Maybe this is the last sequel and maybe it's not. I feel that there will be more but maybe this is the last one that I'll write about. I don't know if I would have come out as an atheist if I had known what I was getting into. It's been hard. Well, not as hard as a lot of people have it, but it's a lot worse than people believe it is. I love my family, yes even my mother, and I care about what they think of me. As much as I might like to just write them off and never see them again, or at least the ones that are too Christian for their own good, I know that I can't do it. I'm determined not to let something like a difference in beliefs stand in the way of having a functional relationship with my family. So I try to make peace every chance that I get. The problem is that no one wants to talk about atheism or past arguments because they know that it will just lead to more fighting. That means that I have to restart the arguments to get anywhere. So I feel like a trouble maker when I do that.
It's been a year and a half since I wrote the last sequel to this saga. A few things have happened since then but nothing really major. My mother and I had a kind of truce going. It's nothing that we agreed on formally it's just that we didn't fight about things. Instead we both got passive aggressive. Mother would throw out comments that weren't aimed directly at me but everyone knew what she was getting at. I'd do the same back at her. It was like a fight could break out any moment but it never did. I didn't feel comfortable with that, but at least she wasn't trying to convert me anymore. That was a relief. Still, I wanted to talk with my mother about our religious disagreement and get it resolved. But the few times I tried, and I tried to do it gently, she put me down. The last time she put me down harshly. I was starting to think that things were hopeless, like this was the way it was going to be for the rest of our lives. I was starting to feel like I shouldn't bother becoming a therapist. I mean, if I couldn't work out a problem like this between my mother and I, how could I expect to be able to solve anyone's problems? That was depressing. I didn't want to waste another trip through college. But what good was anything that I was learning if it didn't work? I'm glad that the times I felt like that were few and far between, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to study hard and get good grades. And better still, I finally found out that what I learned really does work.
Anyway, I am happy that I decided to come out
as an atheist, even though it's been an ordeal...
Summer vacation 2001
It all started while we were eating dinner. That seems to be the way most of our family fights start. I'm not sure why I haven't developed an eating disorder because of it. I certainly developed a lot of other disorders because of all the fighting my family did. I'm glad that I've dealt with most of those disorders, especially all the repressed anger. I wasn't a nice person when I was younger. I used to explode at people for things that I shouldn't have made such a big deal about. I hurt some people too. I feel bad about that. I know it's too late to go back and try to undo those things. I wish I could. But I'll settle for being a therapist and giving back to the world by healing those that I can.
I'm off track. That happens.
Ah, yes. Dinner. There we were eating dinner at a resort up in the mountains. It's like the typical summer vacation for us. I don't mind going there every year. It's beautiful. It reminds me that there's more to the world than work, and school, and jobs, and politics, and all those things we've created and that we think are sooo important. For a week I try to let go of those things and I try to feel like a part of nature. Last year we didn't go. My brother had to work all summer. The team he's an assistant coach for went to the national finals and he couldn't get away. So my mother canceled the vacation. I felt that what happened two years ago was also part of her decision. That was when I came out as an atheist.
I'm off track again. Where was I?
Dinner. We were in our condo eating dinner. The four of us, my father, mother, brother and I. Just like we used to years ago when we all lived under the same roof. It felt that way too, like we'd gone back in time. Something was bothering mother. That's not unusual. She wasn't very talkative. We all knew that she would come out with it some time. That's how she is. Dinner time was the time she usually brought up the latest thing that she needed to talk about. Well, pass judgment on is more like it. When she vents she vents like she's speaking for God himself. But the main reason she does it is to get approval. She wants everyone to agree with her. Sometimes I don't and that's how we get into fights. When she vents at me we definitely get into a fight. I felt that was going to happen. But I was ready. In a way I wanted it to happen. So I didn't fear when she started speaking in her quiet, low, judgmental voice.
"Do you know where your cousin David and his (ahem) friend are planning to go this fall?", she was talking to my father. She didn't say it to him, she just talked as she was eating, like she was talking to her food.
