During the course of a religious discussion the other day, I was informed that I was not really happy without god. Said accuser had at one time been a friend in real life as well as on FB, but unfriended me a few years ago because of her inability to see anything other than her own opinion and skewed ideas on how a woman's life should be lived. When I pointed out the fact that, as a christian person, she had been the first to turn away when we saw things differently, she decided to tell me that it had NOTHING to do with our opposite views but with my constant negative attitude.
Hmmmm.. oh really?
Ya'll know that I take those comments seriously, so, being me, I wondered if that was an accurate statement. I have spent the last 24ish hours going through my fb, looking for and counting the honestly negative posts.. all the way back to my very first days on facebook. What I found was a bit eye opening.
There were quite a few weight related negative posts, as well as men suck negative posts, because I was unhappy with both of those aspects of my life. When I weighed (haha) those rantings against the VAST quantity of other day in the life posts however, the number was actually incredibly small. In fact, the bulk of them were from June 2011-Dec 2012.
This was also the time frame that old friend and I both reconnected and stopped being friends again.
What was going on in my life that made me so negative for a year and a half? Oh yea.. I remember!
I had been cheated on by my fiance, kicked out of our home so he could move his new girlfriend and her kids in, lost my condo because no one living in it would work and help me pay for it, ballooned to almost 300 lbs, was abandoned by my married best friend because I kissed a guy she could never have, and generally WAS miserable.
I was also attending church, trying to immerse myself in the feeling of love and community I had been promised.. a feeling that did not exist btw. At church I was snubbed because I was not married, I was belittled because I dared question a male teachers interpretation of the bible, and was finally shut out by the bishop because I refused to join the singles groups and find a man.
Was I unhappy because I didn't have god? No.. I didn't have anything.. that's why I was unhappy. God didn't comfort me when I had no one, god didn't lift me up so I could heal, god didn't whisper to me in the dark and give me the strength to get out of bed every day.. god was just as absent as every other human being (the ones I had not grown in my own body excluded) I had loved.
So I made some changes. I found and cultivated friendships with people who were not insane whore bags, I stopped beating myself up for the mistakes I made in my failed relationship, I channeled that anger and disappointment and hurt and fear into making myself a better person than I had been for a little while, and in making sure that I was never so low again that someone like my best friend or my fiance or god could make me miserable. I realized I had put my faith, for a brief time, in things that really were pretend.
It was after I did all this that I was able to look at my life with a clear view, and I realized I had put my faith, for a brief time, in things that really were pretend. In my time of greatest need, I truly had stood alone.
I guess, in some ways, my old friend was right. I had been negative. With good reason, reasons that any real friend would have tried to help me overcome, but negative nonetheless. However, not having god in my life was not what made me unhappy. It was life that made me negative, and even then, it was only for a very small amount of time.
Leaving my childish belief in fairy tales behind has, in fact, given me purpose and an intense happiness! I am an honest and good human being, because that's what we all should be. Not for a reward after we die, but for the reward of not being an asshole while we are alive! Believe in what you must, but understand this please.. my life is better because I made it better, no one else. I am not ever unhappy because I lack a belief in, or relationship with, a thing called god. I am sometimes unhappy because life can suck, but that's all part of actually living one.
To my old friend.. yes, I was negative. You did not stop being my friend because of it. You stopped being my friend the moment I said that I did not believe in your god, or the arbitrary rules of your religion. Be honest next time ok, you god fearing christian woman. This atheist will be. To everyone else.. if I for real start being a negative nancy, tell me.. or better yet, ask me why and give a shit about the answer.
