth sharing. This reflection won’t cover just the penance, but the events leading up to now.

Christ is born!

It has been a bit over a year since most turbulent parts of the schism over Ukraine occurred. The ship that is the Orthodox Church is finally in some quieter waters, but we are certainly still in dangerous territory. Various hierarchs have been making their decisions to commemorate the new Ukrainian metropolitan, rocking the boat and leading to further hostilities amongst our bishops.

There’s that keyword, bishops. We aren’t bishops, we’re laymen. What are we to do as our spiritual heads argue and navigate these frightful waters? It’s scary! We feel paralyzed from what’s going on, we don’t have a say in their decisions! How do we, as laymen, understand what’s going on and where we’re headed?!

Greetings, everyone. It’s been a while.

As you might’ve read or noticed, these past few years have been all over the place. I won’t get into details too greatly like my usual blog posts, because they will no longer be my usual blog posts. What I can say though, is that I’m doing better. Not much better, but better nonetheless.

An update is warranted on everything that’s happened and what’ll be happening from now. For starters, I’m no longer going to blog about my life for now. While it was a good outlet during some of my darkest times, it’s no longer fulfilling and I end up neglecting more than writing. That being said, I won’t be cutting off myself from writing about my life completely. I’ve decided to opt for journaling. This way, I can give myself the opportunity to have everything that this blogging experience has alongside the privacy allowing me to be more direct in my writing. If I used names here as much as I do in my journal, I’m sure it would be read and spread rather quickly. This way, I can be personal. The likelihood of someone reading it is slim, and if they did it would be within certain parameters I’m comfortable with.

Listening to The Specktators (well, Packy) right now. It makes me think of the times I’d walk to the bus stop every morning to go to school, muting out the noise of the world, enjoying the beat and the message. Feeling the 60 degree weather, just that perfect temperature that isn’t too cold nor too hot. Not even worrying about the future, worrying about the past. Just living in the moment, here with my music. Once I’d get to the bus stop, I’d take my headphones off to talk to a couple friends until the bus arrived. Exchanging greetings with the bus driver, who I felt like I had a decent connection to, then sitting down and resuming the soundtrack to that part of my life. Watching the houses and trees pass by on the ride to school, still living in the moment. Only for the bus to arrive, forcing my soundtrack to come to a pause and for me to resume working on something I would eventually drop entirely.

It’s been a long 3 months since I’ve updated on all this education stuff. When I wrote the post, I had reached my low point and I wasn’t sure where I was headed afterwards.

On January 28th, I made a pretty big life-changing decision. I decided to drop out.