Sorry to keep dragging this on ... but this is really the only place to vent right?
So basically it's going on 4 months now that we've had zero meeting attendance, and for the last 2 months we have not reported any service time (Prior to that, when our service group overseer would send a text asking for our time, we would report 4 hours each, for our "family study").
In my last post, I talked about how we were having a really difficult time beginning a new life outside the organization. I had signed up for a number of preschool classes with my son, only to have them be cancelled due to low registration. I've taken classes, hoping to meet people with similar interests, but nothing ever came out of it. I take my son at least once a week to a local bookstore where they have a train table set up for kids to play with, but I never see the same people twice, and while I might start to make pleasant conversation with someone, I turn my back for two seconds, and they've left. One preschool class that I signed up for recently actually did go ahead as planned, but there are only 4 other moms there, and all of them are kind of stand-offish and not very friendly; Even after the second class now, if I hadn't gone and said hello and introduced myself, I don't think anyone would have even spoken to each other yet. My last straw kind of came today when I signed up my son and I for a fun little cooking class - there was supposed to be 15 other kids there ... big surprise, we were the only ones that showed up.
I've been especially depressed this past week ... all the more so when thanks to social media, you can see all the fun that our witness friends are having without us - mamas on playdates, dinners out, get togethers etc.
I feel guilty that I might be depriving my son of the chance to form stable, constant friendships. Most of our days are spent at home, just the two of us. I'm lonely. I miss entertaining. I'm pregnant, and I feel like I have no support, or anyone to be excited with me. I almost wonder if going back to the hall would be the lesser of two evils at this point.
What has made things even more emotionally difficult for me, is that suddenly today (after I was kind of sad about our cooking class), I had THREE witness friends message me out of the blue, saying they missed us, wanting to set up a playdate and hang out. I also got an invitation to a big pool party later in the summer. I don't necessarily know if it's a "sign from God" ... or at the very least, if the universe is pulling us in a certain direction.
I can't imagine that we are being pulled towards being full fledged witnesses again. I can't "unfeel" my feelings about the doctrine, etc. I don't ever want to go in service again. I want my son to have memories of birthdays and holidays.
The thing is, our experience within the organization has never been that great. I entertained and organized so much, because if I didn't, we would have had a pretty empty social calender otherwise. We were always included in people's bigger events - anniversary parties, goodbye parties etc, but it seemed we were never worth the effort when it was our anniversary, when we moved out of a hall. For the most part, if we weren't doing the calling or inviting, we didn't hear from people. I don't want to go back to that either.
But at least it was SOMETHING.
Feeling so conflicted... I just literally don't know what to do anymore.
I don't want to be one of thoes families that leave the organization and don't do so well, for people to say "well that's what happens when you leave Jehovah".
But I`m just lost.