Category Archives: mormonisms

The Mormon Anthem

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I am a child of God,
And he has sent me here,
Has given me an earthly home
With parents kind and dear.

I am a child of God,
And so my needs are great;
Help me to understand his words
Before it grows too late.

I am a child of God.
Rich blessings are in store;
If I but learn to do his will,
I’ll live with him once more.

I am a child of God.
His promises are sure;
Celestial glory shall be mine
If I can but endure.

Chorus
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,
Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do
To live with him someday.

The song I am a Child of God is one of the quintessential hymns in mormon childhood.  A solid mormon upbringing will include this song as a childhood anthem, and my home was no different.  I sang it for comfort in dark, scary places. I sang it to remind myself that I was extra special.  I hummed it, summoning courage in my bed at night.  I sang it with gusto with the rest of my young classmates in church, proud of the touched expressions on our mother’s faces.

But then, things changed for me. I sang it with tears dripping off the end of my nose and into my clasped hands as a teenager kneeling at my bedside, begging to be more faithful and desperate to believe.  In my search for comfort, my mother’s love, the thought of her soft hands squeezing mine would ease me back into bed and under the covers.  But the words tortured my young heart, as a glowing piece of my childhood suddenly felt  threatening.

 I am a child of God,
And he has sent me here,
Has given me an earthly home
With parents kind and dear.

My parents were kind and dear.  The first verse was a way of establishing the expectation that the rest of God’s plans must be accomplished because of their kindness.  And dearness.  It played on my fierce, child-loyalty.  It made me feel as if my struggle to believe in God was a rejection of my parents.  Maybe it was.

 I am a child of God,
And so my needs are great;
Help me to understand his words
Before it grows too late.

“Help me to understand his words, before it grows too late.” Too late for me, a girl who sensed innocent, blind, parent-lead faith dripping through my cupped hands like water I was trying to carry in my palms. I felt desperate to comply…to understand.  The pressure was real, unrelenting.

 I am a child of God.

His promises are sure;

Celestial glory shall be mine

If I can but endure.

“Celestial glory shall be mine, if I can but endure…”  This one.  Am I worthy of glory?  Do I want to endure my life? To endure…to suffer patiently, to tolerate with out wielding.  It made me feel bleak, and as a teenager, bored.  Life can be more than enduring.  The idea that I could fully enjoy my life and each moment and not fear what would happen when I was dead was a unfurling in my rebellion.

 Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,
Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do
To live with him someday.

Teach me all that I must do…to live with him someday.  This one broke my heart.  I was the teacher’s pet, after all.  If there are things I must do, I wanted to be valedictorian.  And I wanted acceptance, praise.  A feeling that doing the things that I must do would make me special.  To live with him someday made me envision a thick, heavy door.  And would he open it for me?  The thought that Heavenly Father would possibly not let me in, if I did not perform the things I must do, filled me up with leaden fear, and a sense of failure.

And the song, which used to bring me peace, felt corrupted, dangerous.  I clamped down on it tightly, storing it away.

A few months ago, I was kneeling at the bedside of my youngest daughter.  She was three, and golden, and trouble.  I was stroking her soft platinum hair and kissing the tears from her round cheeks and wet eyelashes, a sore toe causing her newest despair.  I sang her “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and  then, quite unexpectedly, “I am a Child of God,” a song dug out of the tombs of my now locked up mormon vault.  I felt my love for her crack open my chest, and white, warm, mama love encased my little girl.

I switched to humming the tune after the first line, perhaps unconsciously avoiding the words that carry such weight, and let the song soothe my baby.   I found the place that long ago had soothed me before it hurt. The wounds are healing, the anger dissipating… slowly, ever so slowly.  In the year we have been here in Connecticut, as I write about my life, I am noticing, finally, my ability to accept the beauty under the damage, find the gold thread woven into the cocoon I felt caught in. The song fills me with hope and safety and warmth of childhood.  The feeling that I belong to something.  I am allowed to toss out the words that dish out dogma I don’t hold true…and just sing the song, allowing the spirit of connection be as simple as I need it to be.

The connection that makes me, and Stella, and God, one and the same.

And then she slept.

Stripping down

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When worn properly, the garment provides protection against temptation and evil. Wearing the garment is an outward expression of an inward commitment to follow the Savior.    – (First Presidency letter, 5 Nov. 1996).

The garments must be worn day and night.

Mormons are allowed to have sex, (married of course) swim, and shower without the garments, but they should be immediately worn again, as soon as possible.  The prophet and the first presidency of the LDS church are all old men in their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.  They are not about to advise women on the pleasures of wearing garment bottoms and getting a period, or having a baby. We figure it out.

They make maternity garments, (belly and boob pouches!) and nursing garments (the boob pouches are designed with flap, to give access to the breast once the nursing bra comes down).  They come in different fabrics, and necklines.  I found them all to be drastically uncomfortable.  I was painfully sensitive to lace, and even the simplest styles had trim that rubbed me raw.  It was always hot, even in the winter months, wearing an extra layer under my clothes.  I hated the way the fabric bunched up around the underwire of my bra, and caused my bra straps to slip around.

I hated sleeping in them, I hated golfing in them, I hated never being able to undress or dress in a locker room at the gym.

But, despite the physical discomfort, I wore them diligently, faithfully.  I tried so desperately to embrace the life of a married mormon woman.  I read material about the garments, their sacred nature, the blessing I would get from wearing them.  I taught young, impressionable preteen girls about the importance of wearing temple garments.  I told them how sacred and special they were.  I left the church on those particular Sundays always wondering if they recognized how resolved I was in convincing my own heart.   I wanted my new husband to see me as a valiant, faithful woman.  I wanted Heavenly Father to validate my efforts with a boost of faith.

 Visiting the Oakland Temple

After our daughter Carly was born, we moved to California.  I became pregnant with Lydia just six months after Carly’s birth.  As I  fed and cared for one baby girl, and grew in my womb another.  My spiritual crisis flourished, growing as fast as the new life inside me.

 

Garments are worn as a reminder of the covenants and oaths taken inside the temple.  They are to serve as a constant reminder of who you are, what your purpose is on earth, and the morals and standards you are striving to live.  They keep you dressing modestly and behaving accordingly.  Putting the garments on your body is like dressing in the armor of God.

These were the true reasons the mormon underwear was hard for me to wear.

 

It was an oppressive,  constant weighing reminder of who I was – a latter-day saint (LDS).

 I would step out of a shower in the morning and stare at the blurred outline of my body in the fogged up mirror.

 I was disappearing.

