Just finished The Book of Mormon Girl by Joanna Brooks today. It was fitting that I had a prep period and sat in the Jackson Hole High School media center to rip through the last 70 pages. I'm really glad I read it - not just because I so rarely get at literature, but because she, in essence, bounced pass the ball to me.
You see, I'm a double helix of sorts - the theological as well as the sexual. So, as I'm running away from the issue I do not want to go near, I'm racing forward into a church community, leaving behind all sorts of unanswered questions as well as all sorts of questions I don't even raise.
Mormonism is a funny thing when one is an adult convert. It is almost always someone else's story. And I have almost always felt grafted into the chapters that play out with such ferocious intensity. I mean, after all, if one is 6th generation LDS, I don't really know what to make of it, being just 3rd generation American. After all, I can only sort out my grandparents to some degree. Before that, it's simply a complete unknown. The stories that were NOT told. The irrelevance of what went on before landfall at Ellis Island.
So, attempting to live a straight life for 20 years was not just a lie. It was more of a Houdini feat - having to live tied up inside of someone else's box, all the while allowing myself to be dumped into the ocean of sociological darkness. No, it wasn't the green jello. Nor the funeral potatoes. Nor even the gosh, jeepers, Wally, it's so swell to be alive, don't cha think?! It's the utter end of being able to ask a good question. And the absolute beginning of what I call "slow-motion kidney rejection".
Attempting to remain openly gay and closely Mormon have been the wildest paradox I think I will take on in this lifetime. Not so much of a waste, but more of a Chinese fortune cookie with not one but TWO fortunes coming out at the same pull. I also know I have confused some in my 11 chapter story (and counting) so far. It certainly appears that I was never meant to find my place and run a career of 40 years, have a nice retirement party, and go home to play golf and take my meds.
Coming out has been beautifully juxtaposed with going in. Not the closet. Rather, the group. The decision to enter through the doors of (no, not hell!) the temple and calibrate my spiritual tuning fork to the same frequency as everyone around me. Whether in that building, in that Utah County neighborhood, at that University (where only part of a universe of ideas are allowed), or watching the same early April/early October weekend cablefest.
Conversion is to run towards something; it is to run away from something; and once and a while, it's just a turning 180 degrees on a dime. I think I've enjoyed each of the three. Growing up on Long Island, just three generations from tenement housing life and still stuck on an island, I have sought to get to the world "out there". Mormonism became my "theological country club" - where we could all sit around and agree on everything "out there" - I certainly knew of country clubs where I had been raised. Marriage became my social "acceptance ticket" so that I could continue a career in education - especially since I knew that I was being watched as a high school teacher, and was certainly being targeted as a college professor in Utah. Being gifted may have raised eyebrows. Being gay (even if I wasn't ready to see it) lowered the boom.
The good news is that I think I am finally ready to stop looking back. There really isn't much left to uncover. Sometimes I wonder about why I majored in American history. It definitely helped me understand the landscape of this country. And sometimes I wonder about why I have felt so good about moving to such different places. They certainly helped me gain perspective for the stories that I wanted to knock at and tear open. Even if it felt like cracking open yet another fortune cookie - and getting yet another answer that only led to another mystery in the making.
More and more I find myself looking forward. And feeling very alive in the now. Thinking about my role, my place in this town called Jackson (funny, that is my kid's dog's name, the dog they inherited right after I left), a town that may just be the right size for me. Thinking about my passion for communicating in different languages and how I might contribute to bilingual media. And finally thinking about how I might lead a program centered on how young teachers might teach the social studies, rather than just teach them which is what I currently do. Because I want to sell the idea that while math and science might land jobs, history and the social studies tends to grow citizens. And that we need both to build a reenergized next generation. (More on that later.)
The interesting thing for me: these are the three avenues I am pursuing for my next step in a career. And any of the three will do just fine.
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