demons

I had a long talk with Robin today about all the demons we grew up with and are still in the process of purging. Of course religion is the number one biggie and may be the ultimate demon that spawned all the rest. The jury is still out on that. First a little background. There are five of us. Big M, who is 38, just got married two years ago, a few months after I did. Baptist Nun is 36; after several years as a missionary in Mexico, she is now teaching at a Christian boarding school and told me herself that she has given up on men. I'm next. Then there's Mr. Clean, who is 28 or 29. He got married a year out of college to a real nice Christian girl and is now the youth pastor/Christian school administrator at his wife's church. They have three young boys, the oldest of which got "saved" last week. Poor kid is in for a lifetime of indoctrination. My heart goes out to him. Robin is 24. Like me, she is married to a heathen, and she has a 1 year old daughter. My parents don't believe in birth control. That they only had five children I can only attribute to subfertility or lack of sex.

Back to the demons. I thought I had a lot of them. I am in the process of trying to figure out where to take my parents to church when they visit since I don't go anywhere most of the time. I will dutifully hide all the booze and consume all the beer before they arrive. j. and I will probably both "have to" work the Sunday that they are here. I was deathly afraid of Father growing up. We all were. I'll never forget the time during family devotions that I told him how to pronounce "Adoniram" and had the book thrown at me, literally. I would never ask him for anything; if I wanted something bad enough I would wheedle Mother into asking him if I could have it.

Well, now I discover that Robin has far more demons than I. Somehow Mother discovered that she was masturbating as a teenager and confronted her with: "I know what you're doing and it's evil." Robin was the last one left at home. The rest of us had each other. She spent all her high school years trying to book weekend visits with friends to avoid the misery she felt at home. When she left home, moving to another state after two years of college, Father had spies who told him of her doings. She thinks he still might. She has to keep Mother from telling A.E. that she's Bad.

I'm glad I moved far enough away. I'm glad he didn't find out about all the marijuana I smoked and those nights I spent with XBFRN. I know I can trust Big M anyway. My heart aches that my children won't have grandparents nearby, but given the choices, I'm glad we're most of a country away. Sometimes I wonder if it's not just completely misguided to try to avoid hurting the parents with the truth; and sometimes I wonder why telling them lies should bother me in the least.

Rose