I pulled the garments on, and the woman in the mirror became visible as the fog cleared.  She looked like all the women in my life…my mother, my grandmother, my aunts and cousins, my ancestors.

 It felt like chain mail under my clothes.

 My underwear was immutable evidence that I was trapped, encapsulated in fraudulence.  I hated when Rick would see me in them each day, knowing my garments were a reassurance for him that I was doing it.  I was complying with the temple promises.  It felt like a bold face lie.

I wanted to fall asleep at night, his skin and my skin unsheathed from our armor…my raw self and his.  But it was against the rules, to spend a night sleeping in our bed, holding onto each other without the barrier between.

The lightweight cotton was becoming so heavy, I could barely get dressed in the morning.

 

It seemed that each passing day, as my belly grew larger, so did my discontent.  I had managed to avoid buying maternity garments while pregnant with Carly, eeking by with my regular sizes and the nursing garments afterwards.  But this second baby, fast on the heels of the first, changed my body quicker.  The garments became uncomfortably tight, rolling up over my abdomen.  Rick would ask me almost daily if I had remembered to order maternity garments, and I would always respond with, “tomorrow.”  I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

 

I had respect for the garments, for the people who wear them, for their sacred and spiritual meaning for my loved ones.  And there came a point where I could not put them on.

 I had outgrown them.

I only had a month or two before Lydia would be born…  I sat on the edge of my bed, Carly calling for me in her crib, and I could not put them on my body.  I stopped wearing them.

 Rick began to ask about it as gently as he could, and I would shrug it off, as if I simply forgot. Both of us knew forgetting was not possible.  I could feel his fear building as the force of our spiritual storm began to build and take shape.   I would try to be nonchalant, tell him, “tomorrow,” and almost gag on my words.  His disappointed eyes and my guilt filled me up like wet cement.

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In that last month, Carly, with her imploring blue eyes, would lift my shirt and pat my bare belly, press against me.  She would squeeze my fingers and leave wet kisses on my cheeks.  My daughter.  My little girl, watching my every move.

And inside me grew a fierce and fearless Lydia, straining against my insides, running out of room, ready to come into the world and become.

 

And… there was…me.

 

A burgeoning woman who knew that the time was coming. The moment where soon, I would no longer be able to hold myself in.

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In the green of a blooming spring, amongst the awakening world, it happened.

I gave birth to us both.

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Worthy to Wear; the Initiation

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I love to see the temple
I’m going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I’ll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.
I love to see the temple.
I’ll go inside someday.
I’ll cov’nant with my Father;
I’ll promise to obey.
For the temple is a holy place
Where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I’ve learned this truth:
A fam’ly is forever.
Words and music: Janice Kapp Perry, b. 1938. (c) 1980 by Janice Kapp Perry.
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I walked into the Denver Temple, hand in hand with my fiance, my mom and dad just a few steps ahead of me…I was ready.  I had been found worthy.  I had a temple recommend in my pocket, and I was going to cross over from a child in preparation, to a grown woman.  I would be making covenants with Heavenly Father, participating in what I had been taught since birth, would be the most sacred, beautiful, spiritually powerful experience of my life.

They don’t really tell you WHAT is going to happen in there… WHAT the ceremonies are really like.  They do not define the kinds of promises and oaths you will take.  It is spoken about with reverence and hushed tones and vague references to spiritual wakefulness and glory and sacred duty.

I walked in filled with anticipation and readiness, I was finally going to be a part of the inside, I would at last be able to feel the tremendous spiritual affirmation that I was going to be ok.  That I was doing the right thing.  That love will conquer all, the naive mantra of so many twenty-somethings…Rick would be in there to share this experience with me, support me as I went through my initiatory and endowment ceremony.

When I came out, my heart thunked slowly and heavy in my chest. One clammy hand held tightly to Rick’s, the other to a sack of new underwear.  I strained to feel the spiritual aliveness, the glow I had been promised.  I was terrified.  I could not process the experience quickly enough to match the lightness in Rick’s stride.

 It was just a week before we were to return to a mormon temple to be sealed for time and all eternity.  I fought the sting of tears in my eyes as we climbed into the car, and I positioned my new purchases, small plastic packages filled with white bottoms and capped sleeve tops that would be my new normal, a reminder of this night’s covenants with God. I rubbed the rolled edge of the garment bottoms through my jeans as Rick started the car.  My parents waved proudly, big smiles on their faces, as they drove out of the parking lot.

“So!  You did it Meg! How do you feel?”  He looked imploringly into my eyes, as he had done in the celestial room of the temple, trying to read me, feel out my reaction.  He knew I was scared.

He knew.

I knew that as a mormon couple, we would live with a constant expectation to return to the temple regularly and perform the same rituals, over and over, in the stead of all the people who had died without the glorious privilege of participating in the ceremonies on earth.  I knew that my zealous, return missionary, soon to be husband, would want to do what was expected.

“I never want to do that again,” I whispered quietly into my lap, tears pooling in my eyes.  I stared at my hands, concentrating on not blinking them out.  Rick squeezed my leg.  I could feel his desperate searching for inspired words.

“Ok.  Meg.  It’s ok.  I know it’s new.  We are going to be married.  You are going to be my wife.  That’s all we need to think about.  Pray about it.  It will be ok.  I love you.”

“I love you, too.”  I squeezed his hand and kissed him quickly. I wanted to grab him and tell him how scared I was, how terrified.  I did not want to let him down.

 I wanted to be filled with spiritual fulfillment.  The disappointment and distaste for my first temple experience after a lifetime of being told it was the most amazing, uplifting, magical experience was a crushing blow to my delicate faith.  But I took some big breaths. I held my love’s hand in mine.  I stared at the golden angel Moroni, glowing in the cold January air at the top of the temple’s highest spire.  He was blowing his horn, announcing his truth.

 I watched him in the rearview mirror as we drove away, becoming tiny and distant in the night sky.

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Skivvies and Damnation

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“Ordinances and covenants become our credentials for admission into [God’s] presence. To worthily receive them is the quest of a lifetime; to keep them thereafter is the challenge of mortality.” –   LDS President Boyd K. Packer

I better just get the underwear thing out of the way.  I am not sure that the necessity of special  underwear in order to find eternal salvation is something I can just zip on past.   It’s a topic that needs addressing.  Not just because people in general are fascinated with the idea that mormons wear secret underwear, (they do) but also because it was certainly a huge part of my overwhelming unhappiness as a mormon woman,  and a painful hurdle to overcome.

 But.

