Going Crazy!!!

My husband, once he decided that all the events of the last four months were judgments from God for my leaving the church and his asking the questions that instigated my leaving the church, will not let that thought out of his mind.

I am going out of my mind. I've said to him that if everyone who left the church had their houses burned down, there would be a heckuvalot more homeless people. Sometimes that will calm him down, and other times he'll continue to argue.

Here's what's happened in the last four months:

• He got a nasty cold. No big deal, except that he so rarely gets sick that to him it's a huge deal.
• After the cold went mostly away, he had lingering sinus issues.
• He got a really bad case of food poisoning.
• Our oldest dog died.
• Our house burned down. (Okay, not literally down, as in to the ground, because if you just drive by you wouldn't know anything had happened. But all of the interior and the roof and rafters have to be gutted and rewired, rebuilt, etc.)
• The manager at the hotel we're staying at until Friday, when we move into an apartment for the duration, has been extremely nasty.

So yeah, a really sucktastic period for him. But I still don't believe in the cause and effect correlation. I don't believe all these things happened because I left the church. Here's why:

• Colds happen to people all over the place all the time.
• When colds mostly go away, it's possible to develop bronchitis or have lingering sinus issues.
• If you eat food that has something toxic, you get food poisoning. He was in another state, and ate some Chinese food that had chicken in it, so I'm assuming it was from that. Chicken's tricky if you don't use proper methods of preparation and cooking.
• Our dog was old and tired. It was just her time. It doesn't make it any easier, but there it is.
• Our house was built in 1954, and at some point someone put a fuse (I think that's what it is--I'm not a mechanical/electrical type of person) that was 100 whatevers instead of the 50 whatevers it should have been. There have been extremely high temperatures here this summer, so there was a lot of drain on the air conditioners and electricity demands. And I don't know what else happened, but the result was a house fire.
• The manager at the hotel is an asshole. There are people who are lovely to work with. There are people who are ignorant and hard to deal with. There are assholes. That's just part of life.

So I'm trying not to let all his negativity get to me. When he tells me not to drink coffee or wine, I tell him that I'm an adult and will drink whatever I feel like drinking.

I'm hoping things will get better when we're into the apartment and out of the hotel. If not, it's going to be really craptacular.

WTF?

Yesterday after work, my husband met me at a restaurant near the hotel for dinner.  The restaurant really had the air cranked, so I was quite cold.  When I told my husband how cold I was, he said, and I quote, "That's because you're not wearing your garments."

WTF?

My response: "I'm cold because they have the air conditioner cranked up."

Things That Make You Go WTF?

My husband asked me the other day if anyone from TSCC had contacted me about the house fire. I told him no, but then again, I haven't been in contact with anyone to tell them.  He then told me that he'd called our bishop.

Hmmm. Fat lot of good that did, eh?

Okay. Here's the thing. If I were, say, someone's visiting teacher, and I learned that she had requested no contact with the church, I would respect that. If, however, I learned that the person's house had burned down, I would be calling or visiting not as a representative of the church, but as a fellow human. What can I do? How can I help?

And then today I've been thinking some more. I am actually "friends" on Facebook with a few members from our ward. And of all the people who responded with commiseration or well wishes, none of them were those people. I may be doing some unfriending tonight.

It goes back to what I said before about my loving visiting teacher who showed me only too clearly that she didn't love me at all. I was just a duty for her. And while I requested no contact from the church, I very clearly emphasized that it was me, and I did not speak for my husband in any way. For him to reach out, and be rebuffed, just pisses me off even more.

(Please note that I have friends who just happen to be members of the church, and this isn't directed at them in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I am referring specifically to the members of the ward in which we reside and which my husband would love someone to reach out to him not as someone who's falling away but in genuine compassion and kindness.  (Did you just laugh there? Did you snort? Oh--the snort must have been from me. Sorry 'bout that, she says unrepentantly.)

Food Storage

Most of the food storage my husband obsessively purchased was stored in the converted garage room.

Guess which room caught the brunt of the fire?

I hope that when we are able to move back to our home, in the 4-5 month period they're now projecting, instead of the 2-3 month period, he will learn to restrain himself. We don't need 25-pound bags of flour and rice.

Just a thought

Last night my husband and I went out to buy at least enough clothes to get us through the rest of this week. And while we stood in line to pay for the items we'd picked out, we watched a group of young teenage girls. They were young and pretty, and being typical teenagers.

I dare you to think of a young teen you know, 14 years old, and then think of her being impelled to marry a 38-year-old man who, by the way, already has numerous secret and not-so-secret wives in addition to the legal first wife that most people know of.  It's repugnant.

I was glad to see the kids looking and acting like kids, without the fear of being given in marriage while still in their youth, without having to grow up far beyond their years. It was nice.

Temporary Absence

My house caught fire Sunday night. If I were a cause-and-effect kind of a person, I might say that it was God's judgment coming down on me for leaving the church.  But then I would say that if God burns downs people's houses for leaving the church, he wouldn't be much of a god, and there wouldn't be very many houses left, either. I think crap just happens.

Anyway, we're all safe, both those of us who walk on 2 legs and those who walk on 4. We spent the first two nights with my parents, and now we're in a hotel for a couple of weeks and then will be in a corporate apartment after that until our house is ready for us to move back in.

I probably won't be posting much until things settle back down.

Oh, and one thing that strikes me as funny. The church books my husband refused to let me sell at a used book store? He'd put them in the converted garage that we use for his studio and storage.  Guess where the fire started? Guess what books got all burnded up?  :)

Just Thinkin' Some More

When my best friend C. lived in her dream house, there was one day that most of her family and my husband were inside her house watching the World Cup. But her son Ch. and I were outside in the swimming pool being goofy and having fun.  I remember him launching himself at me, proclaiming at the top of his lungs, "I am Reptar! Hear me roar!" and he roared loudly with a mighty yawp, and it was fun.

And the thought of that led me to that old Helen Reddy song, "I Am Woman." "I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore, and I know too much to go back to pretending..."

That's how I feel about the church. I know too much to go back to pretending. While I admire and respect most of the members of the church, because I know they are good people and genuinely serving God and doing what they believe to be right, I cannot align myself with this organisation. With its murky beginnings, the even murkier issue of Joseph Smith being a sexual predator (among many other unattractive characteristics), the tiny amount of money that goes to humanitarian aid as opposed to building malls and condos, the fact that there is no archaeological evidence supporting the book of mormon, etc., there's just nothing there for me.

I'm not happy about it. I mean, it's been a part of my life for 30 years. It's not easy to cast off something with which you have identified yourself so strongly. And I'm trying to find where my beliefs lie. The truth is the truth, no matter what people may believe.  There's nothing that everyone on this earth recognizes to be true, when it comes to faith and religion. My chances of choosing the incorrect one, if there is such a thing, are far greater than stumbling upon the correct one.

Therefore, I believe that I will just continue to try to be a good person and hope that God, if there is a God, will accept that.