"You're so religious" (Part 1)

I've often been told "You're religious." "You're super religious." "You're so religious."

When to be honest, I never considered myself a crazy religious person. I know I am, but I didn't think it so exaggerated, to the extent that other people say it.

I just thought it was normal.

But I find myself surrounded by a lot of athiests, I don't know what it is, if it's college, if it's growing up, if it's friends that I have...sprinkle it all in.

So I want to attempt to extract all the ways that Orthodoxy affects my life that I don't even realize, because all these people are making me realize that it does affect my life (well of course it does, it's just...it's interesting now to think about, because it was always just there for me, I was never without it...).

I grew up in a Orthodox household, an every-Sunday-church-going type of family. A family whose father would read on the way to church, read excerpts on road trips, read in the tent...

The camp I go to is first and foremost a church camp.

The point is, I was never without it. Religion. I was never without religion. In both physicality, as in, it was always around me, surrounding me. And in spirituality and emotionality (is that a word?) itself. I have never been unfaithful. I always just believed. It was just always a given. And I didn't even realize, how hard, it is, for some people, to believe, in God.

Like, it's actually a GIFT itself, to believe. Because it's something that's just there or not. It's like love.

And I didn't realize any of this, but, maybe going to college is what made me start thinking about this all.