47. Light Switch: Write about coming out of the dark and seeing the light.
I was raised Catholic complete with catechism on Saturdays and church every Sunday. When my sister would wear a short dress to church, our dad would make her change her dress. His view was that she was living in a Catholic house, eating Catholic food, made by a Catholic man so she was going to follow Catholic rules. I don’t think I bought into this even as a young girl but I also knew I was not going to win any argument or break any stated rules. I didn’t like confrontation then (hmmm, maybe why I don’t like confrontation now) so I kept my mouth shut and slipped around and through the rules so it appeared that I was a good Catholic.
In high school, it was popular to be “born again” and I went to an evangelical church where it was youth based with lots of music.
Then I went to college where I learned actual information and the logic that supported reality. This didn’t fit with my religious beliefs so I double-downed on the religion since that was what I knew the most about. I was in a young-adult bible study class where the sentiment was that mental illness was sin. WTF? No. This was a hard stop for me.
I spent hard time thinking and analyzing the whole paradigm that I had based my world around. I considered science and the logic around the process of life. Science won and I walked into the light. Everything finally made sense, I no longer had a blanket covering my life. It was a choice to come out of the dark to see the light. Occasionally the religious set of messages would overlay an experience but I would shake myself and realize that the old messaging was not true and I didn’t need to believe or follow it. Enlightenment. Joy.