David is the openly gay member on my father's side of the family. My father told me that there were one or two others that were also gay but were in the closet. I can understand why. My mother hasn't spoken a word to David after she found out that he was gay. She hates him. She thinks that all gay people are sinners and that they're going to hell. She believes all the stupid rumors people spread about gays: that they all lead promiscuous lifestyles, that they all have AIDS, that they're all god-haters, that the only reason that they want to adopt children is so that they can use them for sex. Yes, she believes that one too. One of the things she holds against my father is that David is a part of his family and that they, "let him be gay". Yes, she's one of those people who think that being gay is something that you choose and not something that you're born into.
I used to wonder why my mother obsessed about David so much. I mean, if David offended her so much, why didn't she just forget about him? But no, she actually goes out of her way to find out what he's been up to. She gossips with one of my father's other cousins every few weeks and always asks how David is doing. She makes it sound like she cares about David, but in reality she's fuming. I used to wonder why she did that to herself, but now I know. She wants to hear that something bad happened to him. She wants to find out that God is punishing him for his sins. I know that she would be happy inside if David came down with AIDS. That's sick.
"No.", replied my father, "Where's that?"
He answered her like it was a normal conversation. It was his way of trying to get my mother to break out of her judgmental mode. It never worked. It seems like nothing can get my mother to lighten up when she vents.
"Vermont."
My father paused, then said, "I'll bet that it's beautiful up there that time of year."
I'm pretty sure he knew exactly where the conversation was going. I knew that my brother and I did.
"You know why those kind of people go to Vermont don't you?", my mother was going to make her point and nothing was going to stop her. My father didn't answer. He didn't have to.
"That's where they let them get married.", when she said 'married' the word made me shudder a little. My mother uses loaded words. When she says them she can mean a lot of things. This time she not only meant the whole stupid "protect marriage by stopping homosexuals from getting married" thing (how that works I don't know), but she wanted to make a dig at my brother and I. Neither of us are married and my mother holds it against us. So with one word directed at someone else my mother was trying to make all three of us feel guilty. She's like a master of guilt.
"It doesn't matter though.", my brother spoke up. He was trying to defuse things. He's a saint. "The state where they live won't recognize the marriage anyway so it doesn't mean anything. You know, legally. It just means that David and Lewis have made a commitment to each other."
"They've made a commitment to Satan.", said my mother.
I remember back when I took my mother seriously when she said things like that. Now when she does I almost have to keep from laughing.
"It's bad enough that they're living in sin.", that was another dig at my brother and I. She knows that we both have had sex outside of the bonds of matrimony (horror of horrors). "Now they want to profane God's sacred institution. Those people have no decency."
I'd heard enough. I knew I was going to start a fight by speaking up. When mother starts to mention God and Satan she gets on a righteous roll. We knew that she was going to vent and that it might last all evening. I didn't want to hear it.
"I don't see how gays getting married has any effect on anyone's marriage except their own.", I said. The 'protecting marriage' thing is so full of crap. They make it sound like everyone's marriage is going to be ruined if gays start getting married. Mother was speechless long enough so that I could continue, "I mean, if someone finally finds someone that they can love so much that they want to get married, who are we to stand in their way? It doesn't matter what sex they are, they're still human beings and they need love."
Again my mother didn't reply right away. So I kept going.
"It's OK if you want to hate them and wish bad things on them, but I don't feel that the government should be as bigoted as you are and prevent them from experiencing life's joys.", I knew that was going to get a rise out of her. Even though she was a bigot in every sense of the word she hated to be called a bigot. I just didn't expect her to say what she said.
"That's just what I'd expect to hear from people like you and your alternative lifestyles. You're hedonists and the only thing you care about is yourselves. You think that the world is one big Sodom and Gemorrah. You think that you can screw around with whomever you like whenever you want. You think that you can do anything you want to and that it's OK. I know what you're up to. And God does too. Oh but you don't believe in him or so you say, but you're a liar. You believe in God because you hate him. And you sin because you hate him. You're a hate filled little bitch and all you want to do is embarrass me in front of my family and God. You want everyone to know what a sinful little bitch you are so you can get back at me. You want everyone to think that I'm a bad mother, that I can't raise a good daughter. Well the only mistake that I made was that I put up with your crap too much. I was lenient because I thought that it would make you happy. And look at the thanks I get. All that I can say is that it's not going to be like that any more. I'm not going to accept you as a sinner. From now on you're going to be a model Christian woman or you're not going to be a part of this family!"
