Hi oncewasblind! Welcome and you are like me, who never fully embraced the whole thing. I guess we're just too observant :). Congrats on having your own life!! But I know it's tough that your family is under their control and you feel so far away from them. I have that problem too. But having your own immediate family out of it is a huge blessing.
You studied the live forever book. Which I basically know by heart, since my mother was a pioneer and had a million studies out of it that I had to sit through. :)
i stumbled upon this site a couple of months ago after researching 'jw's and 1914/2014'... I wanted to see if they had changed their stance on 1914 since i's been over a hundred years (lol)....but nope, they are still! dragging it out.