All A Twitter

I'm one of those Twitter people.

Not just someone who has an account and occasionally posts about the delicious new lunch place I found or the cute guy I almost ran over with my car.  No.  I tweet.

I'm a tweeter.

When you're a tweeter, Twitter almost becomes a way to verbalize your inner monologue.  When happy or sad or humorous or surprising things happen, a tweeter's instinct is to let their followers know about it.  Ace a test?  We tweet it.  Bump our heads?  We tweet it.  Overhear something inappropriate at in the office?  You bet your ass we tweet it.  True addicts feel helpless when they can't get a signal out to share a funny thought that just popped into their head.

Case in point: 8 minutes ago, one of my twitter friends from South Africa posted that he had just learned his uncle had passed away.  I've never met this man in person, but because he is a tweeter I can say with some confidence that his tweet went out within minutes of hearing the news.  In a way that non-tweeters can never understand, this announcement sent into the Great Internet Void was an important part of this friend's coping process.  He needed to tell somebody, he needed someone to know he was hurting and he needed someone to respond with comforting words, and Twitter is a highly effective way of doing all of those things.

This weekend is the LDS church's General Conference.  I live in downtown Salt Lake, and I am eagerly anticipating escaping to friends' homes in the suburbs for the weekend, because the influx of out-of-town Mormons swarming around downtown makes traffic a nightmare.  Tens of thousands of Mormons flock to Salt Lake for the semi-annual conference, and anyone who ventures downtown is sure to spot crowds of clean-cut people in their Sunday best.

Earlier today, an employee for the ABC Salt Lake area affiliate who had access to the station's twitter account, @ktvx, posted a tweet which read:

I'm downtown eating. Surrounded by Mormons and repressed sexual energy.

By any logical assumption, the KTVX employee responsible for the tweet likely intended it to go out on his/her personal account but used the tv station's account by mistake.  It happens, particularly when using a mobile app that allows for multiple logins.  I have several different accounts myself, and have posted to the wrong one by mistake several times.  The tweet was almost immediately deleted, but not before a few people saw it.  Just a few hours later, according to Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune's Culture Vulture blog, the employee tendered their resignation.

Whether this was a forced resignation or entirely the idea of the employee, I don't know.  But either way, the reason behind it is the same.  Someone is now unemployed because Mormons are a) easily offended, and b) a huge part of the local population and economy.

One of these two things happened: either the (now former) KTVX employee realized they were guilty of Second-Degree Mormon Bashing (which I believe is considered light treason in Utah courts, but I'll have to check with my lawyer friend to be sure) and quit to help the station save face, or KTVX pressured the employee to resign to help the station save face.

For the sake of argument, let's assume it's the second scenario.

Because I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

As a culture, Mormons are taught that they are better than everyone else.  They backtrack and double-talk, quoting scriptures such as "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" to prove that they value all men equally, but the facts remain.  Mormon theology teaches that they are special, a "peculiar people," the only ones on the planet blessed with God's true gospel.  They praise themselves on living "in the world, but not of the world."  They even believe that the reason why they get to be Mormons in this mortal life is because they were better than everyone else in the pre-existence.

A big part of Mormon culture that both feeds and feeds from this superiority complex is the idea that because they are at the top of the totem pole, literally everyone and everything else on the planet is being utilized by Satan to take them down.  I once had a seminary lesson in my teenage years where the teacher explained that one of Satan's most cunning tricks was using good people, like the then-recently deceased Mother Teresa, to make us think that it was possible to get to heaven without following the true Gospel.

Mother.

Teresa.

He then assured us that Satan's plan was sure to backfire, though, because she was such a good person she was sure to embrace the church in the afterlife.  But he warned us not to let that deceive us - because we knew the Gospel in this life, if we rejected it and just lived like good people but didn't keep all of the LDS covenants, we would perish.

