Here's the thing-- I don't want to be gay. I don't want to at all. Tonight I was talking to one of my roommates, just a normal conversation, and afterwards I was pondering... I feel so normal when I'm just interacting with him, and with other people. But then when I'm by myself, or just lost in my own thoughts, it's like I enter another word entirely. In the real world, I have positive interactions with people. In my head, they all are looking for excuses to reject me. And I reject myself. I reject myself so deeply, because I don't want to be who I am. And that's the problem.

I read once on a blog the experience a man had when he came out to a pastor, and the pastor told him it was okay to be gay, and how that hadn't been comforting at all. I had a similar experience. While I was in Europe, I ended up talking to one of my professors, whom I trust deeply. And she told me exactly what I didn't want to hear: that it was okay. She told me that "things have a nasty tendency of turning out all right in the end." And she ultimately told me that it was perfectly okay for me to be gay. That was not at all what I wanted to hear. What I wanted to hear was someone who would tell me how to fix it. I wanted someone to see me in pain and give me the cure. I wish so badly that someone could just come to me and give me a way to be attracted to women so that I can be like my family, like my friends, and like everything I've ever learned has told me I should be. But it never happens, and it never will. I know that ultimately the power to change my perspective is in my own hands, but how do I go about wielding it? How do I actually change the way I see the world?

Yesterday as I was thinking about the title of my blog and what I said about it, I thought of a metaphorical counter argument. While my blog is about the uncarved block, and my purpose is to try to discover who I am, haven't I been taught my whole life that I'm like clay in the potter's hand? If the natural man is an enemy to God, then why am I trying to seek my natural self? Shouldn't I be focused less on who I "am" and more on who I want to choose to be?

I don't know. But part of what I mean by the uncarved block is truth as it is, unfettered by man's perceptions. I want to find the truth for my life. If that truth is Mormonism and the life of celibacy I will probably have to lead to stay with in it, then so be it. If the truth brings me down a different path, then so be it. Because ultimately, I am tired of acting out of fear. I am tired of being a slave to my circumstance. I am tired of hating myself for something I never chose. What I am experiencing most days is pain. And to me, that's a signal that there is something wrong. I need to discover what exactly that is and how I can go about fixing it. I need to find the uncarved block.

And so, for now, I'm going to continue posting here to myself. Maybe someday some people will start reading it. Maybe I'll use it as a tool when I start "coming out" to friends and family, so that they can see my thought process for themselves. I have this deeply selfish desire for people to know my pain, and especially my family and close friends. I just wish I could show it to them, and let them become a part of it. But I can't, because I'm far too scared of the repercussions.