I dread it….writing about this part.   Because it’s absolutely sacred to the mormon population.  And while I will poke fun, be irreverent, and unafraid to talk about the church’s darker, more damaging side… it is not my intention to hurt or disrespect LDS people.

I don’t believe in the church anymore.  And the secrecy surrounding many of the beliefs and teachings were damaging and hurtful to me, and many others. There is so much secrecy, and so much fear in talking honestly and openly about real experience.  There is no safe forum for mormon people to express their feelings of doubt or fear or disagreement.   I have been filled with much hesitation to share some of these more sacred elements out of respect for the LDS people, out of my desire to not feel hated and condemned by them, my own family members especially. I squirm in my seat as I write this.   It has taken me a long time to arrive here, to this moment when I believe that I deserve to share it, to own it, to call it out, just as they will spread their message and try to find people to blindly follow their faith.

 I will share the sacred parts…  the temple, the underwear, with intention…not to desecrate something holy, but to own my story and shed the shame and propensity to hide behind propriety at the cost of my soul, my spirit.  It is all I can do.

 l love mormons.

I was one.  I am married to someone who was molded and shaped into an incredible father and husband by the LDS faith.  I was a fifth generation mormon, and almost all of my ancestors and living relatives are still faithful LDS people.   Mormons are some of the most generous, caring, loving, and thoughtful people you will meet.  They are resourceful and energetic and loving and they will bring you a casserole and a pan of brownies, help you move, jump your dead battery on the side of the road, or visit you when you are sick  without pause or reciprocation.

So.  Deep breath.

To start with the basics, yes, mormons do in fact wear special underwear.  Mitt Romney?  He wears the undies.  So does his wife.  Any faithful, active adult member of the LDS community with a church resume like the Romney’s must wear the garments, or they would be deemed unworthy of holding those important church positions.  Children do not wear garments…you must be 18, found worthy, and go through sacred and very secret rituals and ceremonies in an LDS temple in order to purchase and wear garments.

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-Denver, Colorado Temple.  The temple I first received my garments.

Mormons believe the underwear is absolutely sacred and is not supposed to be shown to others or spoken about to outsiders.  The underwear is worn to keep one modest, serve as a reminder of the promises made to God, and when worn faithfully and correctly can be protective.  There are hundreds of stories floating in mormonland and even shared over the pulpit about people who were physically protected in accidents or fire by wearing the garments.  These are the stories that confirm the notion to outsiders that mormons wear “magical underwear.”


Mormon underwear is all white, a symbol of purity.  The men wear a basic white shirt, and the bottoms look like white boxer briefs but the legs are lengthened to a few inches above the knee.  There are secret symbolic markings embroidered into various places on the bottoms and tops.  The markings are small, white and not very noticeable.  The women wear tops that look like tank tops with capped sleeves.  They come in a variety of neck lines, but they all come up high enough to modestly cover indecent cleavage exposure.  For women with bigger breasts, the tops are sewn with boob pouches, of sorts, so that the top will fit smoothly over all the skin.  The catch is, women must wear the sacred garment under the bra.  Ladies will understand the supreme discomfort that this may cause the well endowed LDS.  I don’t care how smooth you try to make those boob pouches, they are simply not good enough to prevent bunching, puckering, and movement of the bra in all the wrong places.  The bottoms look like white spandex, that go down to a few inches above the knee, to prevent scandalous immodest flashing of the upper thigh.  The female garments have the same markings as the men…  a strange phenomenon of equality within the faith, not often replicated.

Thankfully, the design has changed over time, as they used to be one-piece numbers, with long sleeves, long pants…and a crotch flap. These beauties may still be available for worthy purchasers. Awesome.  The one-piecers were a piece of history my mother loved to remind me of as we commiserated about the hot misery of those boob pouches. And despite our shared discomfort, the sacred power of those garments held tremendous control over our lives.  The influence the underwear has in daily LDS life is hard to articulate, and the guilt and perceived wickedness over letting them go was immense.  The decision to slip on a pair of good ol’fashioned bikini briefs caused almost paralyzing anxiety at times, paralleled only in my emotions now, as I let go to the fears associated with writing about the underwear.

Releasing that fear was a challenge, when I am going to burn in hell for writing about this.  Actually, I don’t think most mormons believe in “burning in hell.”  Hell is called outer darkness, and is rarely spoken of.

I have come far enough to have let go of that belief, the idea that the kind of skivvies I wear is important to God, or a measure of my worthiness as a human being.  Can there be a heavier weight, a more taxing exercise, than a continual critical measuring of self worth?  The memory of that measurement still makes it hard for me to breathe, it presses in on my throat, my voice disappears.

Floating out here in the “outer darkness,” I feel so much lighter.  And I marinate in this idea:

We are all worthy.

Always.

The worthiness is brilliant and it’s still flowering within me.

The projection of strength, faith, and sacrifice is paramount in the mormon community, and even within the family circle there can be a thick communication barrier.  It’s a barrier that still snakes it’s way through me, coiling around my darkest places, the most raw fears.  I know that LDS people will feel disrespected and offended by the things I write here, about my own personal experience as a mormon woman.   I see the fear in my mother and father’s eyes when I tell them about the things  I will write here, for the world to read.  For their family members to read. But their discomfort it is unavoidable,…inevitable, if I am to accomplish what I have set out to do…to find my voice and be unafraid to use it.  That voice has been bound and gagged for too long by the remaining vestiges of mormon unmentionables.   I have set out to peel away the layers of my self, to discover what is underneath, and scrape that away too.

When all the layers are gone, the only thing remaining will be what is at the core of us all.

God.  Love.

My hope is that my willingness to be raw, naked and condemned by people I love will help someone else find the God within themselves too.

I will send this small nugget of release into the blog-iverse with the promise of more details to come.  The next layer must come off.  I’m just going to catch my breath first.

To be continued.

Bottoms up, Sister Poulin

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Freedom – Our True Essence.

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After the decision to leave was made, after we let our intentions be known to our bishop, after I began an honest and open investigation of the place I had centered my life around…

Rick and I stood together, muddling through day-to-day life. But it was a life that had lost it’s definition, and our marriage had lost it’s boundaries, and our parenting had lost the written manual.  We were still hiding from most of our loved ones.  We lived in California at the time, and my family lived in Colorado, Rick’s in Vermont.  We did not need to tell them quite yet, about our radical decision.  The ability to secretly flounder our way through those first terrifying months was a factor so gratifying I was both weak with relief and completely wild with the task of hiding the chaos that we had unleashed in our lives.

