I don't know when it happened, but it did.

I lost my religion. And I don't mean it as a tricky euphamism for my virginity either!!!

I mean I lost any touch with any form of organized religion whatsoever.

I was born and raised a Protestant. We went to church regularly when I was a child, less as a teenager as my mom (single mom) picked up some weekend shifts and if she wasn't working on Sunday she would sleep, exhausted. I felt guilty for a while but then I stopped caring.

Sometimes I miss the ritual of going, being in a mass of people like sheep - reading, reciting, mind elsewhere, sneaking looks around at other people. The priest up there mumbling and singing badly.

After I lost my religion, for a while I missed it and decided to try something new so I went to the Unitarian Universalist's church. I liked it a lot. Kind of hippy-ish, a bit free spirited. Not afraid to consider alternatives like parallel universes and reincarnation.

Lately though I've just felt like not thinking about any afterlife and just considering this one I'm in now. It's hard enough sometimes to live without thinking that every single decision I make is going to have the butterfly effect. I just want to live.

Sometimes I miss God, but I don't know that it's the God I met in church when I was little that I miss. Something is out there, but not sure what it is.

I did go on a rampage for a while where I hated the male dominated churches and their subjugation of women, gays, anything not male (and normally white) mainly. But I'm kind o fover that anger now too. People are pretty sheep-like in their behaviour but overall I think they just want HOPE. Hope to cling to, that this life means something and that there is an extension, especially for those who get short-shrifted.

God if you're listening to this, send me a sign!!! Just kidding. Tell my Mother I said hello and that I miss her and I'm doing fine.

Gina