Let's take it from the top

so anyway now that non-distressed, calm me has taken over the chat, after several hours of sleep, I’m befuddled to announce that I think I was being recruited by Opus Dei for most of high school and not sure how to feel about the complete dichotomy of feelings my time with them gave me because oh my god the bonding and the good times but also oh my god i was so afraid of not being reverent enough and everything was a well oiled machine for efficiency during camp times and communal cooking/cleaning/chapel maintenence/etc. and i, a already constantly exhausted and desperate to Be Good, was Literally Stress for obvious reasons. those rare and unusual one on one conversations about my future and any thoughts about potential vocations made me feel super special at the time in the middle of our teen group

also apparently conditioning things were done such as extreme separation of genders and us not being able to see the priest come in and stuff and the lights would be dim while he was leading reflections/etc. and only his little table would be lit with a spotlight lamp and shit. at second glance perhaps this wasn’t amazing. but they did so much fun stuff and talked to us like we knew what our own wants and thoughts were like adults did, and gave us a lot of freedom and control when being camp counselors, and had so many activities and shit for us? and I loved a lot of the other girls so much? but I was also so Stress(TM) from a lot of the devotion stuff and the super early morning church and the full chants and the Latin singing and stuff? i don’t know man