This absolute paranoia, the fear that everything good or bad in the world is after your immortal soul, has created a hyper-sensitivity to criticism in Mormon culture.  Any time Mormons or their church are criticized in the media, flags go up.  Mormons accuse the critic of being disrespectful of their beliefs, a bitter anti-Mormon who doesn't care for truth, an obvious sinner who cannot understand the happiness the gospel brings them.  It is a Mormon's godly duty to pass judgement on others, but don't you dare pass any judgement on them.

Don't believe me?  Go find any news article, from any local or national source, online that gives less than a glowing endorsement of Mormons in any way, and read the comment boards.  You may need a stiff drink first.

Associating Mormons with sex is just about the worst offense you can make.  Inferring that Mormons have repressed sexual energy is pretty much like calling them wild animals who think about having filthy pig sex all day long.  You're sick.  You're perverted.  Mormons are a clean and healthy people who truly show love for each other by not having or talking about sex unless they're married.  And even then...

So, rather than face sure criticism from the local Mormon community for tweeting such offensive content - practically HATE SPEECH, isn't it? - KTVX fired the employee responsible for simply being logged on to the wrong account at the wrong time.

Shame on you, KTVX.  Shame on you for finding a punishment that fits the crime - like, say, a verbal warning.  Shame on you for not simply standing up and saying, "Sorry, we made a mistake. Our bad. Didn't mean to offend anyone. Won't happen again."

That's short enough that you could even tweet it.

A Call to Arms for America

I. Am. OUTRAGED.

I just found out (thanks to Google maps) that there is not one, but TWO Catholic cathedrals within a two-and-a-half block radius of the former site of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City!  One of them is directly across the street - you can see it from almost anywhere within the memorial park!  Turn around, look down the block and past some trees, and there's the other one!  TWO Catholic cathedrals casting shadows on the memories of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing.

How can we, as Americans, stand for this?

Weren't our hearts stabbed clear through on April 19, 1995, when we turned on our televisions and saw horrifying images of twisted steel and shattered concrete?  Didn't we cry and mourn for the 168 victims and their families?  Didn't we shudder in horror at the sight of the burnt and mangled toys from the daycare center where 19 innocent children were killed?

And yet somehow we must have forgotten our duty to honor and respect those that died that day, our brothers and sisters and fellow Americans.  Maybe it just didn't feel real enough.  Something failed to ignite our righteous anger.  Otherwise we would never have allowed two cathedrals to stand so near to an open wound.

After all, Timothy McVeigh was Catholic.

True, he wasn't a practicing Catholic at the time of the bombing.  But he was raised Catholic, and the things he learned in childhood were still a part of his belief structure and questionable moral fiber for the rest of his life, as he explained in an interview to Time Magazine in 2001:

I was raised Catholic. I was confirmed Catholic. Through my military years, I sort of lost touch with the religion. I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs. I do believe in a God.

If only we had stood up then!  If only we had demanded that the cathedrals be torn to the ground, so as to not taint the memory of the bombing victims!  How much pain could we have saved the loved ones of those victims?  How much pain could we have saved America?

The Catholic church has had its share of bad press in the last few years, what with all the child molesting and everything (Fun fact! John Wayne Gacy was Catholic).  Clearly, the Catholic church is a breeding ground for terrorism and must be sent a clear and direct message.  I call for my fellow Americans to join me in protesting the continued existence of these Cathedrals of Terror!

Wait, that doesn't seem grave enough.  Hmmm.... how about the Monstrous Cathedrals of Evil Terror and Also Molesting Children and Kicking Puppies?

Ooh, that's good.

As I don't live anywhere near Oklahoma City, I'm going to have to rely on support from all 11 readers of this blog to do the actual protesting for me.  But I'd be happy to help you come up with some kickass picket slogans.  I'm really good at that.  "MCoETaAMCaKP Are Monuments to Terrorism!" "This is America! Go Back to the Vatican!" "Obama = Kenyan Puppy Kicker!" "Terrorists Don't Deserve Churches!" "God Hates Fags!"