 

We had to redefine everything.  The names we go by (Brother and Sister Poulin), what we ate (I still love green jello and funeral potatoes) what we drank, and where to charitably contribute now that 10% of our income was not being poured into building more churches.  We had to take a look at the kind of art we hung on the walls, the kind of cheap summer t-shirts I filled my cart with at Target (hello tank tops!!!) and even the kind of underwear we wore.  (It took me 8 years to buy ANYTHING white again).*

Most importantly, we had to discover what we would tell our children about God and their divine nature, what life is all about, what happens when we die, and who they really are… after all, my stories had just turned to ash in my hands. Luckily, they were still so little, just twenty months old and five months old. They had no idea what was happening to us as a family, though they surely felt the shaky trepidation that filled me countless times a day when the question “what if I am WRONG?” rose in my throat like a bubble and burst in my brain, sending waves of panic and visions of outer darkness (mormon hell).

As babies, they surely sensed my rage and deep sense of betrayal as I explored my entire past, my heritage, the doctrine … with freedom and a more open mind, and found things that made me question every conclusion and idea I had ever had about the nature of Heavenly Father, the prophet Joseph Smith, and all of those Book of Mormon stories.  I thought I was just leaving our religion, but mormonism is a culture.  A way of life.  Of thinking.  Of filtering the world.

To lose one’s cultural roots and orientation along with one’s definition of God and the purpose of life was a process, not a simple matter of walking away.

Several months into our life outside of the chapel doors, I was aching to share my fears with someone, but Rick remained adamantly opposed to talking about my research.  We did talk a lot about the rules that had been governing our lives.  Mormons live by a very long list of rules. They undergo interviews to determine how compliant they are, and whether they are worthy enough to enjoy certain blessings that are tied directly to eternal salvation. Chastity, paying 10% of your income as tithing, and following the Word of Wisdom are crucial for earning entrance to the celestial kingdom (the highest degree of heaven).  Additionally,  there are a more complex list of cultural rules that are tiptoed around and wrestled with in mormon life.  Rules about tattoos, body piercings, the color of shirt the men wear to pass the sacrament, length of hair and facial hair for men, dress codes, the kind of t.v., movies, books, music and magazines you enjoy, the language you use, the activities you engage in on Sundays…. it goes on, and on.

Together, we began to pick through this pile, sorting what stays and what goes like a giant garage sale.  It was tedious, and the discussions left us squirming and scared.  After a several months, drinking alcohol was brought up.

I had very little experience with drinking in my past, before we had met.

My parents told me my whole life that alcohol was sinful, it would destroy my entire life, and if I took one sip I would certainly be an alcoholic, since I had a few in my family tree. I would unleash a demon that could not be tamed if I broke the Word of Wisdom (the code of rules that includes a forbidding of coffee, tea and alcoholic beverages).  Mormon people can not marry in the temple if they do not diligently follow the word of wisdom.  It is a strictly enforced rule, and people follow it because it is an easy choice… go to heaven, or have a latte.  I was absolutely terrified of alcohol.

Being the stalwart rule follower, I had not had a drink of any kind until my 21st birthday.  My boyfriend at the time slid it across the bar table at me.  A Killian’s Red.  On that same afternoon, Salt Lake City was hit with a destructive tornado, right in the heart of the city. A tornado in the Salt Lake valley surrounded by enormous mountains was an unheard of weather phenomenon, and the mormon girl in me shuddered as I sipped that first beer. It was a sign.

 

Rick on the other hand, was a seasoned pot head back in the day.  As a devotee of the law, this knowledge always shocked my innocent mind.

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His stories of graduating from college and moving to Lake Tahoe with his buddies in order to engage in a year submerged in skiing, video games and surrounded in an ever-present cloud of skunky smoke made my head spin in confusion.  When Rick would talk about his past, it always left me completely mystified.  I had only known the mormon version of Rick, the return missionary. His “before the church” Rick stories did not merge with the man I knew. At all.  I felt like he was making it up entirely.  The disconnect seemed so distinct, I simply could not understand how a pot smoking ski bum could also be my straight laced math-geek husband who wrote me hand written love letters, went to four hours of additional church meetings on sundays (regular church service is three hours long) with a smile on his face, and made sure we never watched a rated R movie.

Rick grew up with beer in the fridge and did not think twice about it. He probably had the same perception of it as I did with caffeinated sodas…a can of pepsi was an adult beverage in my childhood home. (A lot of mormons will extend the Word of Wisdom to caffeinated beverages of any kind, but this delineation is left for personal interpretation).

Rick never really liked drinking either, which is why weed had been his choice activity in those pre-mormon days.   But Rick had given up his pot, alcohol, and coffee, to be a mormon man (amongst other things not related to the word of wisdom). He did it happily, and enjoyed the changes it brought into his life. He told me he never missed it, longed for it, or felt tempted by his past.  It is obviously a more healthy way of life, to be free from addictive substances, and it was no problem for him to leave it behind.

 

Our long discussion ended one night, when Rick put a six pack of Killian’s Red down on the couch between us, and we stared at it silently.

Do we dare?

Fear made my heart pulse in my throat as he handed me one.  It felt necessary.  Like swinging an axe uncomfortably close to an appendage in order to break the chains.  A shedding of controlling beliefs, an opening towards our own ability to choose. The most recent material I had read in my research of the church fueled my boldness.  I would not let a church sitting on that newly unveiled foundation control me. We each picked up a cold bottle from the cardboard carrier, clinked them together in the world’s most awkward toast, and headed into purgatory with a few cool gulps…

 

A Killian’s Red. (Ew).

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We each drank one.  It felt scary to put the unopened bottles in the fridge next to the bottles of breast milk and applesauce.  It felt like we were already raging alcoholics, as I buried the empty bottles in the garage with the dirty diapers.  We went to bed, Rick still wearing his garment top as we lay together.  He leaned over and kissed me, and I tasted it in his mouth…the Killians Red lurked there, under the toothpaste.

What have I done?

My brain screamed…I have unleashed an unpredictable monster!

Mayday!

Mayday!  It’s Pandora’s Box!  Evil!

Danger!

 I know mormon Rick.  He was a guy I chose to marry.  I did not know the Rick that existed before the mormoness.  And I had asked him to strip away those mormon pieces. The armor will come off, the rules and regulations will be chipped away…but I did not know what I would find there.

What if he becomes someone completely unrecognizable to me?  A stranger?  A stranger I can’t love?

What if I became a woman unbearable to Rick? If I lost control of myself entirely and was unable to make these choices for myself?

