5 Years and the World is Still Weird

The word "BLOG". Image source.

This blog is 5 years old now! Wow, hard to believe this started all the way back in 2012. I've changed a lot in the past 5 years, and my blog has changed a lot.

The biggest change was that I moved to China in 2013. Before this, I wrote posts about how much I wanted to move here, how I was thinking about coming with a missions organization but very much questioning the prevailing views of missions in the US chuch. I didn't end up doing the missionary thing. At first I worked as an English teacher, but now I'm an engineer doing robot stuff at a Chinese company, talking about sensors and code in Chinese every day at work. Which is totally awesome. I've been in China almost 4 years now. Living the dream here.

Also I met Hendrix and we are engaged now. Our wedding is this summer. Hooray! I'm planning to write a bunch more posts about how I feel about weddings and getting married. So stay tuned for those. ^_^

In terms of Christianity: When I started this blog, I was questioning a lot of evangelical teaching. Not questioning like "maybe I don't believe in God" but questioning like "maybe people don't all 'have a God-shaped hole.'" I had only recently decided I'm a feminist. Though I had begun to question purity culture, I still very firmly believed that it was unspeakably, terrifyingly bad to have sex outside of marriage. And on the issue of queer rights, I was in the "let's listen to both sides, there's nuance" camp (blah).

Soon after starting the blog, I needed to have surgery to get my gall bladder removed. And that experience really changed a lot of my beliefs about God. Before, I thought God wouldn't let bad things happen to me. I no longer believe in a personal God who intervenes in our day-to-day lives- because of that experience and because I realized I was victim-blaming when I heard about bad things happening to other people.

And I went through depression which was directly caused by purity culture- where I was sure God thought I was dirty and bad because I live with Hendrix without being married (*gasp*) and that's obviously the dirtiest, most sinful thing a person could do. Healing from that depression meant believing that I am amazing, by myself, not because of God. And I don't need anybody to tell me I'm a real Christian- in fact, I need to avoid Christian culture because it's awful for my mental health.

Also, I quit believing everything purity culture taught me. I finally even stopped believing that unmarried sex is inherently sinful- though it took a very vey long time to come to that conclusion, and then even longer after that before I actually had sex. And after that, I realized I'm asexual.

Another thing that happened was about a year after I started the blog, I was diagnosed/ figured out I have autism. And I've mentioned it in a few blog posts, but I haven't really developed a big-picture view of what it means, particularly as it relates to my needs, what a disability is, and what rights I should demand from society. So hopefully there will be more blog posts about that.

Readers, I'd like to thank you all for reading~ I've met a lot of cool people from blogging. It's especially great when I find someone who's had similar experiences, and we can relate to each other.

In the near future, expect a bunch of posts about weddings. Thanks everyone for reading and supporting this blog for the past 5 years~ I have a lot more things to write about, so keep reading. ^_^