We simply cannot allow this to continue!  Have we no pride, no patriotism?

And it can't stop in Oklahoma City, fellow Americans.  We also have a civic duty to protest the Lutheran church around the corner from Columbine High School, to show that we condemn the actions of Dylan Klebold and other potential Lutheran terrorists like him!

But wait.  Let's be clear here.  I am not targeting religion.  After all, America was founded on the belief that we should be free to practice whatever religion we choose.  I don't have a problem with the Catholic religion, or the Lutheran religion.  I have a problem with their obvious ties to terrorist splinter groups which are completely indiscernable from the religions themselves.

There's a huge difference.

But lest there are still a few anti-American left-wing tree-hugging communists out there who believe that this is nothing more than a vicious attack on any specific religions or practitioners thereof, allow me to continue.  The next step in preserving the fragile heart and tender feelings of America is to get rid of all the sushi restaurants around Pearl Harbor.

Do you have any idea how many there are?  It's like, you're there, looking through the hauntingly blue water at the USS Arizona, choking up a bit as you think of all the thousands of soldiers and citizens that were viciously and brutally attacked that morning, and the whole time there are a half a dozen sushi joints right across the bay watching you mourn and rubbing your face in it!  "Ha ha ha!" they say.

Or rather, "は は は!"

"We totally attacked you without warning on that infamous day!  Now come inside and enjoy some delicious sashimi OR WE WILL DO IT AGAIN!"

Do we really want to wait for that to happen, America?  Do we really want another Catholic to bomb downtown Oklahoma City?  Do we want another Lutheran high schooler to turn a gun on his classmates in Littleton?  Do we want the Japanese to attack our warships stationed at Pearl Harbor?  After all, history repeats itself.  And by allowing these monuments to terrorist organizations to stand so close to places so deeply effected by their terrorist actions, we are simply inviting them to attack again.  We are saying we didn't think it was that big of a deal, and that all of those lives lost really don't mean anything to us.

We need to send a clear message to these terrorists: You Don't Mess with America, Texas or Otherwise.  Tear down the cathedrals!  Tear down the churches!  Tear down the sushi restaurants!

Otherwise, how far will it go?  What's next, America?  An Islamic cultural center two blocks away from where the World Trade Center used to stand?

That'd be just plain un-American.

Dear Friend,

We both know that there was a time, early on, when we didn't exactly get along.  I resented you for disrupting my easy life with your myriad of personal problems, and you resented me for not showing you more patience and understanding.  Slowly, over time and distance, we began to build a mutual understanding of each other.  We were able to look beyond our differences.  We found more and more reasons to tolerate each other, then respect each other, and eventually like each other.

Eventually you became a fixture in my life - albeit something of a background fixture.  Metaphorically, you were like a painting hanging on my wall.  I'm always vaguely aware of you, and often think of you, but rarely take the time to stop and really look closely.

Although we travel in different social circles, live miles apart, and rarely see each other anymore, I still consider you an important person in my life, and a great friend.

Which is why I have to tell you this:

Please stop with this nonsense.  It's killing you.

You have been through more in the past few years than anyone should have to.  I cannot imagine being in your place - I doubt I would have handled it with the grace that you did.  You have proven yourself to be a strong, brave, intelligent, loving woman.  You have taken a hell of a beating from life, only to stand up and wait for more.  Life didn't keep you waiting long.

You have asked aloud many times, "Why me?  Why is all this happening to me?"  You always come around to the same answer.  You say that your struggles are from God.  You say God is testing you.  You say God is putting you through this for reasons you don't understand now, but that will be made clear to you in the eternities.

You say that it brings you comfort, knowing that God has a hand in all this shit you've gone through.  But it doesn't.  Every time you claim that you're finding peace through relying on God, you are lying.  After seven years of knowing you, of reading your creative stories and your poems and your blog, I've learned how to read between the lines.  I can interpret your tone.