We kissed, and he tasted cryptic.  I pulled off his mormon garment top to touch the real man beneath that cotton barrier, a part of me vowed to pour that evil beer down the sink first thing in the morning. The other part of me, only a tiny bit stronger, softened into the fear and the mystery and freedom of becoming something new. Or perhaps, we would not become something new, but simply discover what we were underneath… once the fear was shed.

*Active, devoted mormon adults wear unique underwear.  You must gain a temple recommend, be deemed “worthy,” and go through a secret ritual in a temple before wearing the underwear.  The underwear is referred to as garments.  It is always white, and considered sacred.  Both men and women wear garments, and by design restricts certain kinds of fashion, including sleeveless tops. You must be worthy and wear the garments at all times except to shower, be intimate with a spouse, or swim. in order to enter the highest degree of heaven.

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fell Down

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“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

Living within the restricted confines of the mormon faith was like camping in the beautiful Rocky Mountains and being too afraid to leave the tent.  The tent offers a false sense of security and safety, a feeling like the whole entire world exists within the dome structure of nylon and mesh.  There is no need to set foot outside its confines where the dangers are fierce and unforgiving.   The  LDS church warns people that if they leave the tent, they will get attacked or hurt or worse… lost forever.  So everyone holds hands and sings hymns and basks in the safety of being together in a community, having faith that they will be delivered from the tent and into a more glorious existence after the camping trip is over.

 

292

Leaving the confines of this familiar and loving space is terrifying beyond measure.  To step away and start breathing the fresh air and view the fulness of the landscape, vast and wild beyond imagination is exhilarating and disorienting. The level of vulnerability is bewildering and the visual stimulation and open air can shut you down.  Some dive back in, and declare to the group that it was horrifying and scary and they will never leave again.  Some venture out for a while, but return, unable to feel safe without the controlled environment they were nurtured in for so long.

I had been outside out of the mormon tent once before, a year or two prior to meeting Rick. My first attempt to leave was after years of actively trying to stifle my inner voice and grow my faith in the life within the space I was born. When I stepped out of that tent, I had felt cast out, rejected and unable to trust in my family’s love. I had wandered aimlessly and ached for acceptance. In that short time outside, I never turned to inspect the tent I had been dwelling in. I did not need to know what it looked like to know that I did not want to live there.  The few glimpses I took at the LDS church from the outside filled me with a fear so complete, I could not investigate further. My avoidance was a result of a lifetime of conditioning. The LDS people are taught that reading, listening to opposing views or examining material that is not “faith promoting” or church approved is a temptation straight from satan.  It is evil and corruptive and to be strictly abstained from.

 

Eventually, I dove right back in.  I sought comfort, safety, and most importantly, the look of affection in my father’s face, my mother’s unbelievably soft hands in mine, and the  feeling that they still wanted to know me.

 

And I fell in love.  First, with being a part of my family again and then, with a gorgeous LDS missionary…Rick.

 

Years later, Rick and I emerged from the bishop’s office, on this night, and found ourselves unzipping that nylon tent door, taking deep collective breaths.  And together, we gathered our little girls into our arms and we took a step, just outside the tent. I gulped in the fresh air and kissed him fervently, trying to communicate my gratitude through those kisses.  I squeezed his hands tightly in mine, and I promised him we would not trade my happiness for his.  If he could not bear to be outside the tent,  we would re-enter together.  I would not leave him, and I would not want him to be unhappy. It was me that was changing the rules. The anxiety I felt in taking action, the idea that he may resent me, or secretly think I was a bad person overwhelmed me so completely, I could barely move.  Rick was stiff and unnatural, unwilling to engage or talk any more about what was happening… but his love for me was soft and liquid in his eyes, and it kept me calm enough to breathe in and out.

Eventually, I turned and let go of his hand, wanting to move from the threshold, and for the first time, allowed myself to examine the place I had devoted my entire life to.  I knew this time I would need to know where I had been.

I was shocked beyond belief.

 

I had been confident that I knew the LDS doctrine, the scriptures, the history, the prophets.  Even after stepping out, I would have balked and bristled at the implication that inside those walls a cult was thriving.  Or that my people were not Christians.  I would have fought tooth and nail with anyone that implied such treacheries.

 

Being a mormon simply did not make me happy, and I was unable to explain why.  Until I allowed myself to look at it with open eyes.  The tent was constructed out of only one material.

Fear.

And in the details of that fear, came such shock and alarm, I felt newly shattered.  There is no bounds to the betrayal I felt in the things I discovered about the place I had called home my entire life.

I begged Rick…

Come and look!

Did you know this?

Did you have any idea?

Why did we accept this?

How did we allow it?

Can you fathom how deep these deceptions run?

But he did not want to look.  For him, he had been out in the world, searching for safety and sanctuary when he entered the LDS faith. Inside, he met me, the most beautiful and intelligent woman he had ever laid eyes on (ha, couldn’t resist!)  He would step back out to save me, but he did not wish to soil his glowing feelings about a place that had brought him so many blessings.  It was the place we had discovered each other and had woven ourselves together in the most deeply intimate ways.

 

So I circled the tent, and really investigated all that it is.   White hot, acidic anger liquified my insides.  I was unprepared for the way it pulverized me.  I had not recognized how my LDS faith and culture had infiltrated every thought and action and belief…it was the material I was made of.  Upon examination from the outside, the whole structure seemed to burn to ash, along with my entire sense of identity, my culture…my tribe.  The discovery turned me to ash too.

Rick, unable to watch me howl with rage and torment alone, tentatively stepped again to my side, and ever so slowly he let me share the betrayals and shocking discoveries with him.  The anger lit a fire under me and we ran for it.  Deep into the mountain terrain, fueled by fury and a sense that I no longer existed at all.  It felt as if I had just witnessed my own death, and the disembodiment was astonishing.

 

I marinated in this anger for a long, long time.  It still flares in me when I nurture it.  But Rick did not understand it.  He was not spoon-fed these stories and emotionally manipulated since he was in diapers or had fear infused into his every cell since birth.

The vast differences in how we processed our new, open-air surroundings left us staring at each other as if we had just met.  It was a bizarre mirroring of the first time we met as strangers on top of the Empire State Building.  Back then we had a year of snail mail letters and a shoebox of audio tapes sent back and forth in the USPS, a relationship born in a mailbox. When we came together we were unknown, and yet deeply known to each other.

We found ourselves strangers once again. We were in the wilderness without the safe confines of shelter and a long list of rules to measure ourselves by. Unknown to one another, but with four years of history and two baby girls between us.  Our temple marriage, the vows we took…they were cremated too.


And the phoenix is our love, still rising from the ashes.

