Going back to Terabil for winter break is a bit like an excruciatingly long dental appointment. I go only because I know it's necessary, and then I retreat to my Happy Place until it's over and I can go home.

Granted, going back doesn't jam sharp metal tools into my gums, nor does going to the dentist last six weeks, but the general experience is about the same.

It's finals here, since AIUA is on the quarter system, and then we're all out for winter break until January. I'm (supposed to be) finishing up all my classes and final projects at the moment, but I've been so tired all the time, regardless of how much sleep I'm getting, that it's hard to work. At first I thought it was caffeine deprivation, but I've been drinking green tea today and I'm still as lethargic as ever. That leads me to think it's more a dread of leaving Avalon, like my subconscious thinks "Hey, maybe if I don't finish my finals, they won't let me go!"

I wish.

I'm considering taking a summer quarter this year so I don't have to endure summer in Terabil, but I'd have to find and pay for an apartment if I did that.

Seriously, I doubt it's mentally healthy to have to steel myself against potential psychic violence every time I go back to my hometown. I wish it didn't have to be that way, but when every moment my mom can catch me alone is a potential moment to battle against Teh Gay, or when Sunday morning means I get to hear "I do wish you'd find a church in Avalon-- it's so important to be around fellow Christians!" for the hundredth time, it gets old real fast.

Church is another dental appointment experience. Frankly, I enjoy not being around "fellow" "Christians" all the time, given that usually that means simply all the other WASP families that congregate in the same social arenas every Sunday or so. They're not my "fellows" and quite a few of them aren't necessarily very Christian either, unless by "Christian" you simply mean "conservative Republican who bleats the right things." It's not particularly spiritually beneficial to me to sit around a bunch of people who have the effect of making me cynical and withdrawn every Sunday. I could have a better worship experience at a bar-- at least drunk people are willing to admit their problems.

Paradoxically, if my mom really wanted me to go to church, the best way she could do it is to stop bugging me to go. She apparently believes that if she just keeps after me long enough I'll cave and do what she wants, and as long as I'll be reinforcing that belief, I refuse to give in. I'll go back to church because I want to go back to church, because I believe it will be of spiritual value to me, not because I want my mom to shut up about me going back to church.

Much less the fact that if I did pick a church down here, it would have to be a mom-approved church of the conservative Protestant non-gay-friendly variety. Call me crazy but I don't think going to the local Unitarian Universalist church would qualify.

Labels: home, religion, school