The Adventures of Jessica Sideways

I haven’t been to my UU church, First Unitarian Society of Denver in weeks. Furthermore, I have not even made an effort to try to go to any of the other UU churches in the Denver metro area (First Universalist, Jefferson Unitarian Church, Open Circle, UU Boulder, et cetra). However, I still identify as a Unitarian Universalist, with all of it’s religious liberalism and freedom to be who I am. I still tell people that even though I am an atheist, I do go to a Unitarian Universalist church and explain why it is that I even go to a house of worship at all, if there is nothing for me to worship. And I make sure to witness and advocate for our uncommon denomination by telling people the good news about our faith (uuvangelism), so why is it that I haven’t gone to church in weeks?

Warm, comfy bed - For the past 3-6 weeks in fact, I haven’t found the stomach or strength to pull myself out of my warm, comfy bed on a Sunday to brave the Denver weather and the Regional Transportation District (and all that entails) to get to the church on 14th and Lafayette. More often than not, this means two bus transfers (the 16 and the 15/15L) and I sometimes miss the second, which brings me just a few blocks away from my UU church. I go to the Gender Identity Centre of Colorado’s Saturday night support groups because of the fact that the person who runs the Tuesday night groups is a royal bitch (Teeg, if you are reading this, yes I am talking about you) and the person who runs the Saturday night groups is someone that’s more around my age bracket. So, this means that I get home at around 10pm and given the stuff that I have to do, I probably don’t make it into the sheets until like 11pm or midnight. So, yeah, can you blame me for wanting to sleep in a little? Well, I guess I do, so I should probably make that a rhetorical question.

I haven’t been able to contribute at all - Let’s face it, I haven’t got a dime that I am not already spending on the essentials - food, hormones, surgery deposit (which I feel I will be able to afford soon) and I just recently purchased a mobile phone so I can hopefully be able to get in touch with employers on a faster and more personal basis. Every time the collection plate passes by, I put in nothing or I put in something like a few bus tokens or a bus ticket or two. This makes me feel horrible, but it keeps me from thinking that people are staring at me, when they could honestly care less about it. Sure, I could volunteer but unfortunately, the last few times I signed up to volunteer (work the book table), I wasn’t able to drag myself out of bed either. And the second time, was the time that started this issue. That was back on the 3rd or 4th Sunday of July, meaning that the 2nd or 3rd Sunday was probably the last time that I attended my UU church

There are very few people there in my age bracket - I don’t know why this is, seeing as we are a inner city UU church, unlike First Universalist, Jefferson Unitarian and all the other UU churches. We are in the heart of capitol hill and if you live in capitol hill, it’s just an easy walk to the church. But sadly, the only two people that I know in my own age bracket are just that - two people. I have heard that First Universalist has a better youth crowd by someone who is a member there. I would also surmise that since Boulder is a college town, there might be some interesting and awesome people over at the Unitarian Universalist congregations in Boulder. I know this is a bad excuse, especially since I have no intentions to move to Boulder any time soon (let’s just say it’s just the money factor of living in Boulder, it’s expensive as hell!) and the fact of the matter is that I knew this coming into this church and my pathways to membership course. And plus, it’s my responsibility as a UU to try to share the faith with my other friends and peers around my age.

Either way, what it just boils down to is laziness. And I need to figure out, how can I possibly drag myself out of the bed in the morning. I was awoken by my mobile phone’s alarm clock, so that isn’t an excuse given the fact that I just hit it and went back to sleep. It’s just my dedication in the morning to foist myself out of my comfy, comfy bed, shower, do my hair, get dressed and go. It’s not really that hard and before I had this problem, I was able to do it every Sunday. I just need to get over my shame of not being able to help those two Sundays at the book table and just go.