Forever Alone | Chapter 4: Signs & Synchronicity (Part 1)
In which I question the existence of God, flirt aggressively with a boy dressed as Jesus, get stalked by Sting, and develop remarkably witch-like powers.
I published Forever Alone: One Introverted Millennial’s Half-Agonizing, Half-Hopeful Journey Through Singledom in 2021 as a 7-part podcast miniseries. I’m re-publishing it here on Substack for the first time in written form! Start reading from the beginning here.
I grew up going to the Methodist church in our town. My mom first enrolled me in preschool there, and then eventually my parents started taking my little brother and I to church and Sunday school every weekend.
What stands out about it isn’t God, but much more earthly things—the basement with its comforting, musty old coffee smell; the closets in the entryway that were built in the 1800s, where I was convinced a secret passageway might open if you pressed the right panel; singing Silent Night on Christmas Eve, the nave lit by nothing but candlelight; the grape juice and communion wafers that dissolved instantly in my mouth.
And of course, the boys. Well, one boy in particular—Nathan. He didn’t go to my school, but we were in the same grade and had Sunday school together. Church wouldn’t have been very interesting without a crush, and Nathan was the cutest boy in Sunday school, so Nathan it was.
We had a contentious relationship from the beginning. He was opinionated and argumentative, as was I, so Sunday school would often devolve into us debating back and forth, or making barbed comments under our breath, until the teacher gently redirected things.
Once, when we were about 8 or 9, he played Jesus in an Easter performance of the crucifixion, and I was cast as Judas—the first in a series of me being typecast as the villain in my adolescent theater career. As Nathan was being led to the cross, I shoved the crown of thorns on his head a little bit too hard and heard my mom go, “Rachel!” under her breath from the audience—which I’m pretty sure was mostly an admonishment meant for me, but was still loud enough that Nathan’s mom would know that my mom didn’t approve of me abusing him for the sake of performance art.
I don’t know if Nathan just plain old hate-hated me, or like-hated me, the way I like-hated him, but regardless, he remains a more memorable figure from my church career than the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
When I was 12, during confirmation classes, I asked about that—the holy trinity—how exactly did it work? I could tell some of the other kids were glad I’d asked, because they didn’t get it, either, but our Reverend couldn’t give us an answer that satisfied me.
Most of what I heard in church just created more questions than it answered. I’d often flip through the Bible when I was bored with the sermon, and the stuff I’d read was positively wild—all of these men begetting other men, as if women weren’t part of the equation—and one particularly memorable story of two daughters incestuously seducing their own father, which never made it into any sermon I heard.
I remember being in the balcony, once, looking down on the Reverend as he said, “There isn’t a free ticket into heaven.” It made me vaguely uncomfortable—was that true? Did you have to earn your way into eternal life? What happened if you didn’t do a good enough job? Did that really mean you deserved to go to hell? But at 12, I didn’t linger too long on those questions. I went through with getting confirmed and becoming an official member of the church, because it was just what you did.
But two years later I stopped going to church. Or, more accurately, my parents gave up trying to make me go. Sunday school was awful and cliquey once everyone was in high school. Most of the kids went to school with each other during the week, so I felt like the awkward loner. Plus, Nathan and I weren’t interested in sparring anymore—there were other girls to draw his attention, and I was obsessed with Luke by that point, so I had no need for a Sunday crush.
I spent a few years reveling in my freedom and sleeping in until past 11 on Sundays. Once, when my dad asked why I wasn’t interested in church anymore, I told him, “I don’t think I need to be in that particular building to have a relationship with God.” Which is accurate, but it was also bullshit, because I didn’t actually know if I believed in God, period.
But as a kid and teenager I didn’t need to believe in anything. I had all my needs met. Nothing too terrible had ever happened to me. I was smart and ambitious and talented and could make things happen—good grades, starring roles in plays and musicals, a solid group of friends.
One of the first times I remember sincerely praying—to a God I wasn’t sure was there—was when I wanted something I wasn’t sure I could get on my own power. I desperately wanted to get into my first and only choice of college (the school I’d eventually end up getting into and then transferring from, to be closer to Patrick). I knew I’d done all that I could do to make it happen, but getting into a prestigious college was hard, and I figured I could use the extra help. My prayers were very transactional—“Please, let me get into this school and I’ll never ask for anything else!” Careful what you wish for, right?
The panic attacks started when I was an adult—or at least when I was 18 and the world said I was an adult. Already jarred from the severe depression and anxiety that bubbled up after I left home, went to college, and was separated from my codependent relationship, I slid right into true existential panic.
Countless times—usually in the shower or when I was trying to fall asleep at night; times when I couldn’t distract myself from my thoughts—I’d think about the vast nothingness that awaited me in death and experience the most visceral panic—cold sweats, nausea, pounding heart, heaves and sobs. The idea of not existing made me want to throw up and jump out of my skin. I felt like a cornered animal needing to flee for my life, but there was nowhere to run or hide.
