My mother has picked up numerous hobbies to occupy her time now that I've moved out and my brothers are too old to be interested in spending time with her anymore. One of them happens to be scrapbooking and the first one she decided to do is one of my life. She showed it to me the day I arrived here. It's pink with pink pages and pink lettering and so forth. I hate pink on principle but it's her favorite color so I smile and nod. The first pages of it are from my First Communion. I was six years old and I remember thinking that Church (note the capital C) was great. <br /><br />I'm not sure what happened, maybe it was all the shit my family went through later that year and in the years that followed, but by the time I was ten years old, I thought the Church was full of shit. My hatred of the Church and all religious institutions only grew as I forced myself to study them, reading the Qur'an and the Torah in secret. By the time I was twelve, I openly protested attending church on a weekly basis, using arguments from everyone from my next-door neighbor to Nietzsche. Although my father was impressed by my knowledge, he refused to give in. So every week, I was dragged to Church and CCD without fail.<br /><br />At CCD, I constantly questioned everything the volunteer teachers presented to us. One of them became so frustrated by me that she actually quit. Still, I was forced to go through the steps it would take for me to become a true Catholic: Confirmation. In order to receive the sacrament of Confirmation, you had to take a written test on various aspects of the Church. Despite knowing these things backwards and forwards, I failed the test three times. I thought maybe that would be a sign to the Church or my parents that I was not meant to be a member, but they just gave me the test a fourth time, this time while two priests sat and glared at me. I'm not sure whether I truly passed or not, but nonetheless, I was allowed to receive the sacrament. <br /><br />As for years I had defied the Church by taking the Eucharist but instead of eating it, putting it in my coat pocket through sleight of hand and throwing it away later, I figured that openly defying the Church couldn't do me any harm. I decided that when it came time for my Confirmation and they asked me if I renounced Satan and all his works, I'd say, "No, I don't" and walk off. I was all set to go through with it until my devoutly Catholic paternal grandparents arrived from Texas to witness my Confirmation. Although I hated my grandfather about as much as I hated the Church, I was told by my mother that he was on the verge of death and that pulling the stunt she knew I was planning would probably kill him. Not willing to add murderer onto my role as heretic, I grudgingly went through Confirmation, mentally cursing God the entire time. <br /><br />I was more than slightly amused when it began to hail in the middle of the ceremony.<br /><br />In the next couple of years, my parents' beliefs in the Church began to change. I'm not entirely sure why and I've never thought to ask. Maybe it was because we were finally financially stable and didn't need that kind of safety net anymore, but I'm not sure. Whatever it was, we stopped going to Church on a weekly basis. We became the kind of people that showed up for Advent and Passover and that was it. And I was dragged to those Masses as well despite proclaiming at age sixteen that I was an agnostic. <br /><br />Ironically, for a few years after proclaiming myself to be an agnostic, I began volunteering at the Church as a CCD teacher. I just wanted teaching experience and something that would look good to University admissions officers. I'm not sure why the Church administrators let me do that considering my history with them. Maybe they thought I had reformed myself. I wasn't sure whether to be proud or not when I found out that some of the students I had taught openly defied the Director of Religious Studies during a practice Confirmation ceremony, causing her to burst into tears.<br /><br />Despite all of this and the fact that I am an adult who has lived on her own for three years and pays her own way, I am still dragged to Church every Christmas for Midnight Mass. As everyone else sits, stands, kneels, bows, prays, sings, and recites on cue, I sit there and curse myself for still remembering all the prayers and songs. I sit there and try to remember what it was like to be six years old and enchanted by it all. Next year, I always tell myself, I won't be sitting here. But it never happens. The look of disappointment in my father's eyes when I defy him holds more power over me than God ever will.