I was stunned. My mind felt like it exploded. I was totally confused. The first thing that came to mind was that she knew about my affair with Dawn. I mean what was all that stuff about 'I know what you're up to and so does God'? My mind raced. How could she have found out? I hadn't told anyone but a few close friends. Maybe word spread. Maybe my mother knew. I'd planned to be open about that, but mother wasn't ready to know. And, well you don't know either so I guess that I have to explain that too.
Earlier that summer I was on a trip up the coast with some old friends and some friends of those friends. It was great. It was like summer vacation back in high school all over again. We kicked back, toured the coast, smoked some weed and hung out at a friend's beach house for days doing nothing but talking about nothing and flying this old kite. One evening I found myself alone with an old high school acquaintance named Dawn. We were a little high and were finding out that we had a lot in common. She was getting into the whole goth thing and wanted to come down to LA and make the scene. She also wanted to become a therapist but had to support her husband while he finished up college. So we talked about therapy and goth and high school and everything. Well, at one point she propositioned me about having some "totally spontaneous sex". The first thing I thought was trying to find a good way to say no. Then I thought, "Why not?". For the first time I realized that it wasn't automatically "wrong" to do it. I could decide if I wanted to or not. I thought about how I felt about it and said yes.
The best part about the sex was how liberating it was. Before I had always felt all these emotional issues when I was having sex. I was always worried about the relationship and how it was going to change and whether or not he really loved me and things like that. This time I didn't have anything to worry about. For the first time I could relax and enjoy myself. And I did.
Later that summer we got together in LA and I showed her the goth scene. She had a blast. She said that she was going to try to talk her husband into moving in to The Valley so that she could go clubbing every weekend. I don't think that's going to happen since he hates big cities. Anyway, she and I spent a wonderful four days. I showed her around LA and she, well, showed me a few new things too. I experimented. I let myself go. I had the best sex that I've ever had. I'll spare you the details. To make a long story short, I became a bisexual adulteress. Or maybe I'm an adulterer. What do you call a woman who sleeps with someone's wife? It doesn't matter. I'm a big time sinner and I'm going to hell for sure.
But I had to know whether mother knew.
"What do you mean you know what I'm doing?", I said. "You don't know anything."
"I know all about what you gothics do at those raves." Raves? She was guessing. I felt relieved. The she said, and these are her exact words, "You do all that Ecstatasy, and... sin all night."
I didn't misspell Ecstasy, she really said "ex-stat-a-see". And I know that she wanted to say "screw all night" but she couldn't bring herself to imagine her daughter involved in anything like that.
OK, so that was one less thing I had to worry about. I guess that she had been reading some Christian magazines or talking to her church friends about what the kids are doing these days and that she had got her head all filled with crap and lies. I remember reading an article on Christian Psychology for one of my classes where a minister was trying to psychoanalyze atheism. It was bad. He kept getting everything about atheism and humanism and hedonism confused. He ended up saying something like every atheist is just like a child throwing a tantrum, but he used a lot of big words and made it sound scientific. It made me mad reading it. Not that I believed any of it, but I felt like a lot of Christians would and that they wouldn't give me or my beliefs any respect. After hearing my mother spew all that crap back at me and then threaten to disown me if I didn't become a Christian confirmed by worst fears about how people would use that junk science. What I thought was two years of progress with my mother trying to get her to accept who I am was all being trashed by a bunch a stupid Christian bullshit.
I got really mad. I knew where my mother's buttons were and I was ready to push them all. First I thought that I'd tell her all about Dawn in every gory detail. Then I thought that I should really go for it and tell her a bunch of made up stories about how I'd had sex with hundreds of guys at raves and that I sell my body to buy drugs. I know she'd believe every word that I said no matter how crazy the story was that I made up. She believes what she wants to believe. She doesn't let common sense stop her.
