I had a conversation with my mother yesterday. By the way i'll say that she's back in the hospital again after a complication. She should be out in a few days, but she's fine though and getting better each day.
Well anywho, we had this conversation yesterday when I was visiting with her and I happened to mention my desire to go back to college soon. This is kinda how the conversation went.....
HER - "You aren't forgetting about Jehovah are you? The congregation still needs you even though they did you wrong."
(by the way, if you don't know what happened and don't feel like checking out my post history, ask me and i'll give you the short of what happened)
ME - "How is it that i'd forget about Jehovah by going back to college?"
HER - "I don't know, I was just wondering if you'd ever go back to the meetings again. I'd hate for you to give up on Jehovah because of the congregation."
You all might think this isn't that much of a big deal but this short conversation means alot to me. For one it shows that she believes i'm discouraged because of the "brothers" and find it hard to go back after getting screwed over. Two, it shows that she, at this point at least, is willing to accept the fact that I may never go back to meetings again. This is helped to be realized by the fact that this is the only time that she's really shown any visible concern about my JW activity. I think that with mentioning college, she feels that my attention has turned completely away from the Borg, which is true, to something "worldly". The thing funny about that though is that she always wanted me to go back to school. Go figure.
My dad on the other hand thinks i'm just going through a phase. He says he's been where i've been, and that once you quit going it's hard to go back. He usually just asks me about meetings after someone else in the congregation does. I'm of the mind to think that if no one asked him about me, he wouldn't mention anything either.
My congregational responsibilities are slowly but steadily dwindling, and i'm gaining the reputation in the congregation as being one of those that were super strong in the truth but is falling away. I'm not even so nervous about the "friends" stopping by anymore. They really don't know what to say to me anymore. I'm receiving less and less calls and visits from them as time goes by though. I do have a couple of close JW friends that stop by every couple of days. They're the only ones i'm always glad to see, so hopefully I won't ever have to disassociate and lose them.
I've been running into old acquaintances like crazy lately, and I see some potential close friendships there, so maybe there's hope for my social base after all since! I still wish I had more friends though, but like I said, i'm sure that will come along in time.
So all is good so far. Just taking it one day at a time.