ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 165: Healing

My parents let their religion tell them what to think and do, and for many years, I did as they did. Went to Confession on Saturday. Mass on Sunday. Benediction on Sunday afternoon. Went to Catholic grade school and Catholic high school. Had Catholic friends.

Then I went to a state university. Diversity. My junior year, I stopped going to Mass. Stopped going to Confession. Stopped being Catholic.

Then I met Ernie. Before we married, he took instructions and was baptized a Catholic. “Why did you do that?” I asked him. He said: “Because your mother might accept me now that I’m a Catholic.”

It didn’t matter to me whether my mother accepted him or not. What mattered was that I did.

So Ernie and I came together, two wounded people who didn’t know how wounded we were. We didn’t know how to air our wounds so they would heal. We knew how to work. That’s what worked for us. Work brought Ernie recognition — or would eventually, so he hoped — and work brought me distraction, diversion, escape.

Now that I know the nature of my wounds, I can help myself heal. But it’s hard to do this — to love myself and not to have Ernie’s love, too. I feel so alone. Why love myself if I can’t also love Ernie? What’s the point?

I know this is sick thinking. I’m alive. I must learn to be grateful for my life. But sometimes it seems I have nothing but this writing holding me together. So I keep writing.