Hello everyone,
I am new here, I thought I would give a short overview of why I am here. I was baptized at 14. Even at that age I had a lot of questions that were shuffled aside by the elders or just avoided all together. I really felt like I was doing the right thing, I was born into a large family with a suprising track record of no immediate defectors. So all of my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents were still active or just pretending to be into it. Naturally I wanted to fit in with my family that I love and care for (most of them) so I went to the meetings, put in service slips (sometimes not quite accurate) and managed to stay below the radar.
At 16 I was the only teenager who didn't get a 4 door sevice car, and actually had an elder talk to me about getting an appropriate car. Now I wasn't a spoiled kid with a sports car, I worked all summer and had a part time job after school to buy a 91 celica. Of course being the smart alec that I was retorted with 'how often do service conductors pick 16 year olds to drive anyway?'. I also got 'talked to' for having a second set of ear piecings, aparently they looked too worldly. Oh but I stuck with it even though I knew it was all obsured. I wanted to go to college and was a good student in honors classes. I had a witness boyfriend who wanted to marry me after I thought I was pregnant (I had an ovarian cyst) then dumped me when I went to the doctor and found out I wasn't. Anywho, I dropped out of school and rebelled... a lot. Piercings, tattoos, yadda yadda... After I turned 20 I decided I would give it another go, so I quit smoking and living in sin and went back thinking I'd get disfellowshipped, bit I didn't. So I was going good and I met my husband and got married (we were good). I got Pregnant for real, I was told I couldn't, (hence the no birth control) we were still going to the meetings but it was less than half heartily. My husband and I had a few very soul searching conversations and came to the conclusion that neither one of us were happy in the organization, and didn't want to raise our child in it. My husband is an ex-pioneer and ex-MS, but was neither when we met. So we have been fading further out of sight, we both missed our first memorial this year, it was wierd but liberating. We still get occasional comments from my family, like "will you be at the convention?" "do you need a ride?" "are you okay?" but for the most part all of our "friends" have quit talking to us unless it involves giving us the latest Watchtower.
So my husband, my daughter, and myself are a very happy un-complicated little family... if you don't count the slightly odd manner of speaking that my sister in law doesn't understand "what do you mean pioneer? Like you farmed?... on a prarie?" I love it.