Your God is a fucking asshole.  And you know it.

You don't find any peace in God.  You only find familiarity.  You don't know what else to think.  You insist on serving a God you resent because you think that eventually, if you're patient and long-suffering, that God will relieve of you of your pain.  You will spend your whole goddamn life waiting.

God did not make you sick.  God did not take your children.  Thinking he did, thinking there is someone up in the sky who has made things wrong and is just taking his sweet time before making things right is completely destroying your sense of self-worth.

You are worth so much more than the God you believe in will ever let you be.

You say that you need to rely on God until you can believe in yourself again.  That makes absolutely no sense.  YOU are here.  YOU have proven yourself to be an incredible woman, with incredible attributes.  You have so many friends and loved ones who admire and look up to you.  YOU.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with God.

Please, PLEASE, believe in yourself!  Believe that you have what it takes to power through everything life throws at you!  You absolutely can.  You have before.  You will again.  Every time you rely on God to make you stronger, you are actually weakening yourself.  You cannot curl up in a ball and ride out the storm because you want to believe that at the end of it all God will make it up to you.

This is it.  This is the only life you get. Don't waste it.  Don't waste away.

I hate that you have had to go through these things.  But it hurts more to see you falling apart and just waiting for some mystical God to put you back together.  It's not going to happen.  Eventually you will put yourself together again, because that great source of strength and power that you so desperately seek is within you.

It's hard for me to understand how you could possibly believe in God.  It was difficult enough for me, who has never been through anything remotely comparable to you, to tell myself I believed in God.  How can you claim to believe that someone who would torture you for years without relief or explanation is any kind of perfect being?

Your God is a complete hypocrite who dishes out punishments and rewards on a whim.  The idea that there is some afterlife where everything will sort itself out is absurd, particularly in Mormonism.  You believe that if you handle this shitstorm of life to God's liking, he will give you the EXACT SAME REWARD as people who simply coasted through life with very few struggles and trials.  Your God is unfair and highly immoral.  And yet you allow yourself to wallow in self-doubt.  Deep down, even though you say you know God is just giving you trials because he knows you're strong enough to handle it, part of you wonders if it's some sort of punishment for sins you didn't know you committed.

I generally don't have a problem with the fact that many of my loved ones believe in God.  That's their prerogative, just as it is mine to be an atheist.  I truly believe that if having faith in something helps you to become the best version of yourself, then it's good for you.  I don't think that a belief in God is always a crutch - sometimes that's just the best way people can find to explain all the wonderful and terrible unknowables of life.  But in your case, I honestly wish you would let go of that belief.  I fear that you will focus so much on the unknown reward you believe God has in store for you that you will neglect to seek out happiness and beauty in this life.  You are going to miss out on so much because you have decided to wait for God to make everything right rather than focus on the things that are already right.

I firmly believe that you will find great joy in your life.  Unfortunately, when you do, you will tell yourself that the God who has for so long been so cruel to you has suddenly decided that you deserve a break.  You won't credit yourself with becoming stronger, you will credit God.  You won't credit yourself with finding ways to be happier, you will credit God.  You are denying yourself the opportunity to know how amazing you truly are.

I would never wish the things you have been through upon my worst enemy.  There are not enough words to tell you how impressed I am with the way you have conquered your life.  It breaks my heart to watch you deny your own accomplishments, your own strengths, and instead give the credit to a supposed God who you believe is the reason you've suffered in the first place.

Please, friend.  Please know that you are so much better than your God makes you feel.  Please know that you are a truly beautiful person.  Please know that there is so much to this short life that you should embrace and enjoy.

You can't wait forever for a God who doesn't exist to make you happy.  You are more than capable of doing that yourself.

All my love,

Kristen

To Those Who Left Comments on My Exit Letter

Dear Friends,

When I first started writing this blog, I felt the need to refrain from posting too often about my experience leaving the church.  When I finally realized how cathartic (and healthy) it could be to write my feelings down, I was so emotionally weighed down by the realization of the lies I was discovering that I doubted I would ever be able to say enough.