The Church is True: My Belly Flop

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 “Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification.”  -John Donne

On the fourth of July, Rick and I went golfing in a monsoon. We took cover in the clubhouse, and ordered a couple of beers to pass the time and dry out.  The bar only took cash, and we had none.  Unthwarted, Rick broke into my emergency stash of money I keep in the glove compartment…rolls of quarters I use in a pinch, or for parking.  The golf did not happen, but the beers were good, and we high-fived our resourcefulness and quick thinking in our beverage “emergency.”

Sipping these beers sort of looked like this:

Total bliss, but the flop comes next.

This brings me to the flop. Yesterday.  After a week long visit at my in-laws home in northern Vermont with the hubs and kids, I was hightailing it home to Connecticut.  Rick and the girls would follow the next day.   It was hard to leave them, despite my yearning for my own bed and the peace of being able to work uninterrupted for a day.  I was longing for home, but acutely aware of how completely alone I would be in Connecticut. I have not made many intimate connections in our new area thus far, and there is a keen sense of loneliness that swamps me when I think about my lack of people.  Home is where your people are.

To help myself not dwell in the sense of homelessness but swim in the bliss of a long four hour drive alone (glorious!)  I was cruising at a smooth 70, enjoying the sun, the AC in my car, the freedom to be silent and listen to whatever I damn well please.  I was invigorated.  Alive.

 

Three hours into my drive, I realized that I was approaching my last quarter tank of gas.  And that is when the image of my purse, hanging on the back of my mother in law’s kitchen chair burned a hole in my brain.  I had no wallet.  No money.  Credit card.  ID.  Nada.

 

That’s ok!  I thought.  I will make it!  This is a test, surely.  This is a great blessing!  A chance to rise to the occasion!  Old Megan would be cursing and panicking, New Megan was zen, calm, living in the moment. And  at the moment, I had gas in my  tank, so no worries.  I’m livin’ in the NOW my friends.

A visual:  I’m more like Carly (confident) than Lydia (nervous but willing to try the ride).

 

In mormon folklore, there are tons of stories about people that have tremendous faith, and they are sustained by miracles.  Like the bible story about Jesus feeding the 5,000. There are innumerable modern day miracle stories of mormon people that tithed their last cent to the church and find their supply of food magically replenished.  I may not be mormon anymore, but miracles happen, and not just to mormons!

This was going to be me.  I was going to make it all the way home, the gas tank will be sustained by my unshaken faith in the universe.  I turned off the AC, to conserve.  Just letting the universe know I was willing to meet halfway, be a little uncomfortable…(translation…sweat my ass off).

Twenty miles from home, the last bar on my gas meter disappeared.  I took the next exit, not wanting to be on the freeway as reality tapped me on the shoulder.  I pulled over, and I will admit, I said a few naughty words.  But then I took some deep, meditative breaths and chugged my way to a gas station on fumes.   I smiled, and felt safe and congratulatory for getting to a pump relatively calm and unscathed.

Ok. Time to regroup.  Maybe the miracle would look more like this:  I was going to dig through the pile of crap in my car and find a ten dollar bill.  There were mormon stories like this too.  Faith, people.

I was not losing composure.

But maybe a little more Lydia (left) than Carly at this point…

.

So I ransacked my car.  When all the trash had been tossed… the golf bag, tennis bag, suitcase, camera bag, writing satchel…

I found the squashed wrapper for the roll of quarters, and lamented those beers.  Just three days before, we drank away what should have been my last gallon of gas.

This is when I knew…I’m being punished for those brews.

The church IS true.*

But seriously, it was pushing 90 degrees with ungodly humidity, I was in unfamiliar territory, all of my family was four hours away. I searched for solutions, someone to help me, rescue me.  But there was no one.  I was going to have to beg for money.  This is so much worse than it sounds.  Believe me.

 First, every time I have ever turned away from a person with an outstretched hand came back to my memory like a slap in the face.  And every moment I had put money in that hand attached with some heavy judgement made me burn with shame.  I watched eight or nine cars fill up and leave.   I could not bring myself to do it.

After loitering for 30 minutes, the shame or the heat or both sent me into the tiny station.  There was a line of people with wallets. They had bags of ice and Snickers bars and cigarettes.  Over their heads, the attendant asked me “which pump?” and much to my exceeding horror, my eyes filled with tears.  I ran to the back corner of the store to wipe them frantically away.  They just kept coming.

 I cried in the Dorito isle and waited for all the wallets to leave, and then wept like a little girl as I explained my predicament to the guy behind the glass partition.  He asked me if someone was coming.  If my husband was coming, or a friend.  I told him no one was coming.  I was alone.  He suggested I begin asking customers for money and I retreated to the gatorade cooler to marinate in my mortification, unable to stop the crying.

I was humiliated.  The tears, the “damsel in distress” act I could not get a handle on… filled me with renewed shame.  I detest crying.  Especially in public. Especially  amongst strangers.

In the end, Gary B. from Windsor saved me.  I stalked him awkwardly, stifling those embarrassing shudders that happen when you are choking on intense emotion.  I watched him buy lottery tickets and gab with the attendant, who kept throwing me looks. I could barely make it through my plea, I had lost all control. He took pity on my obvious distress, and I was pulling into my driveway 15 minutes later.  My ability to stand in that humility and risk rejection was completely spent on that one request. If Gary had said no, I may have found myself enduring a long walk home, unable to gather the courage again.

 Instead of writing all night as planned, I was wrung out by the experience.  I showered, letting the shame wash down the drain, and climbed into the sanctuary of my own bed.

 I am going to tack this experience on to a growing list of excruciatingly humiliating moments I have been wading through lately.  It was probably on par with meeting the neighbors while giving Stella a lice treatment the week we moved here, but only marginally more tolerable than the school fundraiser this year.  Details withheld until I don’t feel like crawling into a hole at the mere mention of it.    Here’s to hoping the lesson I am meant to learn from marinating in humiliation is mastered soon.  Before I show up naked to Rick’s company picnic.  You never know.

 

* A very mormon declaration that LDS people use regularly to claim that the only church that has the complete “truth” is the mormon church.  It is often used to  “prove” that a circumstance directly correlates to the truthfulness of the gospel.

Trapped

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Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

-The Beatles

Years ago, a hummingbird flew right into our tent.  I was sweeping out the last vestiges of pine needles and tree bark before packing it in for the weekend.  The flittering beauty zipped right in through the partially open door.  Its minuscule fluttering wings almost completely invisible with speed, she seemed to be floating in the air in front of me.  She glided through the streaming sunlight, pausing at the mesh windows and then up to the crisscrossing tent poles at the ceiling.   I was awestruck by her beauty and bravery as she explored the nylon cave of our tent.

