A confession about Confession

I'm afraid of it.

Not of speaking to the priest, exactly, but the entire process.

I've only ever been once, my first confession and that, boys and girls, was just over four years ago. And it left me less than impressed, which I know is not the point of confession, to impress anyway. But still.

Since it felt less like forgiveness and more like just chatting about things that annoyed me, I felt like it wasn't really necessary. That I wasn't doing anything wrong by not going to Confession but continuing to receive Communion. And not that it's an excuse, but there wereare a lot of my Catholic friends in real life who backed me up on this. Who never go to Confession and rarely go to Mass and see no problem with any of this.

And then I burnt myself out.

I think we all (Susanne) recall that I was a little...enthusiastic? Yeah. Let's go with overly enthusiastic in my quest to be the Perfect Catholic, Convert Edition (tm).

I burnt out. And I got frustrated, because I didn't understand Everything (which is a life issue with me, let's be honest) and I've never gotten the religious experiences that so many people seem to get. Even my sponsor has had such experiences, witnessed things that she believes are miracles. And I desperately wanted one (just one!, come on, don't I deserve just one...) and I couldn't accept the fact that (again, being honest), even if I *did* have one, I wouldn't trust it because that's just not the way I'm wired. I should have picked St. Thomas the Apostle for my patron saint, okay?

So I started looking elsewhere, and I stopped attending Mass. And then I stopped being sure about a lot of things.

*handwaves* Rest of the long-ish story short, I wandered and then I wandered back around.

I've been attending Mass, but not receiving because I've come to realise that I do need to do a proper Confession before I receive. But, due to my Extreme Social Awkward, I'm afraid of it.

Not, as I said, the speaking to the priest, because I think I can do that well enough. But the whole ritual of it. The technical bits. I've never been to Confession at my parish. I don't know which side is the face to face side and which is the screen side (I want that screen. The first Confession was face to face and I didn't like that. I don't want to look at the priest while I tell him all the sins I can remember.) I know what time my parish holds Confessions (Saturdays at 2 pm), but I don't know how long the lines are, how early I should get there, etc. And then, hey, four years without Confession. Kind of embarrassing (to me) to say to a priest.

I think about it and I think, 'This is the weekend that I go!' and then it's suddenly 1:30 on Saturday and I'm sweaty from working in the yard and there's no way for me to get cleaned up and be there on time and so I just shrug and go back to doing what I do.

I know that I'm sabotaging myself because I'm feeling awkward about the whole thing.