My exit letter changed that.

As I mentioned in the post containing my letter, I first went through several boring drafts.  I was less than satisfied with them.  I literally spent hours writing and re-writing a single sentence, trying to make it as powerful and succinct as I could possibly make it while maintaining a kind of cold distance that I thought was necessary for this type of letter.

When I finally wrote the version that I mailed to church headquarters last March, I did it in a single pass. I gave it little more than a brief proofreading (which you can tell if you read it closely enough) before printing out two copies.  I spent so little time on it, in fact, that I mixed up parts of my old and new address on the return and didn't notice until I was at the post office.  I scratched it out and hand-wrote the correct numbers.  It was the easiest letter I have ever written, because I had reached a point where I stopped caring completely about how it would be received.  I said exactly what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, and I refused to be apologetic about it.

Writing that letter did more than just close the book on my membership with the LDS church.  It closed the book on my relationship with the church.  Although it didn't mention many of the facts I had discovered or explain the emotions I had felt, it somehow felt complete.  Since writing that letter, I've struggled to think of things to say about mormonism that could be turned into posts on this blog.  But the fact of the matter is, once I wrote that letter I simply stopped caring.  I stopped letting it bother me.  I stopped letting it effect me.  I stopped letting the struggles of my past dictate my attitude in the present and the future.

Earlier tonight, a friend mentioned to me that he still receives emails informing him that there have been follow-up comments on that post (something I had never set up to receive myself).  I hadn't visited this blog in a while and decided to take a look for myself.  I expected two or three comments.  I found over forty.

Dear readers, I am overwhelmed.  I have such deep gratitude and appreciation for all of you who have taken the time to share with me your support, your congratulations, and your proposals of marriage.

I'm particularly thankful for those.

It is such a humbling thing, to discover that a deeply personal manifesto of sorts would ring true with so many people, most of them strangers.  I realize that to many of you, forty comments means very little.  Some of you probably receive that many and more on a weekly or even daily basis.  But I have authored several blogs over the years, and have never had that kind of response.

I was so touched, in fact, that although it's just after 1:00 a.m., and I'm finding it difficult to remember how many beers I had tonight, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until I had drafted a thank-you to all those who have read my exit letter, whether they left a comment or not.

To those who said it inspired them to write (or re-write) their own letter of resignation, thank you and best of luck!  To those who said it made them laugh, thank you and you brought a huge smile to my face!  To those who asked me to marry them, thank you and I can easily be wooed with red velvet cupcakes.

Love,

Kristen

Pops

My dad is a notorious teaser.  In my younger days, he would spin yarns to wrap around my siblings and I, and would never back down when we insisted that he was lying.  It seemed like he simply derived great pleasure out of tormenting his children, seeing us squirm uncomfortably as we tried to reconcile our my-dad-is-a-superhero instincts with our my-dad-is-a-liar reality.

"See this scar?" he'd say, pointing to a thick strip of shiny pink on his chest.  "That's from when I was out in the woods with my dad and I got attacked by a werewolf.  I used to have an 'outie' belly button, too, but the werewolf bit it off."

"Nu-uh, Dad!  Quit teasing!"

"I'm McGyver," he'd insist every week as my family gathered around the TV.  "It's based on my life.  Back before I met your mom I was a secret agent."

"Nu-uh!  You were not!  Mom, make Dad stop teasing!"

No matter how much we protested, no matter how loudly we groaned, he never changed his stories.  He got such a kick out of us becoming frustrated or angry with him.  When we would admonish him for lying, his response was always the same.  "I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger than you, and goshdarn it, I'm better-looking than you, too."

When I was a teenager, I loathed my father for being a self-described Jack-Mormon.  I was trying so hard to believe in the church myself, and I was certain he was feeding me doubts just to torment me.

