I remember the first year I felt guilty for not going to church on Easter. It was five years after I'd been married, and I was pregnant with my first child. We walked into my mother's house for Easter dinner and the first thing my step father said was, "Did you go to church?" I said no, and blamed it on queasiness from the pregnancy. I was an adult and I shouldn't have been asked a question like that. It was my own personal business. He still had some sort of hold over me where I felt I couldn't disappoint him. No wonder I was a doormat most of my life!
I'm not sure if I've been to Easter mass since then. I'm not sure that I really care. My step father died before I had my first child. I know that the only reason I would have continued to go to church as an adult would have been to appease my step father.
Looking back, I wonder if the change in mindset was well underway. I know now that I resented being guilted and forced into going to church. I got nothing out of it at all. Once I had the freedom to choose, it's like I stopped going out of spite. I'm sure part of it was that my husband balked at religion in general. It made it easy for me to stop going. Maybe I should thank him for that.
My kids have never attended Easter mass. For them, Easter was all about baskets left by a magical bunny. It was also a day when their grandmother would come for dinner... and they love their grandmom!
Now that most of us don't celebrate Easter in the religious sense, and the kids no longer care about a surprise basket, Easter seems rather... deflated to me.
I'm pretty certain my sons will attend mass with my older son's girlfriend. I'm glad they have something special.
Sometimes as an Atheist I feel like I'm floating alone.
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