Thoughts on my wavering atheism

I was raised Catholic. We went to church every week until I was 18 when I decided that I didn’t want to go anymore. When we were little we were so Catholic that when we stayed at Nan’s, we would do the rosary before bed. I can still whip through a decade like nobody’s business. 

I love my Cathlic stuff – I collect Rosary Beads and Nativity Sets. I go to Mass every now and then. I enjoy it. It relaxes me, and it reminds me of my youth. But the silliness (i.e. the lack of transparency, the patriarchy, the institutional sexism etc) of the Catholic Church… I know all that stuff means I can never fully go back.

Anyway, I am/was happy with my atheism.

Until the old fella went.

I find myself feeling better when I imagine that he’s still here. That he is still with us. I so badly want him to still be here.

That’s why I feel my atheism wavering like never before.

It hurts so much. Everyday I have to remind myself that he’s not here anymore. The pain of him not being here on this earth pisses me off. He didn’t get to finish the way he was meant to – he was taken.

I don’t know how people do it. I’m a mess when I think about it. I’m a mess just writing these words.

But I feel good when I think of his spirit, with us and around us. He visits me in my dreams and when I’m daydreaming. I won’t go back to the Church, but I’m not sure I want to go back to being atheist either.

I don’t know if it’s just a grief that’s making me go back to the beliefs that were embedded in me so early and for so long. Maybe, like the grief, it will pass.