One morning before church, he pulled out a little laminated card from his scripture case and showed it to me.  It was a chart documenting all the discrepencies between his pre-1981 edition of the Book of Mormon and my own set.  He had made it himself.

Another time he tried to explain the Adam-God doctrine to me.  "Brigham Young taught it," he told me.

"Nu-uh!"

"He did," he insisted.  "Brigham Young taught that Adam was God, but the church doesn't teach it anymore.  Now they say that he never taught that at all."

"Yeah, sure Dad, and you're McGyver."

For many years beyond teenagerhood, when I was still trying so hard to become someone I wasn't, I carried resentment for my dad.  All those times I read the Book of Mormon and felt nothing, all those times I prayed and felt nothing, all those times I listened to other people gush about how they could "feel the spirit" in the room with us and I felt nothing, a part of me blamed Dad for planting those seeds of doubt.  If he wasn't so stubborn, if he would just be a good card-carrying priesthood holder like he was supposed to be, then I would surely have a testimony!  I would surely stop feeling so worthless and guilty and evil for not having enough faith.

I would see the relationships my friends had with their fathers, and compared to my own it seemed like something straight out of Full House.  Their dads were so protective of them, their dads doted on them, their dads were like knights in shining armor who wanting nothing more than to pamper their little princesses.

My dad, on the other hand, was not what I would call doting.  He would never dream of letting me win if we played a game together.  He didn't believe in letting me have my own way just because I'd pout at him.  He'd rarely ask me questions about my feelings, and opted instead to spend dinnertimes handing out 'quizzes', drilling me with math and physics and logic questions until I refused to play anymore.

For years I harbored the thought that my dad didn't really care about me.  It seemed so unfair to me that he would purposely feed me 'anti-Mormon' thoughts when I was trying so hard to develop a testimony.  I wanted to believe that he was just falling back on his habits of feeding me little lies until I snapped and got angry.  I wanted to believe that he was just argumentative by nature, and wanted to get me riled up so he could have someone to fight with.

When I was young, it simply seemed like he just enjoyed seeing his children suffer.  Looking back now, I know that what he was really doing was teaching us to think for ourselves, to look at things objectively, to not just accept anything one-sided without examining the other possibilities.  He was teaching me to be skeptical and critical and to make informed decisions.  He was teaching me to use my brain.

Maybe not during the "I was attacked by a werewolf" game.  That one was just mean.

My dad and I have never really sat down and talked about my leaving the church.  He's made a couple of comments, asked a couple of questions ("So what do you do on Sundays now?"), but hasn't ever questioned my motives for leaving.  So I can't really say for sure that I think he's proud of me for apostasizing.

But I do think that he would be proud of me for not accepting the church at face value.  I'd like to think he's proud of me for taking the time to look at both sides of the church, and deciding for myself whether or not I think it's true.  If I had stayed in the church, I think he'd feel better knowing that I was doing so because I'd investigated it thoroughly and decided that I did in fact believe in it.

My dad taught me that what I think and how I feel matters more than how everyone else is telling me to think and feel.  He taught me that my doubts, my fears, and my insecurities matter, and that they shouldn't just be brushed under the rug.  In a church that commands uniformity of thoughts, morals, and beliefs, he taught me that my own opinions were just as valuable as anything an "inspired leader" told me.

And I'll take that over him letting me win a game of Crazy 8s any day.

MMPR

*WARNING! This blog contains a potentially lethal amount of rambling and probably less than your recommended daily dose of coherence.*

My senior year of high school was almost a complete academic waste.  The thing is, I'm pretty smart.  Smart enough that when we had an assembly my freshman year explaining the new block schedule and what our credit requirements would be, I was able to figure out how many real classes I'd have to take for the next three years so that I could goof off the fourth.

And goof off I did.

