Quiet Mountain Essays

Copyright© 2009

On Self-Confession
by
J. Lang Wood

I was raised Catholic and spent 12 years in Catholic school, so the word 'confession' has multi-layered
meaning for me.  It's inextricably connected with feeling better - a healthy, self-affirming act, though
the initial action may be painful and embarrassing.  A confession somehow allows you to separate
from an act - walk away from it - and this process gives it a distance that in theory allows
perspective.  I'm not sure how this works out in real life, we all know serial confessors that fall
inevitably into the same behaviors over and over again.  That's a realm for the psychologists.  
However, what is more powerful than what we confess to others is what we confess to ourselves in
moments of clarity and introspection; a kind of honesty that is invaluable to arranging your own life
to your own liking.  It can also be a hurdle you never quite learn to jump.

These self-confessions can range from Who am I really pursuing this career path for (mom/dad/spouse/
sibling)? to Do I really want to indulge in a relationship with this Bad Boy because he's interested and
interesting (and so yummy)?  The answers can surprise you.  It may turn out your fiancé, while able
to provide security and social acceptance, will never be able to compensate for being so boring.  And
you know it.  It may be that you never did want the constant on-duty life of a medical professional;  
or, you never did really intend to be as outgoing and high-powered as your sales career requires.  
Perhaps, you really don't want kids like you're 'supposed' to.  All these moments of total self-exposure
can be a shock to the system.  You might run hard from the reality, and throw yourself into your
work or your relationship.  But the truth is there and you know it, and it haunts you forever.  The
mysterious what-could-have-been, or what-should-have been.  Like an itch that you don't dare
scratch for the scar it will leave.

If you succumb to the reality of self-confession, then there's all that explaining to do to the outside
world.  You may as well have the explanation for the huge-change-of-direction printed on cards
suitable for mass mailing.  Perhaps, in the near future that will be the fashion, and instead of the
coded “Russ and I have grown apart and have decided to move in different directions," there will be
the simplified, "He was the choice of someone I thought I was, but wasn't."   Or, for professional use,
the truncated, "I'll be happier doing something else.  Sorry.  Bye."

It would be nice if we could someday be that honest about the confusion of the human condition.

And then, there's all that reaction from interested parties: Mom, who clearly thinks you're having a
breakdown and need counseling; Dad, who resignedly pats your back, saying, "I just want you to be
happy, Princess."  Then there are your children, who don't understand what's going on and only
want their worlds to make sense.  Children want us to keep it looking like it all makes sense, when
often the world doesn't make sense at all.  How much is owed to them and how much should be
sacrificed for them, before it actually undermines the very person they depend upon?

Often these self-confessions and attendant decisions require huge commitments of money and time,
which can contribute to keeping the self-confession un-confessed.   The daunting task of finding the
money for a life-change, signing up for the long and sometimes arduous work of training or
apprenticeship, or the early failed efforts at new relationships, may be too much to face.

Women, in particular, have difficulty with these self-confession issues and their repercussions.  Raised
to be pleasers in many instances and, even now, expected to conform to expectations (which vary
greatly from cultural background to cultural background in the vast melting pot of America), their
own inner-selves may be strangers to them.  They may have adopted values from family, media or
pop culture, or from a small circle of friends and acquaintances, and when the larger world intrudes,
they may be offered opportunities for self-definition or self-expression that they may previously have
never thought of before.  A woman may discover talents and desires within herself that she never
knew existed.  Then comes the process of unraveling an old life - the old 'self' - and the ground-up
building of a new one.  Very painful, very disruptive, but women do it every day.  We are good at it,
this resilience of self, a built-in evolutionary process of adapting to changing conditions.

Men have a different road.  They have a different set of societal directives.  They often refuse the inner
truths until they become completely unavoidable.  And if they then choose to act on those internal
changes, no matter how disruptive it is to others,  they are applauded for their courage and audacity.  
Women, not so much.  Women are still often punished for being 'selfish.'

But those women from the past who listened to their inner voices and self-confessed the need to
change their lives have been rewarded with historical remembrance.  Even women once excoriated
for their brazen acts, in time, have become understood for what they did and why they did it.  This
should be a comfort to every woman who has reviewed her life and said, out loud, "I can't do this
anymore."  It is an assertion of self, but more than that, it is a reaffirmation of humanity: I am
something - specific and purposeful - and I must do what I'm called to do.   What more can a culture
ask, than to have its members serve it in the best way they can?

Americans have all done a bit of self-confession lately, which has ranged from "I believed when, in
my heart, I knew better," to “Oops, I spent/invested/extended my credit too much."  It has all been in
the nature of self-confession, and it has all been very painful, as confessions always are at first.  But
after that, the healing begins, the rebuilding starts, and progress gradually becomes reality.

So when that glimmering inner voice calls, it is wise not to turn away.  It is the self, calling.  More
than that, it is the purpose of self that calls.  The greater good.  The service to the whole.  It is what
you were put here for.   It is the road of not only wisdom, but service.

Contributor's Notes...

J. Lang Wood's stories, essays, and articles have appeared in journals across the country and online.  A former
Chicagoan, she now lives with her husband on Florida's Gulf Coast.

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