Why my angst is almost Nil.

I was born and raised Mormon. I lived the life of a good mormon girl for at least 18 years. So why am I not as angry as some. I have read about and talked to a lot of people who are so angry at the church for deceiving them and when I hear their life stories I can understand why they are so angry. So what happened to me. Why do I mostly feel like I always did before my disaffection? Why do I still think fondly of growing up in Utah? Why am I one of the few people who don't mind going to Utah or wouldn't mind living in Utah again someday? Why am I not more pissed off at being decieved?

I like to credit a lot of it with my laid-back personality. I went through the motions of having a testimony but I don't think I ever took the church seriously. I also credit my parents who weren't overly strict with us kids. Yeah they didn't want me swearing, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, having sex before marriage, dating before I was 16 and watching R-Rated movies(though they did let the occasional R-Rated movie into the house). They wanted me to be active in church, read my BoM and marry a man in the temple. That is pretty common with most TBM mormon parents and what they want for their children. The things they might differ a little bit on with other TBM mormon parents is they let us wear tank tops, bikinis(though they preferred tankinis). They let us get our ears pierced more than once if we wanted, they didn't care if we had friends who weren't LDS, in fact they really encouraged those friendships. Maybe having non-member family members helped with that a little too. The ward I grew up in was pretty laid back too. My favorite bishop was a former California surfer dude who when he went with us to girls camp didn't hesitate to jump into Bear Lake in his swimsuit and swim. He is also the bishop that later married my husband and me in my grandparents back yard and he told me that he thought I had picked a good man to marry. Now being that my husband isn't LDS, I really thought that was a great compliment. Seriously he was the least judgemental bishop I had ever known.

My parents never told me that my most important goal was to get married and have babies, though of course they thought it was important. Mostly what I heard growing up was "if you don't do better in school you will never get into a good college and then you won't get a decent job". I should have listened!! :)

Then when I got married to my husband they supported me, my home ward supported me and my friends supported me. Of course they all hold out some hope that eventually he will convert and take me and our kids to the temple but they werent' going to let that stop them from welcoming my husband into the family. Obviously that isn't going to happen(dh converting) as I am pretty much out myself, but they don't know that. I still won't tell them because as laid back and understanding as they are I think my leaving the church is where they draw the line. As I said in a previous post I just don't have it in me to hurt them like that. They obviously don't deserve it. And if any group of people are the epitome of what this church SHOULD be like, it 's them and for that reason I will not hurt them either.

So anyway, after I turned 18 I still thought I was a believer but that is when my long stretch into inactivity started minus the 3 years I moved back in with my parents and went to church with them and my mom, who was YW's President gave me a job in that organization. But once I moved out again I rarely went to church.

Don't get me wrong there are times I do get a little miffed at the church, like the first time I read the JoD and when I heard about JS wife collection and all the things he did to get those wives. I get mad when I think about the priesthood ban and why they aren't letting women have it. I get mad when they want me to try and help pass a ban on Gay marriage. Yeah I do get a little miffed but it quickly goes away and I am fine.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about my past in the church and I have wondered how much I really ever believed any of it. I have come to the conclusion that I never had a testimony. I never had some percieved happy feeling about the church being true and I do trust my feelings a lot. I used to pretend to have a testimony. Didn't want to be left out, but I honestly never felt it. I never really thought the WoW was that big of a deal and I really only thought that the stuff about smoking and eating meat sparingly made any sense. I took it as suggestions only not commandment. In fact I pretty much held up the whole D&C as one big opinion piece. I never took it seriously. I used to think the BoM might be true, but I never really knew for sure because I have never read it all the way through. Not once. I think the last time I tried I only got to the middle of Alma. But while reading that much I never felt anything but bored. I never got my patriarchal blessing. My parents kept asking me if I wanted to and I always said "Not right now". I never felt any desire to get one. Eventually they stopped bringing it up.

I never sought out RM's to date in fact I avoided them like the plague. When they are first off their missions, RM's can be very goody goody and annoying. It's like they are still trying hard to have the light of Christ in their lives. I just wanted to date regular guys who would take me to a movie no matter what the rating and wouldn't insist on saying a prayer before leaving. Now I am all for prayer but c'mon!! I guess a lot of LDS TBM women would find that endearing. I found it annoying! Not that I had a lot of RM's banging at my door. I wasn't really their type. So it wasn't too surprising when I met and later married a non-mormon. At least not surprising to me. A few other things that made me not your typical TBM,

-I never ever wanted to attend BYU. For sports I was always a Ute fan! I knew I would never be able to stand attending BYU. Too many rules!!

-I am not really a homemaker type woman, though ironically I am a SAHM. But as SAHM's go I am only good at it in the sense that I spend a lot of time with my kids and am trying to teach them all the necessary things to make them Kindergarten stand-outs. I am not much of a cook, I hate cleaning and I don't own a crockpot! Maybe that's all a big stereotype but I knew enough SAHMs or homemakers, whatever you want to call them, who tried so hard to be wonder mom!

-I don't do crafts or scrapbooking. I've been invited to Enrichment but I never go. I really don't need anything made with tin cans and cotton balls. All I need is to color with my girls! I can do that at home.

So I guess all those things add up to me being pretty much angst free about the church with the exception of some occasional twinges. I am so happy about that because I can't imagine living a life of anger and resentment. I don't want to do that. The whole point of me getting out of the church was to actually make my life happier and more fulfilling. I am still working on that but it's mostly for reasons not even related to disaffected mormon angst!