I saved up my electives and easy required credits (like 'computers' and 'life skills') so that senior year I didn't have a single math, science, or English class.  Instead I took Cooking 101, Sewing Skills, Intro to Guitar, Weightlifting.  I took a keyboarding class to fulfill my computers requirement, and because I could already type 80+ WPM I finished the entire semester's worth of lessons in the first week, so until graduation sixth period was naptime.

Without doubt, my favorite class that year was LitMag (the literary magazine staff).  It was easily the most work-intensive class I had that year.  I had more assignments in that class in a week than I had in most of all my other classes put together.

But oh my god it was fun.

You know how they say that people are layered, like onions ("And sometimes there's a third, even deeper layer, and that one is the same as the top one.  Like with pie.")?  The old adage is that sometimes you have to peel away these layers to get to the true person underneath.

Sorry, centuries of poetic thought, but I must disagree with you.  I don't believe that inside everyone, deep down, is the core of who they really are.  People aren't onions.  People aren't pie.  People are Voltron from the Power Rangers.

Let me explain.

When the Power Rangers needed to fight a big enemy, they'd all hop in their animal-shaped robots.  And, when the battle got really tough, they'd combine all of their robots together to make Voltron.

Voltron.

Voltron was, in and of itself, one complete entity.  However, it was made up of five different people, all working together to make one whole.

Now, call me a schizophrenic, but I tend to think that rather than having one core "true self" hidden under all these onion pie flavored layers, we have lots of "true selves".  People are far too complex.  I don't think it's possible to ever completely know somebody, not even yourself.  So instead of peeling away the layers as they get to know us, people instead get to know the separate parts of you one by one.

When people express themselves artistically, they have to allow themselves to be somewhat vulnerable.  You have to really feel what you're trying to say, or else it simply isn't going to connect with your audience.  My preferred art form is writing.  Anyone who writes regularly understands that there comes a point where, in order for your writing to actually mean something, you have to expose yourself a little bit.

Because after you get arrested for flashing people in the park, you'll have something highly meaningful to write about.

Har har.

I'm hilarious.

Back on track.

Totally unnecessary picture of a mostly naked Neil Hopkins playing with Voltron.

Part of what was so fun about LitMag was knowing there was a part of me I couldn't hide from the rest of them.  I've never been very at-ease in large groups of people, especially when I barely knew any of them.  But the other kids in LitMag read literally hundreds of pieces I wrote, just as I read theirs.

You can't do that without really getting to know a part of someone.

What I discovered as the school year went on was that the part of me that was in my writing was the very part that I was working so hard to hide from people.  It was the part of me that was dark, and scared, and bitter.  It was the part of me that didn't understand the world around me, the part that would hide in the shadows, away from the things that were, and wait for the things I wanted to be.

And it was such a relief to know that despite the fact that I could so easily tuck it away and out of sight from most people, there were a dozen kids in school whom I barely knew that I could never hide it from.  They weren't disgusted by it, or afraid of it.  They didn't judge me for it.  They embraced it.

They knew I was morbid and twisted and possibly a little crazy, and they accepted it.  And then we would all laugh about it.  I'd let them see the me that I was ashamed of, they'd shrug and say, 'Okay, now let's move on.' 

About twelve years ago I began battling demons that it took me until very recently to face head-on.  I've long been able to credit certain individuals for helping me through tough times - people that I doubt have any idea what an impact they've had on my life.  But until reflecting on it recently, I never realized that the kids in LitMag with me were some of these helpful people, as well.

If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have told you that that part of me would probably be dominant for most of my life.  But the truth is, exposing it didn't make the darkness stronger - it weakened it.  The part of me that still wants to hide in the shadows is still here.  She shows up every now and then, and I let her.  Because in the end, she and I both know that she won't stay long.  Not anymore.

Every now and then I look back on this, and try to remind myself that letting people in can be a good thing.  It's something I'm trying to do more often - opening myself up, not being terrified of what people will think or say when I'm at my most vulnerable.  Writing this blog is kind of a part of that.

