bigboi	Mental and Emotional Thawing
	Sometimes i feel as though I'm in a process of mental thawing. I was a gung ho JW. I stayed celebate for like five yrs straight while I was in it. From some posts i've read around here I think that I was in the minority. For me being a Jw meant giving up a lot of my passions. I love sports and gave up playing organized sports at age 14 to focus on becoming a witness. I am interested in political, social and cultural issues, but I suppressed these intersts for the sake of the kingdom. Besides, it would bring an end to all thses issues anyway. I though I had the answers to all life's problems a thousand yrs into the future, at the age of 14 yrs old. Seeing that here helps me to see how ridiculous that is, but I know I wasn't alone in feeling that way. I had a lot of family problems coming up so I was alienated from most of my cousins and what not already. Being a witness just compounded that. Although I couldn't see it, no wouldn't allow myself to see it at the time a lot of the answers to my poblems were in this very world that I had been conditioned to fear, despise and look down upon. When I think of all the things i could've hae done in my younger days I get angry. Life could have been so much more fulfilling. However with a mind and heart firmly embedded in the permafrost that is WTS teaching, I'm surprised that I was able to accomplish what I did given my particular circumstances in life. They included living in poverty, in a three bedroom house w/ my grandmother and seven other cousins, an absent mother(for a while), being an introvert(although I think it may be a weird case of agoraphobia now, maybe I should see a therapist! ). All this while being trapped in a controlling cult always being made to feel more and more guilt for not being able to do more according to their standards. All this to say that I feel that my mind and heart are thawing. I can allow myself to feel emotions I haven't felt in yrs. It feels damn good too. I revel in being able to really think and express myself w/o feeling like something is watching me or it may be in violation f a commandment. I love this freedom I now have, and wouldn't trade it for anyhting. As different emotions come to me now I feel pleasantly surprised, like one would be if they found a patch of lillies in the tundra. I like that feeling and I hope I never lose it again. Just a rant. Had to get it off my chest. ONE..... bigboi "it ain't what ya do. it's how you do it" quote from the song "True Honeybunz" by Bahamadia
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