I stare out at the sky. The man next to me is snoring, mouth wide open. His head drops forward, jolting back upright. It’s February. If the year had gone as planned, I would not have been on this airplane. I would have been finishing breakfast with my roommates and walking to class. Tonight, they will make dinner without me. We won’t dress up together this weekend, sifting through each other’s closets, to attend a party where we drink too much and laugh too hard. I am leaving home.

 The days leading up to this one have been full of goodbye parties intermixed with Craigslist meetups to sell everything that has defined me as a student: two mini-fridges, a bike, a desk, a bed, unused textbooks. Now it’s all over. I’ve quit.

 Soon, I will land in Edmonton. I will be picked up by my mother and return to my childhood house. It is not a place I want to be. But that’s what you do when your American student visa runs out. It’s what you do when you have over $30,000 in student loans and $145 in your bank account. It’s what you do when you are twenty-two and you’ve decided to reject a life plan that’s been in place for over a decade.

 My insides swirl, a hurricane of loud emotions and relentless questions. What the hell am I doing? What if I am wrong? What if he’s right? I cling to a shred of knowledge, rooted deep within me: I cannot go back to seminary. I chant it like a mantra pushing back on the doubts that linger on the edges of every moment.

 When I told my dad I was quitting, I’d wanted to scream the words at him. But his response was measured and collected: “It’s okay to take a break, Katie.” My emotions crash against this reaction. Shame shatters my voice. Is my anger irrational? Maybe I am overreacting.

 I gaze out the window. It is gloriously sunny up here. The clouds are a white cushion between me and my looming reality. I breathe in the spectacle, clinging to it.

 He’s never told me outright that I have to become a pastor.

 But he doesn’t ask about interests I have that are unrelated to seminary.

 Once I told him I thought it would be cool to study journalism. He asked me, “What about all your church experience?”

 When I started taking Greek in undergrad, he was elated. He radiated his delight at me calling to hear about these classes, reminiscing about his days as a Greek student. Although I love Greek, it is not the only thing I love. There is so much I don’t tell him about concerts and clubs and a world that embraces sexuality and the poetry I write and the boys I flirt with and the questions I ask about God. I am like a bird discovering her wings; I want to talk about the wild feeling of air rushing past my face, about the music in my soul, about the life that has cracked me wide open. But we don’t.

 The summer before seminary, I am a mess. I speak bitterly, dreading the fall. A friend says to me, “Katie, you don’t have to go to seminary if you don’t want to.” Her words are kind but feel impractical. Of course, I have to go. My dad commiserates that seminary is a difficult journey. He shares that he struggled with “the call” as well. My restlessness and anger are signs I’m on the right path. After all, Jonah ran from God. Moses didn’t want to be a speaker. Suffering is an affirmation.

 When seminary starts, he’s nostalgic on the phone, asking me about my professors, and telling me stories of when he was there. I swirl inside, at odds with the longing to connect with him and the growing fantasy of burning the building down.

 Last night, on the eve of my flight back to Edmonton, he calls me. In his pastoral voice, he asks, “How can you be wrong about something for so long?” I feel like a small child, facing a soft-speaking dragon. The question cycles on repeat in my mind, sucking me into a vortex of insecurity. Am I wrong? Another voice inside me yells, I CAN’T GO BACK.

 The plane dips and we sink into blurry grey mist. The loss of the sun feels like a death. I mourn the separation. The mist clears, but the dim scene does not. We are now below heavy clouds in a colourless world.

 The flight attendants prepare for landing. I begin to pack my things, wrapping up the cord of my headphones, and stuffing my phone in the front pocket of my bag. My arms are heavy and slow. I have quit seminary. I will not go back. I chant the words, building the emotional muscles I need to get through the next leg of this uncharted journey. I cradle the truth like a tender flame against a heavy gale.

 Is there a mourning ritual for a daughter who abandons her father in order to reclaim her soul? Is there a dirge for the hurricane I will have to battle? Or a way to grieve the cost I will pay to be whole and free? I needed him to ask me what else was out there. I wanted to be able to tell him about the sun.

-Katie DeBoer

Katie (she/her) lives in Millet, Alberta (Treaty Six land) with her husband, Raymond, and her dog, Rocket. She's a “shoes-off” kind of dancer, a part-time farmer, a nature lover, a book nerd and a lifelong learner. She has been a public school teacher for ten years. A degree in Education never prepared her for the students or situations she has encountered in her career. Some of her stories are hilarious – like the time she caught a kid trying to slide down a mountain of snow on his locker door. Other stories are difficult and draining. Regardless, her experiences with students always push her to look past outside layers, to the story flows beneath. Every time she learns about a deeper aspect of someone's story, it forces her to reflect on a deeper aspect of herself. Part of her journey has been learning to listen to her own stories: the ones that have been simmering in her soul for many years. She writes for herself, but I also write because she believes that her stories spark others to lean into their own stories.