I believe in a soul.

A little bit of history on me: I’m a recovering Catholic. My folks, bless their souls, sent all five of us kids to Catholic school for first through eighth grade. My dad was an active Catholic, my mom was a non-practicing Lutheran. Sometimes I wondered if she just said she was Lutheran so she didn’t have to go to church with us. If I had a husband and five kids, I’d take any opportunity I could find to stay home by myself too. My dad was the one who insisted we each go through Confirmation as well, then after that we were free to do what we wanted as far as practicing Catholicism or not. Mostly, I think it was just important to him that we have some foundation in religion, though I’m not 100% sure why. My guess is because he was raised Catholic and prolly thought he should raise his kids the same. He renounced the Church when the news broke about the sexual abuse scandals. I renounced it the second I spit that Confirmation Communion into my paper program and left it on the church pew for someone else to throw away. Too many rules. Too fucking judgy. My Confirmation name was Roberta.

It took me years after that to really define what it is I believe. Still to this day I waiver on whether or not there’s a god. Sometimes I like to believe that there is – a power stronger than all of us that just exists alongside of us. Doesn’t make decisions, doesn’t allow war or cause loss or bless love – just watches over everything and everyone. There for the sake of being there and giving a lot of folks someone to thank or blame when life gets too big for them to handle. I also like to believe that our collective energies is what God is. All of our auras shining together to create one massive fireball that can either provide the world its light or send it up in flames. That sounds nice too.

What I do know for sure is that I believe in a soul. I believe in it because I can feel it. I feel it flutter when I get near certain people, and I feel it droop when I run into those I’d rather avoid. It pushes me toward things my head doesn’t think are right that turn out to be fantastic, and it helps me define myself if I shut the fuck up and listen carefully enough. I want to be clear: My soul doesn’t guide me toward rainbows and daisies 24/7/365. Sometimes it guides me to places I never thought I’d be – I’ve seen some of my worst fucking nightmares that led into my wildest dreams. And sometimes, that motherfucker doesn’t guide me at all. Sometimes it just sits on the sidelines, laughing. But it’s there. And it’s mine. And it’s real and we’ve all got one. And it feels so fucking good to feel it. To acknowledge it. To allow it to warm my chest, close up my throat, and spill out my eyeballs. It’s bright. It’s a bright fucking light. And there’s a whole world of them on the other side. Like a giant Milwaukee’s Dill Pickle jar full of fireflies – each just waiting for their shot to come back over, or visit for the first time.