Eleven months since I last posted. I didn't realize it had been so long. Time certainly does fly. Well. Where are we now?
A lot has changed. I'm 34, still unmarried, and I really DGAF. I consider myself Mormon almost exclusively in a historical sense; I was raised/grew up Mormon, but I have moved away from it now. I went to church with my Dad for Easter; he came out and took me to our home ward. It was... different. Very different. We both felt it. The feeling of home was gone for both of us, though perhaps for different reasons. For him, the people had changed, the spirit of the Ward had changed, his connection to it had diminished. That had to be difficult for him to see, seeing as he had been Bishop to many of the people still there. The Ward is barely more than a branch now. It's sad. I felt that, too, and the lack of the fellow-feeling from my youth. But more than that, I was no longer connected to the doctrines being taught. I was no longer attached to the church. I was happy to see some of the people, to touch base, but little else. I now try to schedule my visits to see my family so that I'm not around or I have to leave on Sunday. To say my heart isn't in it is an understatement. I don't even really care enough to remove my name from the rolls.
I've evolved a lot as a person, an adult, and a woman in these past three months. A semi-chance run-in with a friend revealed that she had been ex'd for unrepentant pre-marital sex. This is a woman I looked up to as a member of the church, one of the ones I hid my departure from so I wouldn't have to face her questions, and SUDDENLY... she was a full two or three steps ahead of me! Sexually active and independent, no longer a member, drinking, etc. All manner of "worldly" delights! I made a decision, right there. I would do three things before my 35th birthday: 1)get drunk, 2) try pot, and 3)have sex. I set out to finally commit some sins worthy of discipline, if I ever bothered to make them known to a Bishop. No more "well, your feminist, Paganish ways are weird, buuuuuuuut not technically counter to doctrine" wishy-washiness. GO FOR THE GOLD!
And I did. As of this past weekend, I have checked all three off my list. Granted, I haven't been truly drunk, but I've been good and tipsy and I appreciate whiskey and absinthe. (Wine? Ehhhh, sometimes. I like the idea more than the thing. Beer? Blugh.) But I tried pot (THE TASTE OMG WHYYYYY) and I am absolutely delighted by the joys of sex. I've started studying tantra with a friend who has practiced it most of her life, and it has become a part of my spiritual practice and path. I have every intention of following that path to become a tantric priestess and I-don't-know-where-else and loving it. My first lover became jealous when he learned about my second lover, and he is no longer in the picture. I do need to make contact with him, though, and settle things, so that it isn't awkward if/when we run into each other at events in the future. My second lover is currently my only lover, though not for lack of trying. He has become a fast friend and confidant, though, and a very important person to me for more reasons than amazing sex. He has introduced me to some positively fabulous ways to play, and I can honestly say that his presence has altered the trajectory of my life. Funnily enough, both of these men have ties to the church: #1 used to be a member and #2's parents attend my home ward. I know their names and faces and they know my Dad and he likes them a lot and holy shit, if they had any idea of what their son and I get up to in the bedroom... I'm not sure I could ever show my face in that Ward, even if I wanted to.
There has been a bit of a dust-up of late (that I have seen) with the release of Carol Lynn Pearson's new book The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy about how much Mormons haaaaate polygamy. I don't know anymore if I just never thought about it all that much or if I really trusted that God would figure it out in the eternities, but I don't recall being super distressed by polygamy until after I started leaving the church. I always assumed that--as I was promised in my Patriarchal Blessing--I would fall in love with one man, be sealed to him, and we would have a family. It's funny to me now that I'm exploring polyamory/non-monogamy outside of a Mormon context. I may never marry. I may never have children. I can't decide lately if that bothers me or not (although I do hear my biological clock ticking a little louder now.) There's a part of me that says I should resist this path because of that ghost of eternal polygamy. But now it's not that... if I don't marry in this life I will be shuffled into a marriage with a possible stranger and his other wives so I can get into the Celestial Kingdom and become a (silenced) goddess (or, best case scenario, fall in love in the afterlife and be sealed to one man and no one else will be involved. Or, I maybe get to be the First Wife.) It's... I'm alive now, living my life now, and I'm choosing to explore myself and whatever depths and breadth of this Love/Relationship "thing" that I can reach in this precious lifetime I'm given that could end tomorrow, and I'm not intentionally limiting myself to one man to do it with. It is my choice, freely made and honestly consented to. It's the choice most LDS women are denied, whether they want it or not. Someday, I may be monogamous. I may marry, I may bear a child. For now, the crushing pain, uncertainty and angst is greatly diminished.
One remaining difficulty is the realization that I don't... not believe in the Mormon God/Elohim. I'm not yet sure what to do with that. A being or beings of tremendous power, to whom I felt close before, whose love, care, and presence I have felt on many occasions, who has/have protected and guided me over the years. I still know this entity, but it feels like knowing an emotionally abusive, codependent, manipulative parent, and I'm not sure what to do with that. A part of me would like to reestablish the connection, and another part is repulsed by the thought. I don't know what to do with that yet. I suppose I'll figure it out someday. Until then, I'm going to keep sinning and trusting that if, indeed, this God is loving and merciful, He/She/They know that my greater joy is outside of the boundaries their (supposed?) representatives have laid out and that is okay. And if I'm wrong, well, maybe eternity was going to suck no matter what I did, so I should enjoy this time now.
I don't have much more to say than that. I don't know much many more posts I'll have here, honestly. The years will tell, but I'm out of Eden. I'm beyond the wall and I don't plan to come back. Even if I did, it wouldn't be the "paradise" it was before.
I think Eve would understand.
