Today, in church, I saw an old friend across the aisle, sitting in the back row. He had come in quietly. He had just been released from prison. This man, once a respected professional, had a fall from grace, to put it mildly. I went to him, gave him a hug, welcomed him home, and he fell apart, weeping uncontrollably, unable even to speak. I could see his fear in his eyes, unsure how he was going to be received in this community upon his return. I felt his alienation, from himself as much as anyone else. Ironically, I used to turn to him for advice in some of my hardest, most lost moments.

This moment was a reminder of so many things, but something surprising stood out for me by the end of this day. I became aware that I, too, travel in a professional world, but I feel a certain sense of isolation from it. I feel more comfortable with those in pain, those who have been hit hard by life, whether by their own error or at the hands of others, or both, and struggled to survive. That has been my story. Before I was 18, I knew my mother's disease and slow death, my father's remarriage and divorce within less than a year, horrific abuse, abandonment, psychosis, abject fear, horror, and if that wasn't enough, top it off with disgrace at my father's ultimate imprisonment for a crime that made national headlines. My daily world doesn't really want to hear my story, I don't think. Just yesterday, I was recounting the impact of my horrific abuse flashbacks to someone in my professional world. He waved it off, clearly uncomfortable with how raw the experience was that I was trying to explain.

I feel raw, with what I have been through and how I have coped. It's all too familiar. I think I fake it a bit, in my daily professional life. Inside, I can feel as lost and alienated from my surroundings as my friend did today. I feel a bit like an imposter, in a way, waiting to be told I really don't belong in world of normalcy.

Thanks for listening,

mtd