A guilt free Christmas
My life as I knew it was over, I had no religion, but sometimes the old way of thinking sneaks back in. I struggle with that even now, a person can’t spend 28 years being trained to think and act one way and change it overnight, much less over a decade. There will always be Jehovah’s Witness influence in my life, but I recognize it and try to overcome it.
Dating wasn’t easy, I didn’t date men with the intention of marriage I dated for fun. I had some guilt at first, but then I would remember, this is my life, my rules. It would have been nice to do this silly dating thing back in high school, but it was still fun. The warm fuzzy feelings and excitement of a new relationship are wonderful and I’m glad I got to experience them, even if I was older.
Something else I finally let myself do was celebrate Christmas, I probably appreciate Christmas more than most adults. So in our first apartment I asked my son if he wanted to have a Christmas tree. Of course he said yes, at any time when I was a kid if someone had asked me if I wanted to celebrate Christmas I’d have said yes. So we had a beautiful small tree and some carefully chosen gifts. My mom and stepdad had to help us with our fake tree, I’d never fluffed a fake tree before. Wrapping presents was strange, with no Birthdays and no Christmas I didn’t have much experience. The guilt I’d felt as a child about wanting to celebrate Christmas so bad and secretly wishing for presents was gone.
i remember my first christmas. so crazy, and i kept waiting for “Armageddon” to happen RIGHT when i was decorating the tree. nothing bad happened, of course, but i agree, it’s still kind of weird even this many years later.