Being a convert to Catholicism is an interesting thing, especially when you come from virtually no faith background beyond, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for this food.”  Er–is that even right?  I don’t know.  I remember it being recited here and there when I was a child, but God was not a focal point of my life growing up beyond being told that He exists.  I was frequently invited to Protestant church services growing up (Bible belt, people), but I always came up with an excuse.  I never felt comfortable.  Church was for other people.  I wasn’t religious, I didn’t particularly care for organized religion, and I certainly didn’t care to talk about it.

God likes jokes.  I know this, because I’m now Catholic.  However, as I said, it’s an interesting experience from going from one pole to the other.  Ok, I guess it wasn’t an entire polar opposite; I did believe in God, after all, so there was some foundation there.  However, I stayed as far away from Him as possible until my freshman year of college when I was baptized, because I just wasn’t comfortable being around all those religion folks–all those believers.  It was intimidating.  I stuck close to God in nighttime prayer, but come sunlight, it all went away.  Essentially, I was a closet Christian.  Mostly.

I’m now at a point, though, that because of my past and my present, I never really feel as if I fit in either circle.  I can’t separate God from my life anymore.  Even if I don’t talk about my faith, it’s always there, it’s always a part of me.  Consequently, even though I am not blatantly “Catholic” and can completely carry on a normal conversation not pertaining to religion and can do normal things like have a drink (I know I’m not the only person surprised by this stereotype of Christians; I can’t be.), I’m still…different.  I’m still Catholic.  I’m still “other.”  I still do not belong.

Conversely, I never really seem to fit in Christian or Catholic circles either.  I mean, the beliefs are there.  The viewpoints are largely there.  But I come from a different background, one in which I had developed a personality and opinions and life experiences prior to a life in which God was a huge part of it.  Some of those things were even contrary to the life I now try to lead.  It’s certainly not always easy.  Ok, that’s a bald-faced lie–it’s never easy.  Out of my almost 23 years of life, 19 of those years were shaped by a person who was not Catholic.  I was just…me.  Yeah, God was always there, but I never really allowed Him a front row seat; God always sat at the back of the bus…in the corner.  Often, He was such a gentleman that He’d give up His seat and His place on the bus so that something else far more important to me could have that seat, like movies.  Or a book.  Or a friend.  Because He knew that I wanted one of them to have that seat.  He’s really quite nice.

What I’m saying is that I was a nerd before I was a Catholic.  I was a perfectionist before I was a Catholic.  I was a cynic before I was a Catholic.  I was anything and everything before I was a Catholic.  This is different from being these things while being a Catholic.  I had a completely different perspective of life–have, really–and am coming from a different place than a lot of the people with whom I share my faith.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not worthy enough to be with the Catholic group (silly, I know), yet at the same time I feel like I may make the unreligious uncomfortable or that they may perceive me as a goody-two-shoes (it’s happened before).  I often feel as I have one foot in both circles, yet I can never fully enter either one.  I know converts who make a seamless transition into Catholicism, and I often envy them that, because I never really did.

As a result, there are few people I can be me in entirety with.  I feel as if I am expected to behave in a certain manner with certain people, like, “We’re ok with that part of you… as long as you leave that at the door.”  I’ve actually run into that quite a bit.  I’ve never been told that, but it’s quite obvious when people become uncomfortable about certain things.  People are definitely more at ease when I abide by this unspoken request.  There are few people with whom I feel comfortable being around and with whom this expectation is nonexistent.  Aside from a few people I’m close to, this comfort tends to come with other converts, and from those I’ve spoken with, it’s largely because they undergo the same struggles of having a past and a future, wanting to keep both, yet unable to reconcile the two.

I’ve accepted that this is a cross that I have to bear, at least for the present, and I’ve found that it often makes me feel more compassionate towards other converts.  It certainly makes me want to take the new ones under my wing to help them transition and to be there to listen for them.  I still consider myself a neophyte, and I still feel so in dark about so many things because I didn’t have a Catholic upbringing.  I absolutely consider myself to be Catholic retarded (only recently figured out what Litany of the Hours are).  I remember what knowing absolutely nothing was like, though, and what it was like not even paying attention in Mass, but paying attention to everyone’s movements just so I wouldn’t oust myself as the resident heathen.

So now I’m ousting myself as the resident half-way heathen.  Of sorts.  Reformed heathen?  Heathen Catholic?  I don’t know.