Went to Christmas Eve service with my mom last night as part of tradition, and it was the first year where I was conflicted about attending at all. I’ve been thinking about how what we expose ourselves and others to influences our thoughts and each others. I don’t like perpetuating and supporting the repression of women, among other things. Also it’s the first year that I have accepted I’m bisexual and have actively started looking for women to date.

Mom ended up convincing me to sing for choir this year, and I accepted because I LOVE to sing and part of the reason I even go to the Christmas Eve service is for the music. The a cappella verse of silent night at the end with the candlelight just gives me chills. But what I didn’t realize when I accepted was that I’m in front of the congregation and everyone is watching. So in previous years when I’ve attended, I’ve sat in the back and not really said any of the prayers or responses, but since I was in front of everyone I was like “oh fuck, I have to actually pretend I believe this shit so I don’t offend everyone.”

I was doing really well until the sermon. The pastor started talking about this woman that had to care for her daughter (or mom?) who was on home hospice care for cancer, and she didn’t have time to make Christmas cards, but she wished she had because, “there’s no way I could do this without God.”

I have the HUGEST fucking eyeroll I have ever done in my life. Idk if anyone saw it, but shit, I have lived through that, I literally was the last person to see my dad breathe, and I know God isn’t real so I’m just like…you don’t fucking need God to get through that shit, you got through it on your own!

I then realized I had the perfect vantage point to guess who else in the crowd was atheist. I think I found a girl up front, we sort of locked eyes during one of the prayers and I smiled at her. I think there was a guy my age too.

It was also kind of encouraging how many empty seats there were. There were still a lot of people, but I remember as a kid there would be absolutely no free seats. Maybe even ten years ago it was still like that.

Another observation was that the three people I grew up with that I saw all had at least two kids, and I’m here going on two second dates this week with different guys and flirting with a bunch of people and with no kids and it’s just a completely different life. Not saying I don’t sometimes wish I had a husband and a kid, but I have so much freedom, and it’s so nice.

Have a merry Christmas everyone!

Not sure if this really deserves a trigger warning, but I thought I’d include it just in case.