For a moment I didn't care about my family or my reputation or anyone's feelings. I was going to rip her stupid little Christian bullshit world apart in front of her eyes once and for all. This time I wasn't going to stop when she said something completely lame like, "That's why we have faith", or "I know because I can feel the love of Jesus". I was going to throw it all back in her face until she finally admitted that she was wrong. If she was going to try to convert me, I was going to do the same to her, and I knew that I could hold out longer than she could. It was time to give her back all that crap that she had dumped on me all my life.
So I raised my finger and opened my mouth and then...
I stopped.
I remembered something that one of my professors told me about being a therapist. She said that during a session anything can happen. Your clients have problems and sometimes they're going to vent them at you. Don't worry, it's a sign that you're making progress. Forget yourself and focus on them. The best thing that you can do when that happens is to make them aware of how they're feeling. Work on that. It often leads to a breakthrough.
'Forget yourself and focus on them'. That's what came into my mind. Here I was all tied up in my own anger and I was about to do something that I was probably going to regret for the rest of my life. So I closed my mouth and lowered my hand and decided to be a therapist with my mother as my client.
"So do you love me or do you hate me?", I calmly asked.
Now it was my mother's turn to be stunned. She was expecting a fight. She cooled down quickly. I was amazed. It was something that I'd never ever seen before. Even my uncle John couldn't cool her down when she got on a holy roll.
"I love you, but I hate your sin.", she replied.
Yes, I know, it's such a corny line. I wanted to rip it apart, but I stayed in therapist mode.
"How do you feel when I sin?"
Again, she had to stop and think. It was working.
"Angry. Because you don't think that you're going to hell.", she was starting to get back on her roll.
"Do you feel guilty? Like it's your fault?", I know that she does. That's what she said when she dumped on me. She claimed that I wanted everyone to think that she was a bad mother.
"Your sins aren't my sins. I shouldn't feel guilty about what you do."
"Do you feel embarrassed?", I know that she does. I just wanted her to think about it.
"When you dress up like it's Halloween and let other people see you, how do you think I feel?"
As far as I know dressing gothic isn't a sin. But I've never been able to sit down and read the whole bible. Maybe there's some letter from John that says that black is Satan's favorite color.
"Do you feel embarrassed about me being an atheist?"
"You believe in God. You just say that you don't so that you can sin whenever you want to."
She was so full of crap. I had to try hard not to get mad.
"And that embarrasses you?", I had to keep going with that. I had to get her to admit that she feels shame. I needed to get her in touch with her negative feelings because those are the ones that were making her angry.
"Yes it's embarrassing. Do you have any idea what it's like trying to explain to everyone in my family and everyone at church why my daughter runs around looking like a witch and saying that she doesn't believe in God? They think that I'm a bad mother. They don't say it but I know that's what they're thinking. I know they're saying 'have you heard about her daughter Ann? She's one of those Satanists'. They whisper and point the accusing finger at me. They think that I let it happen, that I raised you wrong, that it's my fault. You have no idea what it's like talking to them after church. They bring their whole families. Their sons and daughters are all good Christians and they respect their parents, but there I am with your father and your brother and you aren't there. When they ask about you what can I tell them? That you're some kind of god-hating Satanist? How could you do this to me? How could you do this to my family? How could you do this to us?", she was starting to break down.
I was overcome with a desire to go to church with her, dressed full goth of course with my cloak, makeup, gloves, jewelry, everything. That would be great. I'd walk into church in the middle of the service. The minister's jaw would drop he'd stop preaching. I'd walk slowly up the aisle making eye contact with everyone. Then I'd sit down right next to my mother and act like everything is just fine. She would totally freak. She'd be like, "what in God's name do you think you're doing?", and I'd be like, "I'm here to clear my reputation." Then I'd stand up and say, "In case you all were wondering, I'm not a god-hating Satanist. I'm a bisexual, adulterous, gothic atheist with no shame."
They'd probably tie me to a stake and burn me alive.
Anyway, I was making progress. I could see the source of my mother's anger. She blames herself for all of my moral failings. She wasn't mad at me, she was mad at herself. I just needed to get my mother to see it too. I was close to a breakthrough.
"Do you blame yourself for how I turned out?"
"I wasn't strict enough with you. I let you do whatever you wanted. And this is the thanks I get."
