Writing is a way for me to clarify my thoughts and feelings, and editing my writing furthers that process by requiring that I make my ideas understandable and approachable to people who might not be aware of the circumstances precipitating that writing. After a few years’ hiatus from writing a blog, I returned several months ago with less rigid expectations for the frequency of posting and a more generous word limit per post.

It’s interesting to discover the different attitude and perspective I have on writing now as opposed to in the midst of creating my first blog, Transparent Trans Parent. Then, I wrote with desperation and urgency. The writing process was one of my main lifelines at that time. I also read vociferously, devouring information on genetics, gender, faith, sexuality, church history, evolution, relationships, and on, and on. I attempted to gain understanding of my own identity through weaving my research into personal experience and emotions through the written word. Amazingly, it worked. Along with developing some new, deep friendships with a few welcoming people, and beginning to let go of expectations of what I thought my life should look like, the creative journey of writing brought insight and a new frame of reference for viewing myself and my family.

Writing every week for a year (sometimes twice a week), followed up by writing six-month and one-year follow-up posts, was cathartic, educational, and emotionally exhausting. Putting yourself out there over and over again, being vulnerable in front of anyone who cares to engage, is healthy, but, at the same time, it can be raw and painful. Allowing your wounds to see the light of day promotes healing, even if sometimes it feels better to hide them under the safety of a bandage. Both are necessary to restore health – sometimes protection, and sometimes revealing the tender, new skin to fresh air and light.

As I compare where I am now in my life and, subsequently, in my writing, to where I was four years ago, I find that I now can write from a place of calm, without the need to push and strive for something beyond myself. That feels great and far less frantic than before. However, it also makes me wonder if what I write will have the same impact and value, because pain and struggle often bring forth the most innovative and powerful artistic creations. Since I’m not constantly hurting and fighting against what my life is bringing me, will my musings resonate with people as strongly?

What does one expect when coming across writings by “A Happy Heretic”? Is the heretic happy because of being a heretic? Did the heresy come from seeking happiness? What is heretical about the heretic’s beliefs? Is a heretic still a person of faith? I can get caught up in what expectations people may have when visiting this new blog. I think they might want me to write deep, philosophical treatises about what I believe now and why. I think they might want me to be serious and focused, or they might think I’ll be bitter and derisive. But then, they’ll read about the faces I see in my surroundings, or that I like to clip coupons and do word studies on redeem, redeemed, and redemption. They might think I’m writing too much “fluff” to be taken seriously.

Yet here I am, a happy heretic, writing about what I know and who I am. I decided not to write about heretical faith, because I don’t have enough expertise to speak to that topic meaningfully. Honestly, faith is not at the top of my personal priority list currently, although that doesn’t mean I don’t have any. It just means that’s not where I’m expending the majority of my energy right now. I think that’s part of my heresy. It’s also part of what is giving me the ability to truly be happy. I’m not stressed out and striving –  not striving after knowing the right thing to believe, or being the right person, or needing to share my faith with everyone I meet.

Being a happy heretic, to me, means that I confidently DON’T know exactly what I believe, and, simultaneously, that I love life, my husband, my kids, my friends, my family of origin, strangers in need, people who are hurting, nature, the environment, the planet, the solar system, the universe, colors, touch, smell, music, flavor, creativity, learning, and, most of all, kindness. I am confident that I am currently alive and that this is the only lifetime I am sure of. I believe I am imbued with all of the strength I need to live, learn, grow, and change. Whether this came through a divine nudge in creation, or through the potential present in the sacred seed of the cosmos prior to its big bang into ever-expanding existence, matters not to me. I’m just happy to be here.

Great expectations seem meant to be unfulfilled. What we can dream and desire often lacks awareness of the much deeper, wider, broader, and higher challenges that present themselves to us over time. My expectations have become smaller and more internal with an overarching hope that the force behind our humanity is supremely kind and unquantifiably, beautifully beyond my ability to comprehend.

I don’t know what you expect from the ponderings of a happy heretic, but I’ve decided that I need to let go of wondering, accept that you’ll think what you think, and happily write about my heretical life.