Ten Years

As I was laying in bed my thoughts hit me and I had to share.

Wow, ten years. Has it really been that long?

Ten years ago I was still pretending to be Mormon.

Ten years ago I was just getting to know a girl who would become my Mormon-fiancee through online dating.

Ten years ago I was terrified.

I didn't want to be part of the LDS church anymore. I hated the control, the guilt, the manipulation, the brainwashing, the no room for logic and free thought, but how could I get out?

95% of my friends were Mormon at the time. I was part of a singles ward. I probably had a calling, but I never had any calling of importance so I don't remember what it was. My family was Mormon. My sister just got married in the temple a few months prior. I felt helpless. frustrated, confused, and most of all lonely.

I had no one to confide in. I had been piling so much on my shelf it was about to break. It was creaking under the weight. I kept trying to support it, but I knew it would break and soon.

Then 2008 happened.

I decided to be me. I took steps. Yes I met and dated the girl from online. We got engaged. It was rough. We fought a lot. We broke up and got back together probably 7 or 8 times before it all finally fell apart. I told her I had to be me and I couldn't be the priesthood holder she had her heart set on. So we parted ways.

Still very few people knew about who I was except a few close friends;  because I didn't live at home with family I could pretend I was still going to church.

I felt more of "the spirit" outside of the church than I ever did in the walls of a chapel.

Sundays became second Saturdays. I could go out experience nature and take in life.

2008 was a year I finally started to figure out who I was. I went with a very dear and close friend for dinner and had my first alcoholic beverage. It was freeing. The guilt was gone. The church had no power over me anymore. I found out from some other friends that I am not a fan of Crown Royal and will never touch the stuff again. Alcohol, that I was taught was this demon from childhood, was something that could help you relax as long as it is used in moderation. In the right quantities it can be healthy.

I began to learn more. I  made new friends outside the church. We had new experiences. I finally felt that for the first time I was living life and happy. The guilt, the loneliness, the depression was all lifting away.

Yes some of the guilt was still there at times. 25 years of indoctrination is hard to scrub away, but it was being scrubbed away. I was still in the shadows until Nov 2008 of the dreaded Prop 8 vote.

I couldn't be a part of a religion that fought so hard to take away others' happiness. God supposedly gives us agency so why were they taking it away from others? Why did they fight so hard against something that since that time has literally done nothing to hurt them or their religion? It was going to destroy Christianity and our country. We were going down the slippery slope. (Trump is destroying our nation not gay marriage.)

That was it. I was done. I wasn't hiding anymore and 10 years ago people got to know the real me.

I hope that 2018 can be just as amazing as 2008 was. I have a life with an amazing wife, two dogs, great friends, and close family members.

Cheers to 2018 and another ten years of challenges and journeys!

To all the men sharing the #MeToo status

Dear fellow men,

As a fellow man this is really making me angry.

Yes, I get it, you were sexually harassed or assaulted maybe a few times in your life. I'm not trying to downplay that. No one likes unwanted sexual attention.

But, what this is showing how widespread and how terrible this is for women. It's not just on occasion. Or that one time 20 years ago I had that creepy boss. This needs to be seen and heard because it happens EVERY DAY.

I can pretty much guarantee every woman has been sexually harassed or assaulted multiple times throughout their life. More so in a year than most men have been in their entire lives.

To you I ask these following questions:

When was the last time you took the subway during rush hour and were afraid about how many times you might be groped or touched inappropriately because there was only standing room?

When was the last time you were cat-called while running laps in your neighborhood while doing your morning jog?

When was the last time your boss made subtle comments that you're not dressing sexy enough for that promotion?

To all you men out there who are trying to take away from the real issue, go fuck yourself.

Sincerely,

A male feminist.

Where will you go?

I decided to pick up my blog again. I finished a long chapter of my life in my previous blog (Atheist Behind the Zion Curtain) back in October a few days before my wedding.

This is now my new chapter in life.

Now the LDS Faith is still going to have a strong influence on my blog. I can't completely take it out of my life as this is how I grew up, but I believe this is the best place to start my journey Beyond the Zion Curtain.

I frequent an exmormon support group and one of the things that has come up a lot is, "where will you go?"

This was a question asked by Elder Ballard in the October 2016 General Conference. In the naive wording he assumed that the world can't possibly offer anything better than the faith.

And as I have stepped beyond the faith I want to answer that question from an exmormon point of view that there is life after faith and in my experience a much happier life.

Where have I gone? Where will I go?

I found myself. I am me. I don't have guilt from a church. I don't feel like I can never be good enough for god. I no longer have to feel sorrow for my faults in order to make myself pure in god's eyes. I can be happy with life. I can find joy every day instead of worrying about what I have done wrong. A new and true joy has come alive.

I found a loving wife. We have a real connection of love. When I compare my relationships that I had as an active LDS member to what I have now it felt like we were together because we needed each other to get to heaven. I know this is not the case for all members of the faith, a lot of them do find real love, but I never experienced that myself. Now I am with my wife because we have chosen each other. We had almost nothing in common, except our friends, when we first started dating, but this is what gave us our strength. We each have gained so much in life due to our differences that I can't imagine life differently. We have agreed to give each other our time which is the most precious commodity we have in our short lives.

I get to see the world. Without the monetary obligations of the church I can travel. I went to Switzerland and the French Alps for my honeymoon. I get to go to Paris and the Loire Valley this coming fall. In the years to come I get to experience the world. I get experience new cultures. I get to learn about and meet people and other ways of life and from that I get to enrich my life.

So, Elder Ballard, you ask me and all the other exmormon and inactive members where will we go? I ask you, where will we not go? Where will our new lives take us?