Becoming the Uncarved Block

In the past two weeks I have busied myself devouring the blogs of gay Mormons, Mormons questioning their faith, and faithful Mormons whose perspectives differ from the mainstream. It has been an incredible outlet for me, seeing people who have been going through the same things as me and knowing that I am not alone.

My purpose in starting this blog is primarily to think through my life and express myself. I don't even know that many people will ever see it or read it. But I hope that someday the things I say here might help someone else as much as the blogs I've read have helped me. It just feels so much better to know that you're not alone, and to read someone else thinking through the same thoughts that are bothering you.

First I'll introduce myself and the situation in which I find myself at the present moment.

I have been a life-long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I returned from a mission in Australia almost a year ago, and it was a very positive experience. I genuinely loved it. I have a great, loving, very active family, and my parents raised me in the typical Mormon manner, with plenty of family prayer and scriptures and weekly family home evenings. I'm a very happy, positive person for the most part, and I've learned over time how to hide my inner struggles from certain people, like my parents.

I remember the first time I ever used the word "gay." It was when I was six or seven years old. I remember I was standing in the bathroom in our home in St. George, Utah. I had heard the word used a few days previously, and figured it meant something along the lines of "stupid." So when my sister did something that made me angry, I shouted at her and called her gay. She was shocked, not like when I usually called her stupid or annoying. And then she told me that if I knew what that meant, I wouldn't have called her that. Because to be gay, she explained, was something really evil. My mom was nearby, and she told me I could never call my sisters, or anyone else, gay. She explained to me that gay meant when two boys or two girls loved each other like a boyfriend and girlfriend do, but that it was something really, really bad. I never used the word again, and avoided everything to do with it.

You can imagine how terrifying it must have been when I first started feeling sexually attracted to boys. All I could think of was how awful, terrible, and evil it was. The first time I really noticed was at my first scout camp. There were lifeguards that were a lot older than us, and they would stand by the water in only their swimming trunks all day. Whenever we went to swim, I would steal glances at them. Looking at them made me feel good. It was like a warm feeling inside, and it made me want to be closer to them. At first I didn't think anything of it, but the more I looked at them, the more I realized something was weird about it. It wasn't until a few months later, however, that I first connected those feelings to sexual attraction. It was close to the beginning of eighth grade, and I had met a boy in my band class that gave me those same feelings. Then Tuesday night for scouts, we went swimming at the local swimming pool. That boy was there. Seeing him swimming through the water, and feeling those feelings all over again, it dawned on me what I was feeling. This was how I was supposed to be feeling for girls. Tears came to my eyes, and I began in my head the silent mantra of "I'm not gay. I'm not gay. I'm not gay." I couldn't be gay. Because to me, these feelings were evil. It was bad to be gay.

Fast forward ten years. I've now been back from my mission for nearly a year. In the first six months of being home, I tried so hard to have crushes. I tried liking and dating girls. It all came crashing down on me one Sunday as I was on a train ride with a good friend, traveling from Beijing to Qingdao in China. I was reading my scriptures, and I started to think again about the all-too-familiar topic of my attractions to men. I felt hopeless, and that hopelessness overwhelmed me. The next night, I sitting on the beach side, I talked with my friend about it all. I was more open with her than I had ever been with anyone up to that point. It was refreshing, but frightening. Suddenly the world of my inner mind and the real world crashed together, synthesizing by the words escaping from my mouth. As I talked about my attractions to men, it almost felt false. Like I was making it up. It was just so weird to actually say it and verbalize what I had kept inside for nearly my entire life. But it was so utterly relieving to have someone understand and care about the deep pain and dissonance I was experiencing.

The next day, I started watching the BYU It Gets Better videos, and as one of them talked about praying and telling God that he was gay and about the peace and acceptance he felt, I was overwhelmed. I burst out into tears, and I felt the Holy Spirit confirming to me that God loved and accepted me for who I was. I knew then that denying my sexuality was not productive, and it was not what God wanted for me. And so I decided to accept myself as I was. I finally realized that the long-awaited day when I would finally be attracted to girls, able to date, and marry in the temple would probably never come. And that it was okay. I called my friend up (we had parted ways at that point). The previous night I had told her that though I had those feelings, I most definitely was not gay. But when I called her, I told her that I had accepted it. That I was gay. It was the first time I had ever referred to myself as gay. It felt so wrong. It felt like I was calling myself stupid, bad, or evil. And I felt so, utterly ashamed to actually say it.

Things didn't get much better after that. A week later I had a complete breakdown while I was by myself in a hotel room. I started to tell people, random people at the periphery of my life. I met an amazing new friend in Guangzhou who I spilled my heart to, and she listened and cared. But I was still deeply depressed. Going home from China, I felt better, but not for long.

Five weeks into the new semester, I left with my classmates on a four week trip to Europe. The entire time, I felt a deeper despair than I had ever felt before. It was constant, and weighed so deeply on me. My biggest fear was that if these people around me knew who I was, they would hate me. Three of my roommates were with me on that trip, and I was so afraid. What if they knew? What if they all knew? What if my parents knew? The thought of rejection was too much, and I began to really, truly hate myself. I wanted so badly for it to be gone. I just wanted to be normal. I just wanted to be like everyone else. Watching the other guys flirt with girls, and seeing them cuddle and rub each others' backs was tortuous. They were unknowingly slapping me in the face with all I could never be. Luckily I was able to confide in a few people, and towards the end of the trip I began to realize more than ever that the problem was in my own perspective.

And so here I am. I will have been home from Europe for a week tomorrow. In this last week, I've been reading and re reading blog after blog. I don't know what I believe any more. I don't know who I am or what I want from life. I've titled this blog "the uncarved block." I want to use this blog as a journey to think through my life and my views and to discover my authentic self. I love Daoism. In Daoism, the uncarved block represents the concept of nature before the imprint of culture, or, as I'm using it here, the authentic or true self. I want to rediscover and become the uncarved block-- my true and authentic self. I feel like right now I'm fragmented. There's the part of me that believes deeply in Mormonism and wants to get married to a   woman and have a family. There's the part of me that believes strongly in Christ, and would be comfortable remaining Christian and abandoning Mormonism. There's the part of me that is extremely attracted to men. Part of me hates that, and the other embraces it. And then there's the part of me that's a Daoist, and just wants to enjoy the beauties of the present moment. I hope that in writing, I can find a synthesis. I want to overcome this fragmentation, and discover what I really, truly believe. And hopefully I'll be able to find and connect with people along the way that are experiencing the same struggles and dissonance as myself.

That's who I am and what I'm doing here.