Where do I go from here?

 Hello old friend.

Remember how we used to have long chats?  I would tell you all my worries and feelings and magically feel better?  That hasn't happened for a long time because...  life.  I've spent the last few years with an unrealistic To-Do list that never ends.  To some extent, I've felt like being busy showed how important I am.

The last year has knocked my right off the high horse (disguised as a red SUV) I've been riding.  There was this little thing called COVID that shut the whole world down.  Suddenly all sports were cancelled for my kids.  School programs and activities were cancelled.  All my big important meetings were cancelled.  Church was cancelled.  Church activities were cancelled.  Basically, life as I knew it, was cancelled.  

And it was...  AWESOME!!!!

Weird.  Right?

Let me explain.  At first, it was not awesome.  It was the opposite of awesome.  It was the kind of hard that made me cry everyday.  But then something interesting happened.  I started to have time for things like baking cookies with my kids.  I started having time to play games with my kids.  I started to have time to have fun discussions with my husband instead of just "planning meetings" with him!  I started having time to pop popcorn and have family movie nights.  My kids started telling me all the things, and I started to hear them.  I started to enjoy listening to them, rather than pretending to listen to them while in my head screaming at them to "shut the hell up and leave me alone!!".

Things are slowly going back to "normal" and in some ways, that's probably good.  My issue, and the reason I'm up at 2am writing this post, is because my feelings about the church that I belong to, and what it means to be a participating member of it, are very conflicting for me right now.

You know those electronics that are powered by a battery that you wind up?  The more and the faster you wind, the more energy it gives the battery.  I know people like that and I envy them.  I am not one of those people.  "More" and "fast" does NOT energize me.  It depletes me.

A year ago, Sunday and Wednesday were my busiest days of the week.  We'll start with Sunday.  I would have meetings, Sam would have meetings, the kids would have meetings.  We'd all have sacrament meeting.  The kids would all have separate classes.  I'd have classes.  Sam would have classes.  After church we'd have more meetings, and activities.  They were all great and seemed to be uplifting, but for some reason, by the end of the day, I'd feel anything but uplifted.  I'd feel drained, and Monday morning I'd drag my exhausted self out of bed and start another week and assume that's how Sundays are supposed to be if you're a "good" member of the church.  Wednesday's were always a logistical nightmare!  Five different people going five different directions from the moment we got out of bed until falling into bed that night.   There were even times when logistically, we simply could not do it all, and we'd have to decided who was going to have to ditch their sport or activity.

For the last 10 months, we've been having church at home.  Before you go imagining that that means we all sleep in until noon, and then watched some kind of spiritual uplifting message on TV for 15 minutes in our PJ's and call it "Macaroni"...  No.  We have a schedule that we stick to.  We have lessons and discussion.  We learn and grow together in the gospel.  For the first time in my life, I experienced what it was like to feel spiritually "fed" and physically rested on a Sunday.  My kids have also expressed that they get much more out of learning about the gospel at home, than they ever have in their classes at church.  Please don't misinterpret that.  It's not an insult to their church teachers.  I think they've had wonderful teachers.  They've had great leaders that are excellent examples, but we've found that it's much easier to let down your guard down and be vulnerable enough to let the spirit teach you, in the comfort of your own living room than it is in a classroom of 12 other teenage boys.

I'm rambling, I know.  Lets get to the honest confession.  I don't want to go back to church.  Ever.  

I don't want to go back to giving all my time and energy so that I can prove that I'm a good person and an acceptable member of the church.  The church has a very clear expectations of what it takes to be one of the "cool kids".  You can still be loved and accepted as a member of the church if you don't do everything on that list, but you're viewed as one of "those" members.  In order to be one of the stalwart, and strong members of a ward, you have to be willing to do it all.  I've even made temple promises to give everything I have.  I take those promises seriously.  

All of that was is something that I've just accepted because I didn't know any other way.  Now that I've had the forced opportunity to step back, I suddenly see all of this as hypocrisy.  The church preaches that family is the MOST important thing.  It's why we're here.  Yet, they schedule so many things that there is no time left for a family to spend together!  I don't know how many times I've heard general and stake leaders counsel us to not go overboard on meetings and activities, yet, make local leaders feels like they are slacking if they don't want to plan an activity that is only being planned out of habit and tradition.

I suddenly see hypocrisy in the fact that we preach that people are what's important, but our actions show that programs are more important than actual people.  If people are more important than programs, then why are forcing programs and activities on people that they don't want and then guilting them into participating?

Lets talk about about the way Sunday meetings are currently being handled.  This is one of things where I see the most hypocrisy.  In order to meet at the church, we have to follow strict safety guideline.  When they boys pass the sacrament, they can't sit next to each other...  Even though they are all hanging out at each others houses almost every weekend.  We all have to wear masks, even though most of us see and hang out with each other during the week without a mask.  If I have any of the youth in my car for an activity, they have to wear a mask, even though many of them are friends with my kids, and hang out in my kitchen and eat my food during the week.  I could go on and on, but you get the point, right?  It's all hypocrisy, and I'm not interested in being a participating member of that life.

I guess, for me, I've realized that I'm not willing to spend my time on things that don't add value to my life.  I'm sure that my stage of life has a lot to do with that attitude.  We're one year away from having our family as we've always known it, end.  I'm guess I'm just feeling very protective (aka: stingy) with my time.  The way I see it, any time I choose to spend somewhere, is time that is taken away from family time.

So, where do I go from here.  I don't know.  That's the problem.  I don't want to leave the church.  I also don't want to go back to being the kind of church member that I was before.  So, where does that leave me?  It leaves me in this very awkward situation where I realize that I don't fit anymore.  There doesn't really seem to be a place for someone like me in the church, and I feel like I only have two choices.  Either, force myself to do and act in a way that makes it appear like I fit (be a hypocrite) or distance myself from something that has been the center of my entire life.  Neither of those options is acceptable to me.