Even though I have enjoyed the cold, stark beauty of winter, the feeling that spring (and thus summer) is now due, grows stronger with each sunny day; as I write this, the sun is streaming quite fiercely into the office, bringing with it memories of outings, long and interesting days… and studying! Suddenly, all the long hours spent cooped up in the adult education centre last summer have borne fruit, and I’m entering the next phase of life as a student.
While it’s important to retain happy memories of relaxed and carefree holidays, it’s also important not to lose touch with reality; the reality for me being that I have more than three years of hard study ahead, and my time will have to be much more strictly managed. As with all newbies to college, work, school, or any other organisation, I am feeling bewildered even before I begin full time. There seems to be an endless stream of forms to complete, deadlines to be met, immunisations to be re-done. Of course, nursing is a complicated subject, and also it has been almost 15 years since I was in full time education, so I could be excused for feeling like this. It seems to be so tough to find out a lot of information about the whole experience, at least via the internet. I am following a number of student nurses’ blogs, but as many of them write about anything except their specialisation, these don’t give me a picture of what to expect when I begin in September.
It also feels slightly surreal, to be finally going to college to gain a proper profession, and I feel that the future will give me the most formative times in my life. This feeling of unreality threatens at times to take over, and has occurred a lot since I escaped the religious sect. Of course, real life is strange when one has to learn from square one. What I am trying to express, is the feeling when I reflect back three or four years and feel how different my life is now from before. The balance is heavily in favour of life now, different as it may be. I think the experience of growing up in the religion taught me somewhat to fear change, to fear uncertainty, to fear the unknown. Now that I am more ready to experiment, life is always much more interesting! At times, I have found myself descending into a reverie, and smiling wryly as I look back at my former self, with a mix of pity and regret that I didn’t break free sooner. On reflection, one of the most awful lies that are perpetrated by the sect, is the lie that people who leave are “blinded” and can only see the sect in a negative light. No doubt, those who escaped from communism or apartheid also come to realise how they had been forced to live with a counter-prejudice such as this. I don’t think that I’m better, or cleverer, or even to be praised for leaving the sect- I am extremely fortunate though. Those who choose to remain, who have a grain of intelligence, must have to silence daily their consciences and intelligent inner voice, to unquestioningly accept the regulation and doctrine they are exposed to; to render their opinions null and void, and to adopt the opinions and interpretations of a despot. It is a very unhappy situation which has only one solution!
Reflecting on life, I also feel a tinge of sadness, today being Mothers Day in the UK. I recall previous, very unhappy mothering Sundays as a minion of the sect, when my brothers would attempt to deliver flowers to our house or to call and speak to my mother. Unhappy, because of the torn feeling of having to reject one’s flesh and blood in the name of “purity” and “separation from evil” and to behave in a basically un-Christian way to people who were emotionally and sometimes financially in dire need. Sad today, because unlike so many sons, I cannot simply pick up the phone, or Skype, or email my own mother to wish her a wonderful day, and to thank her again for being such a wonderful and self-sacrificing woman, who inspires me to this day. The blazing sunshine only makes it still more poignant, as I feel the distance of the ocean as well as the theological barrier that has come between us.
Before my posting becomes morbid, I should finish and take advantage of the beautiful sunshine to go for an outing, take some pictures, and refresh my thirst for painting!
