I read this post and I just wanted to cry. It reminds me so much of how tumultuous having one foot in and most of you out of the Org gets. Its constant weighing, grappling, wondering, feeling guilty because you "shouldnt be doing" this that or the other....and there is no "grey" area that is OK. You want to be normal, have normalcy with your children. You want your FAMILY and you love your family and the damn family turns on you like Jekyl and Hyde when you even SLIGHTLY have the appearance of evil. When did we relinquish power to this this...MONSTER up in Brooklyn that eats families? marriages? relationships? JOY?? What the F?????
Thanksgiving....how many freakin JWs have a WHOLE feast including the damn turkey on Thanksgiving and invite JWs over?? How many times did you get or give presents that were wrapped discretely so as not to resemble Christmas gifts or birthday presents but really WERE? How many of us gladly accepted our Christmas bonuses from work and then told Grandma Ellen that we would NOT take her Christmas present because it was pagan?
How many JW costume parties did we attend or give around Halloween?? And...give out candy of course "because it was cheap".
Why in hell should anyone have to live like this? Being a JW was a nightmare for me and rare is the person I met in the last 20 years of being in, out or around it that actually LOVES it. Usually its some old lady with absolutely nothing else to do with her time who does it for the social value.
I MOURNED the loss of my Christmases when I became a JW in 84...literally went into depression from Thanksgiving until about Jan 2. Watched in dismay the people having company on our street, bringing gifts into a house filled with laughter, music, lights and wonderful smells. Children dressed up in their finest, and going to Christmas Eve services and holding a candle. I cried alone in my car where I COULD play the Christmas carols and sing and no one would see me. I got a few scattered cards from people and would keep them and look at them alone. I would buy a pine scented candle or perhaps cinamon...something to take the edge off my misery, going to meetings and passing all the beautiful decorations and coming home to a plain dark house. It was devastating.
After Christmas even garbage day hurt...Id drive down the street and see all the wrappings and discarded trees with their tinsel gleaming in the sun...and feel the pain of the loss. I would convince my husband to let me see my family and they would always accommodate us on like Christmas Eve Eve or something but my nonJW dad would give me a plain gift because "I was still his daughter." And I would take it "so I wouldnt hurt his feelings" but Id cherish it.
When I finally decided to write that disassociation letter in Jan 97, it was the longest year of my life waiting to share Christmas with my children who had never seen its beauty. People in the neighborhood who found out we were celebrating for the very first time, brought gifts...pieces of their own collections to help us start ours....a little tree, some village houses that lit up, some ornaments, a little angel for the tree. It was the best christmas ever. My JW husband tried to make us miserable just by BEING here...moping, muttering snapping at us..but we plowed right over his nastiness. Now he just leaves for the week because he knows he cant stop us.
So have your little snowman tree. Live your life! Unafraid! Just you and GOD and your heart. Be true to YOURSELF. No one else matters. No one.
Hugs, D