*******************

 When Rick and I married in an LDS temple, I followed him back into the mormon life.   I had already attempted to leave, declare my independence. My attempt had been incredibly painful, and I was carrying some pretty big scars.  After taking a shaky stand, I had serious doubts that I would ever be comfortable at a family gathering, or feel truly accepted by my parents.  The difference between “I love you” and “I love you but do not approve of you”  was a deep, dark chasm I had been lost in before meeting Rick.  He offered me a way back into the fold, and he was so easy to love.  I believed my love for him would deliver me the kind of testimony I had been seeking my whole life.  I believed that the way his love had softened me, lightened me, and healed my wounds would make the LDS faith much easier to take in to my spirit.

*********************

  Not long after entering, the hummingbird became  frenzied, her movement more unpredictable and choppy.  She began zooming from one side of the tent to the other, always close to the top of the dome.  She was realizing that she was not in her element. Somehow, she had confidently flown in to explore and now she was disoriented.  Trapped.  She wanted O-U-T.   Maybe my presence was scaring her.  I completely unzipped the big, yawning door and stepped outside.  Without my presence, she would find the bright, dappled sunlight beyond the door and be free.  But when I went to check on our dainty guest…she was wild with stress. She was physically smacking into the nylon walls of the tent, the whisking of her delicate wings on the taut material caused a corresponding flutter of anxiety in my gut.  I left her alone again.  She just needed more time.   But each time I went to check on her she was still whapping her fragile little body against the tent ceiling, only a few feet from freedom.  I tried shooing her out with my hands, with the broom.  She fought.

 *********************

 It was not long after we married that I knew.  Love did not conquer nor quell the disquiet in my soul.  The same niggling doubts and discomfort, the same sense of being trapped and smothered by my mormonism did not melt away. I felt betrayed by my own naivety.  I could not hide it, so I was honest about my fears with my brand new husband.  Just a few weeks after our wedding, I had my first panic attack in front of him.  We were asked to  give 10-15 minute talks in front of the whole congregation.*  Rick was assigned the topic of “the evils of pornography.”  Quite the ice breaker.  My topic was about faith.  The night before, I was a complete wreck.  He had never seen me so distraught and irrational.  I was supposed to be writing this talk, and the more I tried, the more panic I felt at the growing knowing inside me.  The undeniable fact that  I was still faking it.  The temple wedding and uncomfortable mormon underwear did not change it.   I threw my notebook with my half written speech at him.  The look of shock in his eyes I still remember 10 years later.  His reaction was to offer to give me a blessing.**

Eventually, I settled down. I gave the talk.  And many, many more. I threw myself into the life of a mormon wife.  I read “faith promoting material” and daily scriptures, prayed, attended church, fasted, served callings and supported Rick in every way I could.  Peppered into our life were many tearful conversations, after the lights had turned out and we lay in the darkness.  Me, trying to loosen the tentacles of doubt that wrapped themselves insistently around my neck.

 **********************

Finally,  I became aware of the absence of her struggling thwaps.  Thank GOD.  I went to the corner of the tent and yanked a stake from the soil, eager to get the tent put away and go home.  Something burst inside me when I caught a glimpse of her through the open tent door.  I had assumed the absence of her buzzing  wings and desperate thunking meant she had found freedom. But it was utter, hopeless resignation instead. Our hummingbird was hanging upside down from one of the tent poles.  Like a bat.  Succumbing to whatever fate was dealt her, she was too exhausted to continue her fight, too disoriented to carry on.  The door was big, and wide, and she would not fly through it.   I could not catch her and force her release.  I walked right up to her and looked her in the eye. I saw myself.

************************

 The day after Rick offered to leave our religion,  on this night, we shuffled into the bishops’ office to seek guidance and  counsel.  Rick was distraught. He was desperately trying to hold the pieces of me together.  But I was not broken, I was disappearing altogether.

We sat in chairs opposite his desk, and with Rick’s hand warm on my thigh,  I unzipped my soul and laid it on the table before him.  The bishop listened.  He asked questions, and I wept with swollen, heart rending shame.  Grief made my sinuses and throat swell shut, my voice eclipsed by my failure.  After an hour and a half, there was silence.  I believed the bishop was searching for the right words, the spiritual direction that I needed to survive this.  Guidance, from the Lord.  We waited with great anticipation, for some healing words of wisdom.

 Finally, our bishop said solemnly,  “Fake it till you make it.”

 *************************

We waited as long as we could, and then Rick left me alone, to check the tent again. He knew I needed to be the first to look.  I felt like that hummingbird was stuck in my throat and my heart was trying to pound her out.   I peeked cautiously inside.

She was gone. Released. Free.

**********************

*mormon men who hold a certain level of priesthood, given  to them by other men who deem him worthy, have the ability to perform special blessings and rituals.  This priesthood power is one of the most sustaining elements of a couple’s marriage.  Women can not “hold the priesthood,” and rely on the men in the church to wield this sacred and special power.

**There are no “sermons” at the LDS church.  The church service consists of blessing and taking a sacrament of bread and water, and then talks prepared and given by members of the congregation.  One is called and assigned a topic, and length of time by a member of the bishoprick, the group of men at the head of the ward, or church group.  Saying no to this request is highly frowned upon.  Mormons believe the bishoprick is asking them based on inspiration from God, and saying no is equivalent to saying no to God.

We are the SAME

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76709b56fd04b3ae94fd40b556c32823

Shel Silverstein

Minutes after posting the “bleeding spirit”, I had a brave mormon friend on FB message me a response.  She was expressing her genuine dismay at my pain, and we started a conversation.

There are several popular explanations in mormon culture for why most people leave the LDS faith.  These concerns were highlighted in my FaceBook conversation with my friend within a few minutes.  These are the most common reasons… I know them because I comforted myself with these explanations as a child being raised in a mormon family and as an adult trying to live and spread the gospel. I now face these false assumptions as an apostate, talking to my family and friends about my choices.

#1.  I succumbed to the temptation to live “in the world.”  The strict rules and regulations that mormons live by are too difficult to bear, and I am unwilling to sacrifice my time to worship and/or serve the church and it’s members.  I can not live without coffee or alcoholic beverages.  I can not handle the modesty requirements of temple garments (mormon underwear).  Being a member of the One and Only True and Living Gospel is simply too hard for me.

