#impel down really IS like the dark souls of being gay

[ozymandiasdirge]

HES HERE!!!!!!!! HIS SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON VILLAIN OF THE WEEK ARC HAS ENDED AND HIS LAME ASS BULLYABLE UNCLE AND SUFFERING FROM SUCCESS MOST MISERABLE GIRL IN THE WORLD ARC HAS BEGUN

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Do what?

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me. Taking on a new job while desperately trying to simultaneously not do my old job and train my old team to do my old job has proven very emotionally draining. It turns out there’s a lot to do at my new job, especially in building and repairing broken relationships, which is fine, and which I knew going into it; but there’s still a lot to do, and I am tired. I am also fighting to keep this workload from affecting my sleep, and I’ve been mostly but not entirely successful.

I read this post a few weeks ago, and I felt the weariness of a thousand souls descending upon my shoulders. I felt happy and sad for the Weeds and their kids, I felt sad for the many who struggle between LGBTdom and Mormondom: those whom Josh has worked with as well as the many I know. I was able to find my measure of personal peace in this matter, but it still felt like I was expected to keep running after the wind was knocked out of me.

(Thanks to the many of you who will read this who reached out publicly or privately to say kind words and offer support. I didn’t thank all of you as well as I should have, but I am deeply grateful.)

The world outside continues to not be an exactly reassuring place. The school shooting in Florida this past week has made me hold my littles a bit closer even as I despair of sending my oldest to school this year.

This week in particular, I have witnessed the warning signs of depression creeping in--feeling drained for no good reason, not being able to type the four-digit code into my phone to unlock it, being afraid to weigh myself in the morning for days on end. And my heart has just felt heavy, like I’m dragging it behind me everywhere I go. I don’t remember it being heavy like this since I first began my missionary service fourteen years ago--that was from being in a new place, with a new schedule, so far away from anywhere I had been before, and it got better as time went on (I had help). This? I told myself that it had to get better, because it always has, but I wasn’t sure if this would ever go away, because this is my life now--none of these circumstances are going to change in the near future. By Friday or Saturday I was in a pretty dark place, internally. I knew I needed help.

God sent me an answer, as so often happens, in a completely unexpected way yesterday. As part of the help I know I need to seek for depression (one of the warning signs of depression is seeing the other warning signs and trying to downplay them to yourself) I had toyed with the idea of asking for a blessing at church but I didn’t have a definite plan. But as I walked out of choir practice and past the bishop’s office I felt--oh, how shall I describe this feeling? Like my heart had grown a head of hair and something was pulling my heart toward the bishop’s office by the hair; like if I kept walking it would be ripped out completely and I’d be left with a hole in the middle of my chest. Sorry if that sounds macabre, but it was a completely agonizing feeling. The executive secretary was sitting in the foyer, so I asked him if I could slip into the schedule and talk to the bishop for a moment. He said I was in luck--Bishop had cleared his calendar for a financial audit that wasn’t actually happening until next week.

A meeting got out and I entered the office. Based on how I had been feeling, I wasn’t sure if I was about to unload all my angst on my bishop, or if I needed to confess to something, even though I couldn’t think of anything in particular (old custom of being gay and Mormon, I suppose). But as I walked in and sat down, I felt the previous week’s despair sort of fall away, and all I said was, “I’m not really sure why I’m here, just that I felt like I should come talk to you.”

Bishop said it was good I had come in, because he needed to tell me a story. Okay. He told me how, when he was a new missionary, he had had the opportunity to teach someone who was gay (further details not necessary) and was told that he wasn’t to go back--even though he felt like going back, to tell him more. Though he hadn’t forgotten this experience, it had recently been brought back to his mind, and he wanted to tell me this story to ask my advice on a particular method of achieving restitution (again, the details are not important) for this circumstance that occurred twenty-eight years ago.

I admit I was taken aback that I might have felt prompted to visit the bishop to offer him advice, but I gave him my frank opinion (which was that he should go ahead and do what he had been considering doing). And, for what it’s worth, I told him I forgave him.

Bishop asked me, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” I returned, completely flattered by his question.

“You just always seem so put together, like you’re in a good place.”

(the façade is strong)

“What was it that made you decide to come back?”

My answer surprised me--I suppose I don’t actually talk about it that much in real life. I explained that even when I was at my most disaffected from the Church, the Gospel, the Lord, that I knew in my heart of hearts that what I had learned was true, and I could never completely turn my back on it. I had a lot of experiences to bring me back--an institute teacher that told us many stories of when he followed specific spiritual promptings. Roommates who lived the Gospel but didn’t trumpet it. A friend/girlfriend/fiancée/wife who is hardworking, unselfish, loyal, and completely committed to her beliefs. “Jake” giving me a blessing. Going to the temple and just . . . staying there for a long time--not receiving any great visions or the like, but feeling like I should stay for a long time. My fiancée suggesting that perhaps it was because God had missed me, hadn’t been able to talk to me for a long time, not really talk to me the way He wanted to. At times it felt like God was shouting me that He loved me. Meeting my wife, that it finally felt right. That when it looked like things were getting serious, I dropped the bomb on her. We didn’t speak for several days, then told me she prayed about it, annoyed, “It feels like Heavenly Father is taking your side.” Many late night talks, after which we knew it was God’s will that we should get married. And then--well, you just live. Like the hymn we sang in church yesterday, “Come, cast your burden at His feet.” When it gets to be too much, I have to give it to God. I’ve had to do it a lot, sometimes, even thought I’m stubborn, hard-hearted, and prideful, and slow to obey. But some people only have one leg. Some people live with terminal illness. The Atonement covers . . . everything.

Bishop said that it sounded like I had a lot to be grateful for, and asked if I would say a prayer. I did. I prayed that God would ease Bishop’s mind about the matter we had discussed, and give him the strength and courage to do the things he felt impelled to do. I left the meeting floating on a cloud.

Walking home from church, I felt to whisper aloud several times, “I forgive you.” It felt so good to say. I was not the one who had been trespassed against, but I felt so much love and respect for my bishop to share this experience with me. I felt like God has been waiting for us to catch up to Him on the whole gay question for a long time now, and I felt like it was finally happening. I felt like I could do anything.

Well, I have to go back to work tomorrow, and I can already feel the dread creeping back in. I promise, I solemnly promise, that I’m going to take steps to manage and address anything amiss in my mental state. But I have already thought back to this experience several times in the last day-and-a-half, and I will cast my burdens at the Lord’s feet again and again. As many times as I have to.