Thoughts dated 12/4/04

Well…today is Bro’s 34th birthday. He and Wife are currently in California. Wife has orientation for her new teaching job at a University in Ventura on Monday, and while she and Bro are out there, they will be looking for a place for their family to stay when they move there at the end of this month. Hubby and I spent Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad’s with Bro and his family. It was nice getting together with them especially knowing that Bro and his family will be moving to California and who knows when we will see him and his family again.

I have finally come to the realization that my family does not, nor will they ever, understand or accept me fully. I have been fooling myself into believing that my dad understood me and that he did not agree completely with my mom in regards to how I know her to feel about me and my beliefs. I have finally admitted to myself that for them to be married this long, they must have the same beliefs on the basic of all levels (which is where I disagree with them). I did not admit this to myself, because I wanted to believe that I had one family member that, if not fully understand me then at least, accept me for the person I am. I now realize that no one in my family understands me and they will never accept the person that I am even though they will still love me. I need to accept this, move on, and not take it personally or dwell on the fact that I will never be accepted in my own family. How ironic that the one thing I ever wanted was acceptance from my family and I now realize that their acceptance will never be given to me.

Mom is under the mistaken assumption that Hubby is the reason that I am not in church even though I had not attended church for over a year before I met Hubby. I tried explaining it to her earlier this week. I told her that Hubby and I tried going to many different churches when we first got together, but that we did not find one that we felt comfortable in on a full-time basis. I told her that we found one that we did feel welcome in, but that it was so far away that we ended up not going as often as we actually would have liked. Mom said that we needed to find a church (any church) and attend regularly. Sadly, Mom means any Christian church not ANY church. She feels that all the non-Christian religions in the world are wrong and that all those people will not make it to heaven. She thinks the only people going to heaven are people from Christian faiths. I cannot get her to understand that it is faith that gets you to heaven, not the deity to which one puts that faith. Of course, this is one of the basic beliefs that I differ completely from the rest of my family.

I do not know where I got my beliefs or how I came to doubt the beliefs that were ingrained into me from my youth, but I do know that I have doubted my parents religion from a pretty young age. I always felt that there was more out there than what I was being taught. Since I have allowed myself to follow my own beliefs, I have been happier than I have ever been in my life. I firmly believe that if I was following the wrong path God would make sure that I could see the error of my ways and change them. Of course, my family would state that my being happy is a work of the Devil to make me feel a false sense of security in my beliefs to keep me from following the path that is actually right for me.

For the life of me, I do not know what I wish for Bro’s children. In one way, I want them to have the acceptance and love of their parents (even if that means believing the same way their parents do); but, on the other hand, I would love for these children to follow their own hearts including their own beliefs and use their own brains instead of following a crowd even if that crowd is their parents. But I would not like them to have to go through all the things I have gone through in my life because my beliefs differ from the rest of my family.