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Lately I've come to the understanding that I don't fit.

When I went to New York last week, I was prepared to feel a bit wistful. What I wasn't prepared for was to feel so free and peaceful. It was like suddenly 12 layers of clothing that I didn't even know I was wearing were stripped away and I could breathe. There wasn't anyone expecting me to be a dutiful, conservative Midwestern girl. No one was expecting me to be anything, and I found that it was much easier to be myself.

"Myself" has been in short supply lately. I feel so much pressure to fit into this lifestyle that I've adopted by default. Girls in the Midwest go to Truman, where they teach each other to knit and make casseroles. They graduate college, get married around 24, and by 35 have three half-grown children. I envy them, partly.

I don't fit that mold. But more than that, I don't fit the mold that cries in prayer meetings and loves nights of worship. In fact, I hate singing songs at church. And recently, I've started hating church. I love the people there, of course. But I hate listening to the same messages and then getting the same call to communion and the same benediction.

Recently, I met with someone on staff at church. This person said, "You're doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons. So why not quit? God will still love you if you don't go to church and don't read your Bible and don't do all the things you're doing in a desperate attempt to find Him. He can find you no matter where you are."

And so I went to New York, and I felt, for the first time in a long time, that maybe there is a God. Away from the constant pressure to be a dutiful daughter and sister and Christian, I felt that maybe it was possible for me to be any or all of those things, if I wanted to.

I don't think I fit the Midwest anymore, if I ever did. Being here suffocates me.