The big announcement

My wife and I are in my hometown this weekend. We stayed at my parents' last night. At dinner time I chose to reveal to my parents that I am no longer a Christian but an agnostic. I was a little bit nervous before the words began to leave my mouth. Not so much nervous about my dad because he's pretty understanding about things and relatively open-minded. I was a little nervous about how my mom would feel or respond because she tends to hold a more clear definition of what is right and what is wrong and often likes to hold to tradition.

But genuineness is the goal for me. Be myself. Don't appear to be one thing for others while being something else under the surface.

So I said it. It went something like this:

Me: "So I've realized something lately."
Dad: "Oh, yeah. What's that?"
Me: "I'm agnostic."
Dad: "I've heard of that. What does it mean again?"
Me: "Agnostic means, basically, I think we have no way of knowing for sure if there is a god or not. If there is, we have no way of knowing who specifically god is. And I can relate with that a lot. It fits with how I see things now. So, anyway, I'm not a Christian anymore."
My wife (to my mother): "These turnips are really good."
Mom: "Yeah, they're fresh from the garden. I picked them..."

I looked at my dad and said, under my breath, "What the fuck?" He smiled and laughed.