I’m going to attempt to write about a semi-serious subject without offending anyone… which means I’ve started, deleted and restarted this post about 700 times.  So I’m just going to jump right in there and say this:

The “Impropers” attended church for the first time in about eight years today.  I won’t bore you with the details of Mr. Improper and my previous church experiences that have led up to our absence from the place for the past eight years.  I’ll just tell you that after literally living every single day of our lives revolving around church in a cult-like atmosphere for our whole adult lives, eight years was a welcome reprieve away.  And we have a lot of misconceptions and baggage.  And we are getting past all that.

We have been batting around the idea of going back to church for a few months- in all honesty, mostly for the sake of the kids.  But every time we remember how it’s gone when we’ve had this wild idea before, and that idea quickly just gets shelved.  {I should clarify, we have been to church 4 times in these years.  Aside from one Catholic mass on Christmas Eve, we’ve never stayed for the whole thing.  I told you… baggage.}  Anywho, I’m not sure what got into me, but last night around 8:00 I decided it was time, and the Hubbs lovingly agreed to go.  What a guy.

We both woke up this morning with an array of feelings.  I felt like a kid on the first day of school and Hubbs was just bajiggity about pretty much everything.  We were both our own respective wreck.  And the thing that just bugged me to death was that we were the stereotypical “newcomers” that I witnessed Sunday after Sunday my whole damn life.  “I’m a freaking professional church-goer. Why the hell do I feel like this?” just kept going through my brain on a loop.  But I pushed through, tried not to yell and scream at the kids the whole way out the door (to avoid being that stereotype-) which I failed at, and we managed to make it to the church parking lot with 4 minutes to spare.

For the first time, we made it through the whole thing.  Granted, there were a few moments when I wasn’t sure… my Little Man wasn’t so sure about his Sunday School class and we almost got to use that as an opportunity to bolt, but we didn’t.  And the pastor was on the normal side.  No one spoke in tongues or knocked anyone over and prophesied to us… that was a bonus.  And it was the most normal, peaceful Sunday Morning experience I’ve had in a very, very long time.  I honestly didn’t realize how much I was needing the normalcy of packing the kids off and taking them to church.

And then it was over and we picked up the kids from their classes and the Hubbs all but dragged us to the car by our hair to get the hell out of there!  I can’t remember the last time I saw him move that fast.  No one, and I mean  no. one. was going to introduce us to the welcoming committee or invite us to lunch or ask us our names on this, our first Sunday this side of heathendom, and live to tell about it.

And, as far as we can tell, it looks like some Sundays might include a little more than football for the Impropers.  And I think I’m okay with that.   Go figure.