Posted by:
A Musing Grace
(
)
Date: July 09, 2012 06:44PM
So I thought I'd check in, since people are asking how we are doing.
The end of May, was our five year anniversary of freedom. it has been amazing how quickly the time has passed.
My son is now 25, and in his last year in a computer engineering program. He is happy and content. When we went to North Carolina and approached him, he really was resistant to seeing us. He would not look at any of the info we'd brought along. We got him to agree to come home by promising him that we would send him back in two weeks if he wanted to return. He really believed he was being given an Abrahamic test. Sad....
Anyway, when he got home, he studied and looked over everything
and came to the same conclusion the rest of the family did in less than two days.
As we began the journey back to our home, his relief was palpable. He is a really intelligent person who questioned the faith, but had faith in us, his parents. That trust is us, was what allowed him to come home and figure it out for himself.
My husband, A Mazing Man, and I will be having our 27th anniversary this fall. We now have enough income to travel from time-to-time. Something we never did as full tithe-paying
Mormons.
Life is rich, full of interesting adventures, and we are happy as we navigate life on our own terms. I am a spiritual person and feel connection to whatever it is that we are all a part of.
My kids now range in age from 14 to 25, and we are grandparents to a beautiful boy who will be two in December.
I used to be more angry and resentful of my Mormon experience, but have made peace with it to the point that when we were on a family vacation in San Diego, I had no problem visiting the Mormon Battalion site. My husband had an ancestor on that and we wanted to check it out. I would not have been able to do that until this year. It was a bit awkward for the missionary guides trying to figure us out. And funny when they struck out when asking my 14-year-old if he was going on a mission. :-)
We never have elders come to our door EVER. They did the first year and after that I think we got black listed because I had some pretty interesting things to tell the young lads about my past. Heh, heh...
I have though about writing the story of my life in and out of Mormonism but really am not sure another memoir on this subject would add much.
People think that I decided to leave the church overnight. While I came int my decision in a few weeks of being on the RfM site, it was many years of getting to the place where I lost my fear of what I might find, and had enough trust in who I had become, to be able to move forward.
I had no idea what my husband would do. I hoped we could still be married, but needed my connection to my true self so much, that if my marriage ended, so be it. I was really fortunate that my husband quickly was able to access those parts of himself that he had been stuffing down in misery for years, and look the facts in the eye and be able to say to our family across the table, "We are leaving the church and we are going to be better people for it."
No words were more aptly spoken. Yes, we are not only better people, but happier people.
I appreciate everything that everyone here on the board did to help us in our journey.
Life is good, I'm in my 4th year of working in real estate and am having much success with that. It's been an incredible adventure living life on my own terms and watching my family do the same.