Stephanie is 20 when she enters the orders. But Benoît is never far away, his regular visits disturb him more and more. Between God and this man so considerate, he will have to make a choice.
"When I was 17 years old, I decided to join the orders, and there was nothing incongruous about it." From a family that went to Mass every Sunday, I read the life of the Carmelite Saints ( a reading transmitted from mother to daughter) or Saint John of the Cross My parents had welcomed my decision with joy and pride, my mother telling me that she too had considered becoming a religious.
Did I unconsciously fulfill his wish in his place? I do not know, I have never undertaken psychoanalysis. I remember she insisted that I finish my studies before Carmel. Entering orders is not incompatible with a trade. Only one of my sisters warned me, wondering if I was really ready to give up a love life and children. Even though I ardently wanted to serve God, I probably had hidden motives, but I'm not used to asking disturbing questions. And I regret it.
Entering Carmel was for me a paradoxical way to find my mother
I had indeed a childhood secret. At the age of 5 or 6, a young boy around me had imposed a sexual game that had gone wrong. Today, one would call what happened from rape to minor by another minor, with his fingers. He hurt me. I never talked to my mother about it.
I was so ashamed of being so passive, so stupid. I felt dirty when she was so pure, so perfect, I did not want to defile her. Worse: I moved away from her so as not to touch her, and she did not realize it, overwhelmed that she was: a typical large Christian mother, who was reading Therese of Avila when she giving birth. Today, I believe that entering Carmel was for me a paradoxical way to find my mother. Unable to communicate in a normal mother-daughter relationship, I wanted to approach her in prayer.
I left the convent: "the first time I saw it, I'm 17 years old"
The first time I met Benoit, I was 17 years old. He was eight more. He was a friend of the family. He and his wife, who, like us, came from Breton families, often went to the house. His grandfather had been resistant, my father was a soldier, they had common interests. Already a businessman at 25, Benoît also had an artist side, sensitive, attractive. And an intense blue look. My decision to enter Carmel challenged him. He liked to talk about spirituality with me. The day I left, he came to say goodbye. He was crimson, upset. I thought, "Too bad I do not know him better. "
At 20, I take the veil, and see my parents only once every six months. It is during one of these visits that they tell me that Benoît has cancer ("Pray for him, Stephanie"). Two years after my entry into Carmel, Benedict, who thinks himself condemned, gets used to come see me every quarter, bringing me gifts, cakes, sunflowers, wheat, fruits. I am his " spiritual sister, " he tells me. What he expects of me is that by our simultaneous prayers I help him to live well what he thinks is the last six months of his life.
To see me does him a good job, he says. Me, however, I'm getting worse and worse.
Today, I believe that what he expected of me, the novice in austere brown tunic and white veil, it was love, quite simply. For in the parlor, for hours, he drinks my eyes. Sometimes I can not take it anymore because I love my life as a nun. And on everything, he comes with Christine, his wife, it's very embarrassing. In hindsight, one may wonder if Benoît was not inflamed by a forbidden, romantic love. But he was really sick, I was worried.
Thanks to chemotherapy (and probably also our intense exchanges but confined to spirituality), his cancer regresses. Because seeing me does him a good job, he says. It gives him the joy of living, the energy. Me, however, I'm getting worse and worse. In his presence, I feel an anxiety to twist me. Because if I understand that he is in love with me, I struggle not to be too. All this will last ten years. Meanwhile, I make my final wishes, at 28 years. Then my mother, who also has cancer, dies. It's awful to be so far away, not to have been able to say goodbye. She visited me six months before her death, and we did not hug each other.
Being Carmelite, I did not go to her funeral. I do not leave it. I collapse. It's a terrible depressive episode, brutal. At the time, I do not understand what's happening to me. I do not decipher that besides the loss of my mother, I love a man who loves me too, and that this impossible love - between a Carmelite and a married man - is killing me. In my head, it's hell. I think myself possessed, I ask to see an exorcist and find myself in psychiatry. Three weeks later, I call my father to pick me up at the hospital.
I left the convent: "At 32, I am a virgin ... and yet everything is simple"
Back to the family home for a long convalescence, always dressed as a nun. Benoît, very present, is caring for me, accompanies me everywhere. A real brother. I'm going to help one of my sisters who is expecting a baby. When I come home, I left my brown dress and black veil. The first item I buy myself: a pink Tyrian swimsuit. But at the end of a year, torn between return to the world and monastic life, I leave for Carmel. I want a month, before leaving the orders definitively. I realized that recluse life drives me crazy and will never resurrect anyone. I say to myself: "That's enough, Stephanie, you have to live now. That day, I finally allow myself to love Benoît.
I am 32 years old and I am a virgin. And yet everything is simple, even if I put six months to experience pleasure, lack of experience. For Benedict, who has healed, it is a rebirth. He is gentle, tender, full of delicacy for the novice who discovers sex. We make love in nature, in my room, in my car, anywhere. Several times a day. We are crazy, happy, satisfied. It's a beautiful fusion. Carmel is far away. I do not know what he tells his wife, and I do not want to know. I undertake studies of landscaping (in Carmel, I took care of the garden). I go out, I dance. I went to the end of my faith. I go out without any guilt.
I had a hard time screaming but I'm still here, and Benoît became a friend.
Benoît is still married to Christine. Their heritage interests are so tied that they can divorce. One day, fed up with my status as a woman in the shadows, I decided to tell Christine everything. Stunned, she has this reflection that amazes me: "I thought that when you saw you it was to pray. So it was two and a half years that I slept with her husband and she knew nothing about it. In the city, some people do not greet me anymore. One day, a cowl frog cowardly in front of me: "Before, here there was a Carmelite. Times have changed. "
Then, during one of our trips in love, I redo a psychiatric episode. I have to be rehospitalized urgently. The diagnosis falls: I am bipolar. Ten years of ups and downs will pass, during which Benedict (always married, they make room apart), patiently and with love, made up with my illness, more or less stabilized by the treatments. We even create together a landscaping company. But I make new crises. Benoît finally leaves me. It's hard for him to take full advantage of life - because of the old cancer patient's sense of anxiety about being on probation - but if, in addition, he has to carry a bipolar companion capable of anything ... can not anymore.
I had a hard time screaming but I'm still here, and Benoît became a friend. I manage cottages in a beautiful building and I learn to love. I have a new lover (still a man not free). My biggest regret is not getting married, not having children. I still believe in God, but I hate rituals.