Lonely on Sundays

I'm not sure why, but I always feel so sad and lonely every Sunday during and after church. While I'm there, everybody is sweet and loving and pleasant, and we all sit around in fellowship making wholesome small talk, and then we separate into small groups (which so far have been completely aimless; I want to participate in an actual in-depth Bible study group and it's unclear if that will materialize) and talk about tentative plans for small groups.

The idea is that they will get together and share, one by one I suppose, and talk about how God is working in their lives. It's a beautiful premise, and I'm sure everyone will bond over it, but I am absolutely terrified of revealing what I consider to be an extremely painful and rocky past to a group of strangers. Surely, Koreans do not tend to open up about their history beyond the past week or two, so this may be unfounded fear....but I don't want to find myself in a group therapy session where everybody listens to me and pities me and doesn't ever see me the same. This prospect has been so frightening to me that I can literally feel myself closing off from the others. After two months of attendance (nearly every week), I have not gravitated to anybody but the pastor and his family, and this is a true blessing because they live very close to me and I can find some sort of refuge with them.

Otherwise, I've isolated myself so much that I am usually quite surprised to find some of the ladies in our small fellowship being so kind and affectionate with me. The pastor spoke two weeks ago of building walls between ourselves and God, ourselves and a Christian community. Somehow the shame of a mistake- and pain-riddled life has buried me deep, away from the warmth of this group of people.

So I don't feel as though I belong, not here in this church, not back in Phoenix nor in Tucson, not in Seoul or any other place I've already lived or visited. I feel very guilty that I haven't made much of an effort to pursue graduate school options since I've been here, but some obstacles I met early on have been easy excuses to be lazy. I am quite aware that I am taking the all-familiar dip back down, the one where I tell myself how inferior I am and give myself the lousiest options and directions.

Simultaneously, I am smarting daily from a break-up that hasn't even felt real until a few weeks ago. Officially, it was almost a year ago that we decided our relationship was totaled, but somehow we have managed to ride it out many more months. And for as much as I like to be by myself, I find that I am very afraid of being alone.

I probably need to go to sleep.