Dreadless

April 15, 2012 12:04 a.m.

One of the best things about leaving Mormonism behind was relief from a lurking sense of “dread” in my life.  During my inactive but believing days, I would often stress out about getting my life “back in order” and repenting and getting myself temple worthy again.  I would experience poignant feelings of dread and distress at the prospect of going through all that.  What an unnecessary source of stress.  It feels really good to leave all that behind.  I no longer worry about being off track or not going down my life’s “true” path.  I no longer stress about getting married and starting a family.  If it happens, great.  If not, no big deal.  I’m trying to live my life honestly, responsibly, and enjoyably.  I understand that having kids is both a source of happiness and stress.  Not having kids would probably have similar trade-offs in the opposite ways.

The other day I told my cousin that I was agnostic.  It didn’t come as a surprise to him--he had already suspected as much, and he said that his dad did, as well.  I imagine others in the family probably do, too.  It’s fine.  We talked a little bit about some of the issues I have with the church.  It’s apparent that he is at least basically familiar with most troubling church issues.  But he seems to be taking an apologetic stance.  He also expressed some pretty outlandish views on what this life is all about (something about this life being an imperfect projection/translation of something more perfect).  He admitted that he’s kind of a hippy in this respect.  My opinion is that while he has become superficially familiar with the problematic issues, he hasn’t really critically thought through them, or considered their real implications.  With the BofM and BofA, for example, he said something about how his background in translation helps him understand how those issues can be explained.  Again, it smacks of ridiculous apologetic rationalizations, but he didn’t elaborate enough for me to call him out on it.  Toward the end of our conversation (this was on gchat), it seemed like he was trying to understand “all” my issues, just to make sure he had heard of them all.  I guess he has compartmentalized these issues off to the side and marked them “resolved” in his mind.  I think he’ll eventually make his way out of Mormonism.  He’s too much of a free thinker to maintain the kind of narrow-minded orthodoxy the church requires.  He may still retain a lot of his spiritual views, though (which is fine).