This is my 5000th post, and on Wednesday it will be a year to the date since I was announced as no longer being one of jehovahs witnesses. I sent my da letter a few weeks prior to that, but I suppose it became official when it was announced. So i thought I'd look back on the last 12 months, and see where I am now compared to then.
I was aware this posting milestone was approaching, so I looked back earlier on some of my first 100 or so posts. I certainly lived up to my alias then! I was taking my first faltering steps out of the org, sort of sure I was doing the right thing leaving, but very apprehensive, even scared, of what the future held for me. After all those years of having my life mapped out for me, I really had no idea what I would be doing the next month, the next week, or even the next day - very scary, but exciting as well.
From having dozens of friends, I had one, Trev, who is of course much, much more than a friend now, and I had this forum, which I will be forever grateful for. I guess I would have coped without you guys somehow, but it would have been a hell of a lot tougher, so thank you all so much for helping my journey to be a much smoother one than it could possibly have been without you.
I felt guilty for just about everything I did during those first few months, and still do occasionally, although those feelings have receded a lot as the weeks and months have gone by and I've gradually shaken off the mind control that the org had over me. There has been the occasional upset, of course, like being shunned by people I was once so close to. That was hard to take at first, but it's got easier with the passage of time, and I can almost take it in my stride now. It's a small price to pay for the happiness I have now anyway. Instead of looking at what I lost through leaving the jws, which I admit I did to begin with, I try, and usually succeed, to look at what I've gained in this first year of freedom, and what I've got to look forward to in the future. I've come to the conclusion that I have gained far more than I lost when I quit the org.
So what have I gained? After being single all my life, and never having even a slightly meaningful relationship while a jw, I am living with the man I love, and will be marrying next year. I have made friends, both on this board and in other places, who I know won't give up on me fro having a differrent viewpoint to them. I have a better job, and am hoping to fulfil my pre jw ambition to be a teacher sometime soon. Most of all I guess, I have gained my freedom, because without that none of the other gains would have been possible. It's strange in a way how that came about. I stayed in touch with Trev when most of my former jw friends shunned him, because I always hoped he'd come back. I used to ask him why he'd left, and he didn't tell me the whole story, but did reveal a few things. Then it dawned on me - he was out of the org, and happy, while I was in the org and unhappy, when according to the wts, it should have been the other way round, That is what made all the differrence to me, what made me listen to him a little more, and ultimately why I'm here with him now. I have so much to thank him for, I couldn't repay him for all he has done for me if I live to be 200.
So that's where I am now, one year away from the jws - happy, free and with a bright future ahead of me. I'm not going to live forever now, but I'm going to live the rest of this life in the best way I can, and try to make Trev happy, as he has made me happy.
love
Linda
Awesome Linda!!! You and Trev mean alot to me, and everyone here!!!!
