Talk to me, You'll get to know me,

You'd never know,

That what I'm about to say, is true.

"Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them,

so I try and forget it any way I can." Neil Young.




I believe in...

...love

...happiness

...realization

...uniqueness

...helping

...and acceptance.

Now, I will tell you about what I was thinking about last night, and what I thought of all those years that I tried to force myself to believe like the rest (during this there was other stuff, but that's for another day). If you do not want to hear it, do not read it. I do not mean to offend anybody and I do not mean to make you uncomfortable around me. If I do... I am sorry, but you chose to read.

I do not particularly believe in God. Maybe something, but not God. I wonder, yes, whether maybe my belief is wrong and I'm going to go to Hell for it, but I can't see it as wrong... I accept more than a lot of people do, and I see that as right. Acceptance is something everybody wants. I accept people with open arms, without making them change in any way.

With every religion, comes an extremist or many extremists, like that one church. Pickets at soldier's funerals... their website is "god hates faggots" or whatever. I absolutely hatethat word, and I do not hate much. (Anything that is anti-accepting I hate). I can't see love as wrong, so I don't understand why it would be wrong to anybody--even God: why would He hate love? Love is love whether between man/woman, man/man, or woman/woman. I also cannot see believing in the Earth as evil. I have run into too many Christians and Catholics, and general God-believers, that think Wicca and other Pagan religions are evil, and they aren't. Satanism is, but Wicca & Pagan religions are extremely different from Satanism. Their Goddess is Mother Earth, or Gaia, and their God is the sun. They believe in nature and that when we die, we go back to the Earth. Honestly, if I had to choose a religion, I'd choose to be Pagan. Anyway, being such a nature-lover, I can't see believing in the Earth as evil either, or wrong.

Now for the difficult part, telling you what I went through to get to this accepting me that doesn't care if you hate me after this, because this is me and I'm not going to pretend to be anything different. Once middle school started, I didn't have as many friends as I had in elementary- most of them abandoned me for bigger and better things- and after a few weeks I told myself that I was better off without them, gives me room to find true friends. Well, with the lack of friends and the lack of Girl Scouts and any clubs after school (and a very big lack of homework, strangely), I had extra time to think, and during all this thinking I found that A) I wasn't sure what I believed in, but B) that I didn't particularly believe in a single deity. With this came guilt because I'd been brought up to believe like my family did, and though they aren't particularly religious, they still believed- and fear, and pain. Fear because... what if they couldn't understand this? What if, when I tried to explain, I was kicked out onto the curb? And despite all the extremely frightening nightmares I have had (before then and since then), that was still the scariest moment. I knew even then to never tell my Oma, because she wouldn't understand- she thinks (like all "good believers" do) that she is right and everyone else is wrong- and I would be disowned in a heartbeat. But I wondered about my mom.

I finally got up the nerve to tell her last year, before my birthday. I was shaking so bad, you'd think I'd just come in from skinny dipping in the glacier-cold river, but I was so terrified of her answer. My throat had a lump the size of a frickin boulder in it, but I told her. I explained: I am Agnostic. That is not the same as atheist so don't fret, I am in between a theist (a believer of something) and an atheist. I believe that there is something after death, only because there has to be a way for me to see my loved ones that have passed. I don't know about the prospect of there being a God or a Devil, but I do believe in ghosts and spirits and poltergeists. When she said it was okay and that she understood, sort of (after giving me a very scary look... I thought she'd kick me out right then and there), I broke. The dams broke and my eyes started to leak so much it was like the oceans had overflown. But I'd told her, I'd done it.

Now I've told you, and as I write this last part, I shake almost as much as I did that day. My throat has a lump the size of a somewhat smaller boulder, but it is still a boulder. So what will you do? Kick me out (metaphorically), or hug me and tell me it's okay? I will not hold a grudge, some people just don't ... roll that way, I guess you could say. I will hold our chats close and I won't forget them, and I will forgive you and, after a few tears, I will go on with being me, because, despite how much I would rather be the same as all of you, like the rest of me I am unable to change my belief to match yours'.

Thank you for reading, if you have gotten this far through.

And thank you for staying, if I get to keep you,

as a friend.

Leann.

(I could call this a musing, yes? Yes, I think so.)