#2.   During my time as an active mormon woman, I was not doing my part.  I was not living a “worthy” lifestyle.  My heart was not pure and contrite and repentant enough. My inability to feel spiritually fulfilled, or even more drastically, the sensation of my spirit dying away, suffocating, was due to my own sin.

#3.  I was afraid.  I did not understand Jesus’s sacrifice for me, the concept of Grace.  I felt too much pressure to be perfect, live perfectly.

The following is part of my FB response with a worried friend, a woman who was also born, raised and married in the LDS temple.  Just as I was.  I will title it with the most important point, one that I have been unable to get an LDS person to believe.

 WE ARE THE SAME.

My inability to be a mormon woman has nothing to do with grace or fear of failure or feeling like I am not measuring up. It is exactly the same thing as you choosing every day to be a mormon. You chose it because it is real for you. You feel comfort and love and a closeness to God. These are wonderful things. I am glad you have this in your life.

Mormonism simply did NOT do this for me. It suffocated me. It made me feel disconnected and distant from God. The same still small voice that we were both taught since infancy to listen to…that voice was telling me to let go, to move on, that it was not the place for me anymore. This voice was loud and insistent and forceful. You and I both were taught to honor that voice as the voice of the Lord. You are doing that, and in doing that, you are fulfilled spiritually.

I am doing that too. Finally.

The fear for me was in stepping into the unknown, of following that voice even when everyone in my world told me not too. Sometimes following your inner guidance is very hard. We are also taught this in The Church. To stand up for what you believe in, at great peril even. Mormons applaud this bravery when it comes to people joining the church, even when they have great opposition in their family and friends.

There is absolutely no difference between you and I  in our desire to follow God’s plan for us, to experience spiritual growth and enlightenment, to feel our souls nourished and expanding. You and I are the SAME. We grew out of the same soil. Told the same things, took them into our hearts, believed them. We found good, honest, loving, stalwart, gospel loving men to marry and carry us forward.

The difference lies here: I was told to get off that mormon path. It is not about “worldly things” or “rules and guidelines” or that I couldn’t “cut it.”

It was spiritual.

The same spiritual things that keep you an active mormon woman. The spirit that I was taught to listen to…it was leading me somewhere else. Staying and ignoring that insistent, still, small voice would have been easier than leaving. To leave was to risk every important relationship in my life.  My children.  My husband.  My parents.  My siblings.  My grandparents.  Aunts, Uncles, Cousins.  Friends.    My SELF. My sense of who I was.  It was a stepping off a ledge, unable to see the ground below.

 It was the hardest, bravest thing I have ever done in my entire life.

But I did it because as you know, listening to that guidance is at the foundation of all belief.  The foundation of who we are.

The only difference between you and I is that your doctrine makes a real conversation about this impossible. I know, I understand that doctrine. I was there. I lived it with every ounce of integrity and love and passion and commitment and worthiness as you are now.

This is what I mean by fear: It is the challenge that I represent…the idea that the one and only true gospel would not work for some people. That the still small voice would in fact lead me “astray.” You absolutely have no room to accept this. You simply can not and will not be able to understand that the SPIRIT guided me away from the gospel.

The same SPIRIT that binds you to it.

The same pain and anguish and darkness you may experience if you left the church and tried to do without it, was what I experienced in being a mormon woman. If you were to leave The Church, the nourishment of your divine spirit, perhaps you would find yourself curled up in the fetal position, weeping in bed every night, feeling that your spirit may cease to exist entirely.

I hope you never experience this kind of spiritual anguish. You probably will not, as you have found and plan to stay in your spiritual home.

I plan on doing that too.

Bleeding Spirit

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“The authentic self is the soul made visible.”

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

I tried holding my breath, but the tears streamed into my ears. Obviously, the driving force of despair building within me did not need oxygen as a catalyst.  I could sense Rick’s awareness, though his back was turned to me in bed.  He was probably still praying, silently pleading with Heavenly Father to soften my hardening heart.  We had finished our nightly ritual, praying aloud together in the dark on our backs, fingers intertwined…a suggestion of our solidarity, which I felt unraveling faster than we prayed.  “Our dear, kind, Heavenly Father..” he would begin, and so would my tears.

Night after night, it was the same.  Lights out, prayers spoken, and my anxious heart, not hardened as our scriptures suggest, would almost seize in my chest.   I would lay in the dark, and assess myself, asking… “Do I want to die?  Will I take my own life?”  I knew unequivocally,  the answer was NO.  My baby girls slept in adjacent rooms, my life ever so much more precious than it had been just two years before.  Then what?   Am I ill?  Is something poisonous, cancerous, growing inside me?  Is it disease creating this pervasive, encompassing awareness that I am ceasing to exist?  These questions trumpeted loudly in my mind, an effort to drown out the answer I already knew.

 I must abandon my life.  Not my babies.  Not my husband.  But my faith, my religion, my testimony…my God?  We were mormon.  Married in a mormon temple for time and all eternity.  We had callings (mormon jobs) and sacred underwear, temple recommends (worthiness cards), monogrammed Book of Mormons (well read), and pictures of Jesus on our walls.   Friends.  Family.

I am an impostor.  A living, breathing, broken lie.  Performing a mormon life like a mime trapped in an airtight glass box…and running out of air.  But to leave my religion would be to dissolve all I have ever known.  Maybe, I would dissolve with it. Like a sugar cube in bowl of warm water.   All that was beloved could be ruined…I could lose everything.

My sobs shook my shoulders, and Rick came to me. He held me and kissed my eyelids and stroked my hair and took deep breaths into the crook of my neck.  His desolation and helplessness  hung thick in the dark above us, a dark monster ready to overcome us both.

My soul began to plead with him. Inside I was screaming. “Help me!  Help me pleeease! Save me!”  But I could not ask him to do it for me. To leave God, for me.

Months on end of the same scenario had played out, until we fell into exhaustion and slept.  But this night was different.  Tonight, I knew the monster would win, that some how, I would die.  I tried again to find words to express my anguish, the urgency.

“Rick, if I were laying here next to you…and I was bleeding.  A wound was open and I was bleeding out in front of you… you would save me.”

“Of course, I would save you Meg.”  Fear distorted his voice.  I began to shiver violently, my jaw chattering, even my insides shook.   He was terrified, gripping my quivering shoulders.

“We are leaving.  We will leave.  We will stop going Meg.  We don’t have to go, we don’t have to be mormon.”  He said them…those words like a tourniquet, it slowed the bleed of my dying spirit.  He held me against him so tight the shaking calmed.  We held each other, aching and heartbroken, until we slept.