Life

I sometimes just have to write about life.  Some of this is recent, some is just things that come up.

My sister called me and she wants to take my gf's daughter (her daughter calls me dad now which is still odd but good at the same time) to Vacation Bible School this week in the evenings.  I didn't want to give an answer without talking to my gf first.  Her daughter is moderately autistic.  She, the daughter, doesn't understand any concepts that she can't touch or feel.  Trying to ask what she did today is even perplexing to her.  So I was okay with her going to VBS because she wouldn't understand what they are talking about but would have fun playing games, singing and eating snacks.  The gf was okay with this for much of the same reasons.  It is just being asked in the first place.  Religion is assumed and I have given plenty of hints to my family about being an atheist.  I just don't know when is the right time to come completely out of the closet so to speak.  Everyone here prays, at work or even work related optional events.  Religion is there hanging on.  Like the Bad Religion song Generator, religion is the buzz in the background that influences everything.

I want to move, I want to do something different, but I have a family and I don't want to put pressure on them.  Motivation is something that seems to be lacking from me.  I feel no urge to do anything.  I work for the sake of working.  Again I am just not motivated to do anything.  It is as if something is missing in me that helps other work hard and get ahead.  It is depressing at times.

I think back about all the times I let other people decide things for me and regret it.  I want to go back and change certain moments, but I know I would not be me then and unsure of how things would have turned out.  I am happy as to how I have turned out overall.  It is just things overwhelm and some things just have to be said.  I have been holding those things back lately and it shows at times.

I worry too much.  I worry about my relationship with my gf.  I worry if I am doing everything I can for her.  I don't want to lose her.  Everything is okay, she tells me this, but I still worry.  I worry I am not doing enough for my family, like there is so much more I should or could do, again like there is some motivation that drives people at being a better person for the family that I don't have.

I want to go back to school, but I am scared.  I am scared of the consequences for my family.  Right now we depend on my job.  I would have to lose it, probably get a part time while at school and my gf would probably have to get a job.  Then we would have to find someone to take care of the kids.  This task is so daunting to me.

I wish I could just be a better person than I am.

Learning

Learning is always good and yesterday I learned a little more about my family background. My dad's grandmother was a Shiflet before she married. I had asked my dad about them and he really didn't know a lot. We know she donated some land to Oklahoma State University and her marriage was the last one in the old Student Union. A picture of her marriage is in the museum at the old Student Union. His dad only ever told him they were from Texas. Well that really doesn't help. So I finally thought, hey we live in the Age of Information surely I can find out something from her last name. We weren't even sure what nationality it was.

As it turns out, I was able to find something. Shiflet (shif-let) is an Americanized version of the name Chifflet (shif-lay). So neat I have some French heritage. That means my ancestry is a real war, English, Irish, Scottish, and French. Here is one of the sites I found that has some interesting stuff on the Chifflets.

Coming out

Well as most of the readers here know, I am a closet atheist to my family. So was the Everything Else Atheist. Here is a bit from her recent post.

For quite awhile my family did not know that I was an atheist. I was very careful to cover my tracks, and I hated living the lie. I took extra precautions after hearing stories of accidental family discoveries from fellow atheists. I sanitized my online profiles, I hid my browsing history, hid my writings, I bowed my head during family prayers, and it killed me inside. Every time I had to pretend to pray for a meal when visiting, or attend church, or lie about attending a Christian club, I felt trapped and tortured. So why didn't I just tell my family?

My family (mom especially) is strictly religious. My mom volunteers to help counsel troubled people in her church and is in a Christian book club. My step-father reads the bible cover-to-cover many times over. My younger brother goes on church vacations and activities. My mother already thinks I'm evil, and has called me a "devil-child" and "seed of Satan" and that I have forsaken everything my parents stand for.

I know exactly how she feels. It is a sad balancing act some of us play. I know at some point I will have to tell my family but I am prolonging that. Partially in the hopes I won't be living in the same town as them when I do tell them.

I love my family and I don't want them worrying over something that, from all I can tell, doesn't exist. I know they will worry too. I don't go to quite the depths of deception as EEA did, but I still deceive. During prayers, I don't bow my head or close my eyes. I only go to church when it is my turn to work the sound board, as I told them I would do while I live here (I made the promise when I was a believer). I don't really hide the fact on Facebook, my religion is listed as the Cult of Yivo who was blatantly the Flying Spaghetti Monster. My sister, who has recently embraced young earth creationism and fundamentalism, is one of my friends on Facebook. It honestly really wouldn't be that hard to out me. Maybe this is all just part of the old Christian Dogma I was raised in coming back to make me feel guilty, but I just feel like it will hurt them and I don't want to do that.

Edit: I just want to add that everybody should show EEA some support. She had a lot of people say something but a few more would never hurt. I am sure she would appreciate it.

Good News

My dad saw his doctor yesterday and the cancer is localized to the one spot on his bone. It is a bone cancer and not soft tissue cancer. So in one week from today they are going to have surgery and remove the cancer. He will have little to no chemo because of the type of cancer.

Thank modern medicine and science. A few years ago and I would have lost both my parents to cancer. My mom had breast cancer a year or two after my dad had been diagnosed with his first bout of cancer.

Bad News

I got some bad news yesterday, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He had cancer 4 years ago in his knee, it was growing on the bone. Part of the process of getting rid of it, they did a total knee replacement and he had no problems until recently. His hip, on his good leg started hurting, they had been doing x-rays but not seeing anything and his pain got worse. Finally they gave him a CT scan yesterday and saw the cancerous growth on his pelvis. It is the same cancer he had before. For right now the plan is to go in and cut the piece of his pelvis out with the growth. Then he will go through chemo again. The problem is why did it come back, what allowed it to come back, and is it anywhere else in his body. He is starting to have tests to find all that out now.

Last night, I received a phone call from a member of my parent's church. They told me they were praying for me and my family. I said thanks because it is nice to know that someone is thinking of you but it just reminded me of how useless the act of praying really is. What would be better is if these same people would volunteer their time, that they are now spending praying, to help my mom and dad out around the house and in his office, but that always seems like too much to ask.