I had a blog before that was all about me trying to make people think of me in a certain way.  I was always trying to be funny, always trying to be clever, but I was rarely just being me.  Part of the reason I named this blog "Truth, or Something Like It" is because I wanted to hold myself accountable for telling the truth here.  I wanted to be honest about myself, who I am, what I think, how I feel....

After all, it's just a stupid blog, right?  Nothing to be afraid of.

One more time, just because it's cute.

A Toast, Jedidiah.

I was just catching up on reading through some friends' blogs, and this post by Sean really struck me.  Take a minute to read it, and then come back.

I'll wait.

As I am dreadfully far behind on blogstalking people, Sean's post is rather old.  According to the rules of internet etiquette I have arbitrarily created for myself, it is well beyond the acceptable time frame for me to leave a comment.

Also, I have no ideas for my own blog today.

Two birds, one stone.

If you knew me personally, you would know that Sean's post describes me almost perfectly.

Almost.

You know that feeling you get when you hear a song or read a book for the first time, and it's so disturbingly familiar it's as if it were written about you?  Do you ever think to yourself, 'That's exactly like me, but I would never think to put it in those words?'  That is the feeling I got and the thought I had when I read Sean's blog.

Let's break it down, shall we?

Sean says, "I can’t imagine being in a relationship because I do everything by myself. Almost literally everything. I sleep by myself, shop by myself, go to movies by myself, go out to eat by myself, watch TV by myself, crack jokes by myself... cook by myself, etc., etc."

Kristen says, "Ditto."

Sean says, "It’s not that I mind doing stuff with other people; it’s simply not part of my routine. And frankly, deviating from my routine annoys me. Hear that, friends? Quit asking me to do things with you. It cuts into my Farscape-watching time, goddammit."

Kristen says, "What's Farscape?  If it takes you more than two words to answer, I won't care anymore."

Sean says, "This is making me sound like a self-centered bastard, and of course I totally am, but really I just don’t know how to have friends. And if I don’t know how to have friends—if the decidedly less onerous responsibilities of sustaining and maintaining a friendship are completely lost on me—how on earth am I going to be able to sustain and maintain a more intimate relationship?"

Kristen says, "Ditto."

Sean says, "When I imagine being in a romantic, committed relationship with someone, my mind simply boggles. The idea of constantly having to check in with someone else, having to coordinate every activity and outing, to sometimes/often do what someone else wants to do instead of what I want to do…"

Kristen says, "Almost."

You see, the truth is that I would rather enjoy having a relationship.  I would enjoy having someone that wanted to know what I was up to, that wanted to include me in their day, that I could make coordinate activities with.  Just so long as I had complete control.

Not in a Dominatrix-y kind of way.

Well....

Okay, I decided.  Definitely not a Dominatrix-y kind of way.

Probably.

There's a scene in Citizen Kane where Jedidiah Leland (Joseph Cotten) accuses Kane of manipulating people's affection for him so he could get exactly what he wanted out of them.  Kane lifts his glass and responds, "A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own."

That line was another one of those 'this was written about me' moments.

"To love on my terms."

I would love the idea of having a boyfriend, as long as he was around only when I wanted him to be and always when I wanted him to be.  I would love a boyfriend, as long as he acted affectionate when I wanted to be touched and distant when I wanted my space.  I want a boyfriend that tells me how much he needs and appreciates me when I crave an ego boost and leaves me the hell alone the rest of the time.

Also, he should have dark hair and a British accent.

Is that too much to ask for?

Maybe I'm just selfish.  Maybe I'm just immature.  Maybe I'm just living in some kind of fantasy land, perpetuated by all those romantic movies I've seen, where relationships are just two people who fit together like two perfect puzzle pieces without any adjustment from either party.  But at least we know I'm not crazy, because a friend recently told me that although he realized I was highly anti-social, he didn't believe that meant I was mentally ill.

Words of comfort.