The Wake

By the time they smeared the warm oil across my forehead, buying the shred of a soul my mother insists I have, it was already too late. When I first lost my dignity, I was fourteen years old and dolled up in a suit at the front of the Basilica downtown with my fellow confirmation class byproducts. Slightly less than a decade and a half earlier my uncle was holding my gelatinous body and unformed skull while this dude, not the same person as the one with the oil, but close enough, poured water down my forehead. I imagine I cried at the time. But that second time, when I was fourteen, that’s when the tears should’ve come. Because if I’d known of what I was forsaking, I never would’ve gone. In the name of the Father and the son, whatever. I was fourteen years old and ignorant from their lies and my own uninformed gullability, oh boy. I was a Catholic all right.

In some Jewish and Christian sects, there’s this big process called confirmation. If you’ve had the misfortune of being forced into said experience, you undoubtedly remember the reasons your elders gave you, and why this whole ordeal was so necessary. We were freshmen in high school when they brought us in once a week to this confirmation class. They told us we were doing it because when we were babies, we weren’t exactly keen enough to decide to accept God as our Savior, so our godparents and parents decided for us. Now it was our opportunity, they said, as adults, mind you, to elect to accept Jesus, etc. Adults. Interesting. I was fourteen when they said this.

But looking back, was it a decision, or was it just as forced as the baptism? For starters, I was fourteen, for Christ’s sake. This was a full year or so before driver’s ed even happened, back when fart jokes were still funny, when young women were still another species, and of them I was terrified. If this confirmation shit were really as important and crucial as they say it is, why the fuck do they have us make this “decision” when we’re that young? I look to Philip Morris for the answer. Kids are dumb. So why not have them ascribe to whatever way of life you want for them before they’re really able to think for themselves? Start smoking cigarettes when you’re twelve, walk through a sacrament like this, is there really much of a difference? As a fourteen-year-old, I was probably too giddy at the thought of being an “adult” to realize what was really going on.

Six years after, I still fall into Chuck Palahniuk’s unfortunate description of the young men of our generation; how most of us are more like grown-up boys than men. Even though I was told so, I wasn’t an adult then, and I’m still probably not. But if there’s one thing I know about myself and what I do, I know that I’m pissed that I was confirmed. Had I not been so preoccupied with the crippling fear of getting another swirly from the seniors at school, shit, had I been slightly older and smarter to make such a huge decision about my life, I wouldn’t have done it. Sure, the family would’ve been upset, as they were this past Christmas Eve when my sister and I elected to stay up drinking coffee liquer while watching Lost and wrapping presents instead of going to Christmas Vigil. But they got over it, and I’m guessing they probably would’ve back then, too.

So some people might ask, “But Nattie, why is it such a big deal?” It’s not like I’m forced to go to mass now, nobody’s withholding food until I pray myself to sleep. (Although at times, walking around campus, you can’t help but feel that way.) So why should it matter? Am I just being too sensitive? Is this just another entry from the long list of things that irritate me? I’d like to think so, but it isn’t. Unfortunately, it’s bigger than that, and in step with how I ended up, I’m officially ashamed I was confirmed. Because it’s the antithesis of everything I turned out to be.

But you got to hand it to the Catholics. Somewhere in the big list of people who belong to them, they sneaked one by. Whenever they brag to announce how many members they have, I’ll always know they’re adding one that doesn’t really count. The only reason I’m included is because I didn’t know who I was then, but can you really blame me? I was just fourteen.

Do you remember when your parents used to say “Eat your vegetables,”? Well, for me it was more like “Stop watching so much TV,” and “Quit putting soy sauce on your pizza,” but were these comments really much different than our “decision” to enter confirmation class, or to get a bar mitzvah? And even if you’re one of those people who thinks I’m bound to spend eternity, whatever that is, in anguished peril, and you’re glad you got confirmed, wouldn’t it have been more significant had this decision actually been yours, not something which was force fed to you from the elders in your community? Adult decision, what a crock. They told us it was our big momentous entry into all things responsible, marking the beginning of what we want, our desire to be with God, yet had we objected? Well, something tells me they might not’ve been so thrilled about how we were employing our new stature. You’re a grown-up now, kiddo. Just as long as you do everything we say.