I wanted to believe that my life wouldn’t end up being pointless; that I wouldn’t just rot in the ground after a handful of decades that ended in the blink of an eye, but no version of God that I’d ever heard of could convince me that wouldn’t be the case. I positively plagued my boyfriends about this. I asked Patrick what he thought happened after we died, and he said, “I think we just … float around.” Float? Around?? My panicked, multi-layered inquisition in response to that just irritated him, and he brushed me off.
Stephen’s dad was a pastor, but that didn’t make Stephen more qualified to answer my questions. I called him once, late at night, panicked about my existence again, and asked him about dinosaurs—honestly, I can’t exactly remember what point my anxious brain had fixated on this time; maybe that if there was a God, why would He have let the dinosaurs go extinct?—but needless to say, he couldn’t help me. He and Patrick, and most people I knew, didn’t seem to care the way I did, which I couldn’t understand at all. How was this existential dread not haunting their every minute the way it did mine?
For years, everything I did was motivated by my all-consuming, crushing existential terror. Either I was actively trying to distract myself and avoid it—by clinging to relationships as my salvation, or numbing out with food, drinks, or busy-ness—or I was just as actively trying to exert control over my life, in the way of achievement and progress and making things happen, so that I could guarantee a worthwhile existence. You already know how well both those strategies worked.
Going to coach training was a turning point—like a pinprick of light that interrupted an infinite black expanse.
The most valuable thing about my coach education was that it illuminated how I thought. The vast majority of what anyone thinks is usually unconscious—and like Carl Jung said—“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
I’d spent 24 years not realizing that I was behaving as if every thought I had was true; as if there weren’t endless other ways I could be seeing or contemplating myself and the world around me. Learning to identify and counter my own limited perception meant that there was room for new thoughts and ideas—ones that existed outside the boundaries of my old identity.
It became clear that much of my thinking operated in stark terms—black and white, right and wrong, good and bad. There were so many narrow boxes I’d been trying to force myself into. If I wanted to be an achiever, I had to work tirelessly, or else I was lazy. If I wanted to be desirable, I had to have a boyfriend to make me feel validated. And if I wanted to believe in something bigger than myself, it had to look like the version of religion I’d been exposed to. It’s no wonder I was burnt out, afraid of being alone, and spiraling in existential panic.
Freedom started to flow when those boxes began to break. I could be an achiever and do absolutely nothing for a few days on end. I could be desirable and not need a boyfriend to validate my worth. And maybe I could be a believer if there was more to the idea of a higher power than a bearded, robed, old white man in the sky who I couldn’t connect to.
I became more open-minded; more willing to be exposed to people and ideas that differed from my original paradigms, because my identity was no longer wrapped up in most of the labels I’d been clinging to for years, which meant my identity couldn’t be easily threatened by the new and unfamiliar.
Naturally, I gravitated to people well-known in the coaching world. One of the first people I followed was Cheryl Richardson, who helped shaped the field of coaching back in the 90s, when it was still brand-new. Sometimes in the self-help arena you find people who don’t seem in touch with reality, which makes it hard to buy into their message, which is why I immediately liked Cheryl—she was super grounded, calm, and sharp. She was clearly in touch with reality, but a version of reality I’d never experienced before. I listened to her interviews, and read her book The Unmistakable Touch of Grace, and the concept of God she described was one I resonated with—not a religious figure; not a “figure” at all—but an infinite intelligence; a benevolent Universe that we’re all a part of, and are constantly interacting with, whether we realize it or not.
One weekend in the fall of 2013, after Kristen and I had finished coach training, we drove to DC with our friend Joanna to see Cheryl and a bunch of other well-known authors and motivational gurus speak at the very cornily named, I Can Do It! Conference.
Corny or no, I felt seen and soothed by most of the people who spoke. The major through-line was beautiful and simple—you’re a part of and loved by the Universe, and you can develop a relationship with it. Signs and synchronicities—those little things you sometimes want to write off as coincidences—are messages and encouragement from the Universe. Play around with it, and see what happens!
What did I have to lose, other than crushing doubt? During Cheryl’s talk I closed my eyes and said, “OK, Universe, I’d like a sign from my grandma (who had died ten years earlier). One of the last things she did before she got sick was travel to New Zealand, so maybe send me a sign about that.” I figured that was weird and specific enough; I mean, I wasn’t likely to bump into a Kiwi in the hotel lobby after the conference, after all.
That evening, when Kristen and I got home, I opened my laptop to check my email and saw a message that, by all rights, should have ended up in spam. I have no memory of who it was from, or what it said, but the email address was from a university in Auckland, New Zealand.
I had instant goosebumps. I’m not easily impressed, but if there was an intelligent Universe out there, I was giving it major side eye. I was intrigued, and I wanted to see more.
This was Chapter 4: Part 1 of Forever Alone. Read on for Chapter 4: Part 2!