Ctrl, Alt, Delete.....

bikerchic

Do you some times wish you had a GO BACK button on your life as a JW? I know I do. I know THE defining moment I wish I could hit Ctrl, Alt, Delete. I'll tell you mine, you tell me yours, if you wish.

Mine; remembering the summer of 1967 I was all of 15 years old. District Convention some where in California when it was announced that dating was for those serious about getting married. I was going steady at the time with my soon (waaaaay too soon) to be husband who was 17. We got engaged shortly after that prompted by our parents and married in the summer of 1969.

I have often wondered if instead of rushing to get married I had done as most kids did, finish high school with my classmates, maybe go to college or learn a trade, definitely live for a while on my own and test the waters of the world a bit before settling down, growing up and becoming my own person before I took on the job of wife and mother.

It was a real big thing in the late 60's early 70's for JW kids to marry the world was changing at a fast pace and the society was trying it's hardest to rein us in and keep us free from immorality, boy that sure didn't work.

OK your turn.....

Highlander

I often wish I had a delorean from back to the future. Then I would travel back in time and stop my great grandparents from becoming bible students(jws)

Better yet,, I'd put a stop to the religion while in it's infancy.

SWALKER

My oldest brother was Valedictorian...genius...turned down complete scholorship to college to go to Bethel (4 years)!!! What a waste! The rest of us were A/B students and could have had great careers...

Wouldn't it be nice if the WTS offered to pay for our college...since they were the ones that kept us from going???

If I could hit that button...4 years or more of college for me!

(I did take 1 yr Junior college---business administration)

Swalker

misanthropic

Wow bikerchic I can totally relate.

I rushed into marriage at 16 to escape my family life and ended up making probably the biggest mistake of my life. It didn't last long but brought me much heartache and left me, still a child all alone with nothing in the world but myself to depend on. My new husband always asks me if I ever wish I could go back and change it all. But I've thought about it alot and I've concluded I wouldn't change one moment of anything ever. Everything that has ever happened if I brought it on myself or not, all the bad choices I have ever made, everything has brought me to where I am in my life now. I'm now a strong independent person who is not afraid of anyone or anything (well okay I'm still afraid of the dark and open closets) but other than that; I don't feel like there is anything that can happen that I can't get through and for that I am thankful.

Carmel

misanthrop, two thumbs up to you! I have the same perspective! All the bs the society shoveled out only made me a better person, once I got away from it that is!

carmel

bikerchic

Highlander YES! Back to the future what a way to change your family history! If only......sigh.

SWALKER:

My oldest brother was Valedictorian...genius...turned down complete scholorship to college to go to Bethel (4 years)!!! What a waste! The rest of us were A/B students and could have had great careers...
Wouldn't it be nice if the WTS offered to pay for our college...since they were the ones that kept us from going???
If I could hit that button...4 years or more of college for me!
(I did take 1 yr Junior college---business administration)

I can totally relate to that one! My husband (#2, lol) passed up on a great opportunity to get a higher education which he regrets to this day. He went to Bethel instead and it wasn't a good experience for him.

Glad you took at least some college. I did too in fact I went with my daughter, it was fun! I did graduate a year ahead of my HS class but cramed so I could get married, boy was I dumb to do that!

missy:

But I've thought about it alot and I've concluded I wouldn't change one moment of anything ever. Everything that has ever happened if I brought it on myself or not, all the bad choices I have ever made, everything has brought me to where I am in my life now. I'm now a strong independent person who is not afraid of anyone or anything (well okay I'm still afraid of the dark and open closets) but other than that; I don't feel like there is anything that can happen that I can't get through and for that I am thankful.

I've learned along the way that it's been the hard times, the mistakes and the pain I've suffered that have helped me grow and appricate all that I have now. I would have missed out on 5 of the most wonderful children a Mom could ask for if I didn't marry their father, that alone made it all worth while.

Oh and I'm afraid of open closet doors too, but I love the dark no night lights for me!

Carmel:

All the bs the society shoveled out only made me a better person, once I got away from it that is!
carmel

Having met you IRL I can totally agree you are one awesome guy!

BluesBrother

Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing, it is easy to have 20/20 vision looking backwards.

Perhaps I should turn back the clock to the day when I got baptised , but that was very early in life . I faded once,later, when I was about 20. That was really the defining moment. I had no serious arguments against the doctrines, I did not know enough to be able to form an argument, I only knew that it did not reach me any more. But I failed to make friends outside, I felt bored, and went back - not to the same congo but took a bus ride to the nearest big town congo which was a swinging place, buzzing with young pioneers and made it all seem exciting. I stayed firm for many years after that

That's when I might have taken my leave, but I did not.. If only we had had the internet in 1970!

BTW .. This concept of the Society "encouraging" young marriage is totally opposite to our experience in the UK. As far as I have known they have been very opposed to teen marriages and parents who allowed it were firmly counselled..

Mackin

I totally agree Higlander.

I'd go back in time and do my level best to stop my grandmother from taking a "Let God be True" book from a JW. That event started the family on the slippery slide to dubdom, which sadly, most of them are still on.

Mackin

DannyHaszard

I would have outed in 1976 instead of letting cognitive dissonance set in until 1992 when my youth,money,family are gone.

If i had stopped the missonary couple from recruiting my grandfather in 1950 i would of created a time paradox and would never have been born ???

DanTheMan

My number one CNTRL+ALT+DEL moment (and they are legion) doesn't really relate to the dubs at all.

I was 17 years old, and had just finished a 4-week outpatient psychatric day program that my parents had put me in. I came out of it feeling pretty good about myself and my life in general. I had resolved in my mind that I wouldn't go back to smoking pot, and that I would get my act together with schoolwork, etc.

Well, the first time I see my main pot-smoking buddy, he asks me if I want to smoke a bowl with him. It would have been so simple to just tell him "no, I don't wanna do that stuff anymore". And he would have been cool with it. But I was so damn weak. I remember it like it was yesterday, standing out in my garage, shivering in the cold, sucking on the end of that stupid fucking pot pipe, all the while thinking "I don't wanna do this! I don't wanna do this!"

This moment kicked off a 4 year nightmare of paranoia and abuse at the hands of my "friends" that I don't know that I'll ever recover from completely.

Ctrl, Alt, Delete.....

Share this