"Do you blame yourself for my sins?", this was the same question that I asked before but I knew that she couldn't give the same answer, that she didn't feel guilty about my sins, not after what she just said.
"If I could have raised you like I wanted to you wouldn't sin. People said that I was too strict but I wasn't strict enough."
She wasn't strict enough? I'd hate to think of what my life would have been like if she had been more strict. I'd probably have ended up like one of those poor brainwashed god-soaked children that act so nice all the time but you can tell there's something really inside them.
Every time my mother answered one of my questions I felt like I wanted to slap her. But I didn't. I stayed calm. I was close.
"Doesn't God want everyone to choose for themselves between good and evil? Isn't that the point?"
"And they should choose good.", she quickly responded.
"But shouldn't they choose for themselves?"
She thought for a little while, then said, "So you're choosing evil?"
"Whatever I choose is my choice. Whatever Jeffrey (my brother) chooses is his choice. Whatever dad chooses is his choice. Whatever David and Lewis choose is their choice. And whatever you choose is your choice. You chose to raise me in the best way that you could. I feel that you did a good job. You're not a bad mother.", OK so I was lying a little, but she could have done a lot worse. I have to keep reminding myself of all the good things she did when she was raising me so I don't end up thinking that she did nothing but hurt me. Yes, she was selfish, but if the main reason that you care about someone is that you care how it reflects back on you, then at least that's better than not caring at all. "But you need to understand that there's only so much that you can do. You can't make everyone's decisions for them. You're not responsible for what they choose. You don't need to blame yourself when they do something that you don't approve of. You have to let go."
There was a long silence. I was really nervous underneath. I was scared that my mother was just going to revert back to all her old arguments. I didn't want everything that I tried to do to be wasted. I needed a breakthrough. I needed to have some hope that I could be a therapist and solve people's problems. Getting high grades in class and studying all the time wasn't going to mean anything if I couldn't help people in real life.
"Let go and let God.", said my brother. "We're all trying to do the right thing, it's just hard. That's how it should be though. God doesn't want it to be easy."
There was another long pause. Then my mother quickly stood up and rushed out of the room. I saw her wiping away tears. My father followed her out and put his arm around her. They both sat down on the couch and she cried on his shoulder. I remembered her doing that only once before. It was when Jeffrey left for college for his freshman year. He was only going to be a couple of hours drive away but he was going to live on campus. It was the first time that he was going to be away from home. He moved all the stuff out of his room. He left the nest. It was the first time that she had to say good-bye to him.
I put two and two together. She was letting go. She was letting go of me. Just like she had to let go of Jeffrey so long ago.
I'd done it. I'd reached a breakthrough. And I'd learned an important lesson about how to resolve conflicts. But I hadn't done it all myself.
"Thank you Jeffrey.", I said, "I really appreciate what you said."
"Yeah. You were great.", he whispered, "I thought that you and mother were going to have an epic fight, but you worked it out. Whatever they're teaching you in school, it works."
That made me feel so good. Later my father told me that, "Uncle John couldn't have done any better" and that made me feel great. Uncle John is like the most respected person on my mother's side of the family. Everyone likes him even when they don't agree with him. So he's like the designated fight settler. In mother's side of the family he's had a lot of practice.
The rest of the vacation was calm, almost serene. My mother had changed. She'd let go. She was more relaxed, but she wasn't completely comfortable. That was OK. I knew that it would take a while for her to adjust. We were like a family again and it felt good. I went to church with them and did the small talk thing with everyone. I felt like people thought that I was converting back to being a believer but nobody said anything about it. Well, one person asked if I was there to hear the good word and I told him that I was just there with my family. That's as close as I got to proclaiming my atheism. All that I wanted to do was to show them that I was a normal, well adjusted adult. I wanted to shatter their images of what atheists were like. I hope that I did. When it was over and we were all saying good-bye my mother gave me a big long hug. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.
I wonder if it is finally all over. I wonder if we are finally going to be a functional family. I don't know. I think that there will still be times when we have to go back over the issues that we still have unresolved in our pasts. But I know that I'm ready when those times come. I feel confident that I can deal with anything.
So, did I choose evil? Well, if this is evil, I'm OK with that.
