Day 5 - My mother

Sorry to anyone who's reading this as I am a little late with posting this. About three hours late to be exact. So I'm unsure what to post about today so I guess I'll go with something that I have typed up in a notepad.

So, I think I already mentioned that I live with my mother, but did I mention that she's Catholic? I didn't? Well here goes...

Basically my family is Catholic: My dad, my mom, both sets of grandparents, and (as far as I know) my mom's grandparents on her mothers side. Funny little bit of information: My great-grandma was raised Catholic and her husband was raised Baptist. They decided to raise their children Catholic. My grandma (mom's mom) was raised Catholic (though she later converted to Baptist as it felt more right to her) and both of her husbands were raised Baptist. Again the children were raised Catholic. My dad's mom was raised Catholic and her husband was raised Baptist. Do you see a pattern here? The funny part is that I was raised Catholic by two Catholic parents (though I am now an Eclectic Wiccan) and my husband was raised Baptist (though he is now a self-proclaimed Evolutionist Atheist). What will we raise our children as? Whatever their hearts desire. But that's a different blog...

Anyway, back on track. I was raised in the Catholic faith until I was 15 years old. That was the one and only time my mom acted like a "non-Catholic" (in my opinion anyway). Every year until my 15th birthday I attended Sunday school before church, attended mass with my parents and sisters right after Sunday school, I went to summer bible "camp" (that was held at the Sunday school), etc. etc. etc. The day before I turned 15 was a Sunday so my mom turned to me and said "Well, Jena. It's up to you now. You're 15. Do you want to go to church or not?"

I hadn't felt connected to Catholicism for 3 years by then and I, of course, said that I wanted to stay home. I could tell that she felt disappointed when I said that but she didn't argue. She, my dad and my sisters went to church while I spent my first Sunday at home alone (without being too sick to attend church of course). It was...freeing for lack of a better term. I spent the whole day reading. Well, it felt like the whole day. It was more like a couple of hours during mass but whatever. I was 15 and a couple of hours to a teenager is a lifetime.

It went like this for a couple of months. Every Sunday I would be asked if I wanted to go to church and every Sunday I would say no thanks. My mom finally got the message after that couple of months because she stopped asking me.

Now don't get me wrong. I respect all religions. Believe what you want to believe and I'll believe what I want to believe. No shoving anything down people's throats. No belittling other people's opinions. Just be who you are and live your life.

The first day I came out of the broom closet was when I was 17 years old. I came out to my then fiancé. Since then I've told other people when asked (i.e. my sisters, a few friends, etc.) the one person I haven't told to their face was my mother. She found out when I posted it on my Myspace page. Now I will admit the way I did it was quite...childish. I was 18 years old and newly married and living 1500 miles away from the place I'd always called home. It was then I decided to update my Myspace account to state that I was married, change my current city, change my name, and my religion.

As I stated before I am a momma's girl. It's what eventually had my husband and I moving back to Louisiana only 2 months after moving 1500 miles away. As he says it "I took her from the womb across the country." I hadn't actually spoken a lot to my mom when we moved back. We'd spoken in the sense of "How are you?" and "I miss you." and things of that nature but not a long discussion on my religious beliefs. I was thankful for this. I knew that just saying I was Wiccan on something like Myspace was so heartbreaking for her and I hate seeing my mom that way. I think that's what ultimately made me decide to do it that way.

When we moved back things were ok at first. We were living with my husband's parents until we got back on our feet and we were visiting my parents as often as possible. Nothing was said at this point. I figured that she hadn't seen it and that was that. I was wrong. One day we were at her mom's house for something...I can't remember what now but we (my mom, myself, my grandmother, and one of my aunts) were sitting outside talking. The subject of religion came up. I blanched.

My mom was talking about how she felt that she had "betrayed God" because her oldest child wasn't Catholic (or even Christian for that matter). The way mom Grandma put it was "Don't worry, it might be a phase. And even if it's not she's still your daughter. Remember how I was with you when you were younger?" And that was that. I had survived my first "oh my god my daughter is a Wiccan what do I do?".

Now as time went one this wasn't a topic of discussion. The way my mom was dealing with it was pretending it hadn't happened. Not so far as to keep asking me about church and things but far enough that we didn't talk about it at all. This was kept up until after we moved in with her to take care of her (a year or two after her stroke if I remember correctly).

Because I was here all the time she now had to deal with it all the time. And I knew she could remember it because she wanted to talk about it. To anyone but me of course, but she was talking about it. She was posting on Facebook asking her god-parents to pray for her daughters and her sons-in-law because none of us follow the Catholic path (you already know about my husband and I, my brother-in-law is Christian [not sure what kind], my kid sister is Baptist, and my baby sister is Pagan [she's still studying about it so she hasn't decided to put a true name to her path yet]).

The way I deal with this? I leave it alone. I live in my mother's house. She has her opinions I have mine. I don't openly practice my faith in her house (i.e. no altar, no rituals/spells/etc., no open display of my books, etc.). The most I do here is send up silent prayers throughout the day to the Goddess. I read my small collection of books (that is kept in my room in a basket with a few notebooks on top so that it can't be seen). And sometimes I'll type up different things that will, eventually, go into my BOS. I'm respectful, in other words, of how my mom feels.

When I get my own place this will not be the case. My things will be proudly displayed throughout the house. Why? because I want them there and my husband, though he doesn't share my beliefs, is supportive and doesn't want me to feel "cramped" with my religion.

Anyway I feel like I've rambled throughout this whole blog so I'll stop now. That's it for today.

)o( Jena