Leave Me Alone
I live in the Bible Belt, and it’s a very religious, family-oriented culture. My father left when I was four, and I recently found out that he passed from addiction in Colorado. My mother passed a couple years ago of sarquoidosis (a rare disease) when I was 14. I have lived with my grandparents since then. A while after my mother passed, I became an atheist.
Until about six months after, I couldn’t admit it to my grandparents. I finally did, and as much as they said it didn’t bother them, ever since then they’ve treated me like a stranger. They still force me to go to church and scold me when people find out I’m an atheist. Most of my more distant family is the same. The only person in my family who still treats me like family is my uncle in Tennessee.
My secret is that I plan to cut contact with my family completely after I finish college and leave the country. Where I live, that is considered as bad as an act of betrayal to god. I’ve always been a very introverted person with a small group of friends that I genuinely trust. Any friends outside this group drift away in a couple of years, sometimes months.
I hope that if I ever get married, my wife won’t have much family, or at least won’t make me get involved with them. Moreover, I don’t want to live to meet my grandchildren. I would be happy living with only a partner and a few friends. But of course, the world is a cruel place. There will always be others who will want to get involved for their own gain.