Many thoughts run through my head tonight. One of these included the back-and-forth on whether I should even write. For the longest time, writing helped, I thought. Then I looked back and wondered how. I have a journal, I have blog posts and I still write many thoughts down on paper or on a word document. Then my thoughts trail off and I don't find any progress or productivity in my back-and-forthing on writing. My thoughts go back to what I was thinking about before writing. Why did I want to write? Oh yeah, Sarah wants out. She isn't happy. I was working on things for the last two years. I have become less angry. I yell a lot less. I have cut down the pornography significantly. I even worked hard enough to get a temple recommend back. I go to church. I even wear "churchy" attire. I have "explored" the alcohol world a bit, but I don't "go out drinking". I spend time with the family, I go on dates with Sarah, I continue to do the things I don't really enjoy and I support her in those things she desires to do. Yet, she has come to wits end. She is less happy now than ever and its all directed toward me. It's not like I'm not trying. I used to not be able to sit through one of her many confrontational conversations. I would raise my voice AND walk out. Then we were able to have them where I would raise my voice OR walk out. Recently we have been able to have these conversations where I do neither. Admittedly, I will grow quiet, directing the conversation to an end, but who doesn't look at this as steps in the right direction?
Other thoughts I have: Much more real views of the future that would never happen: Sarah and I split. It was quite depressing. I thought about how I felt without seeing my children for six months while I deployed. It killed me some nights. I hurt. I would wimper in bed like a big baby. How could she do this to me? Why can she not be happy? What have I done that is so horrible? Where does she get this vision of what is supposed to be and why does she think she is living a life that is so bad? These aren't just passing questions, I really want to know. How am I so different from my brothers, or Sarah's sisters' husbands? What was instilled in Sarah and when that she deserves better than what I am today or what I have been for the last ten years? What?!
Am I lying to myself? Is all this a big lie? Am I blind to a big truth about this life I have created? If so, why hasn't anybody else said anything? Why is no one else privy to this big secret that I am a disappointment of a husband AND a father? I seriously want someone to answer these questions. This is my marriage we are talking about. I have built a life with five other people and now Sarah wants to end it.
Another chain of thoughts: Sarah says everyone is worried about me. When she says this it is specific to the faithful LDS people, and it is specific to those that actually care about me within that first parameter. That said, they are specifically worried about my testimony. One finds out I drink brewed alcohol and the occasional wine and that translates into, not only am I a sinner and lost, but I am a bad person. Drinking is inherent to bad. Choose your flavor: abusive, unfaithful, self-destructive, etc. One cannot simply drink to the average mormon. You are doing something else as well. If you disagree YOU are now lying to YOURSELF. Besides that. There are books I choose to read. There wasn't a difference in my choices in books from 5 or so years ago, yet, everyone is suddenly concerned about the literature I pick up and read. I'm not preaching or teaching like they are MY adopted doctrine. If someone asks, I explain the author's point of view. Yet, suddenly, my soul is lost because it isn't what they hear in Sunday school. There's another thought: I don't necessarily care for the majority of the three-hour block mormons call church. Why? Because I have to sit there and NOT share my opinions and ingest what many call doctrine, but what I hear as core principles covered to death in right-wing ideals. NO, NOT POLITICALLY. Some people can get it through their heads that the right-left spectrum in religion has very little to do with the right-left spectrum in politics, yet they try and correct me. Shut up! There is no room for any leftist ideas or ideals in church. That died with Joseph. B.H. Roberts was shut up, and any other rumblings were quickly quieted or ignored, soon to be thought of as someone with other serious issues going on in their life as an explanation.
What the hell? What is wrong with me? I can't seek out those things that interest me? I can't disagree with everyone else? Why does everyone think that a book preys on the reader unawares? What is it about a work of literature, bundled up and sold with a cover that is either pure evil, or not? I cannot judge for myself? I can't read a book, compare it to what I know (we'll get to what I know) and be able to make a decision without the devil convincing me otherwise? Forget you.
So. Everyone has spiritual experiences. Everyone. Whether it is admitted or not. Sometimes these are overly emotional and your feelings get in the way. Some people think that that is just overly spiritual. There is a difference between the spirit and your emotions. Not everyone serves a mission for two years. I didn't. I served a really good 8-14 months. I horsed around, I was lazy, I read a lot of hugh nibley and I worked my ass off for 8-14 months. During my hard work time, I had some spiritual experiences that were really strong. I dare say that if Warren had any while out, he either let them fade or blatantly threw them to the wayside. I will never forget the strong experiences that happened in a very short period, and I will never forget the companions I had that showed me the spirit in subtle ways, day in and day out for months. Never. Those things cannot and will not be taken away from me. I may forget them from time to time, but they will always be a part of who I am.
Remember this. When one worries that I am being sucked in to what they judge to be a bad book; when one worries that the devil is in the bottle of beer I am drinking and it will never get out of me once I drink it. Whenever one thinks they know better than me what is good for me at this time in my life, IN MY OPINION, you are spitting on all of me. All of me includes those sacred spiritual experiences I have had. Think about how you would feel if I did that to you. I just one day told you that your spiritual experiences mean nothing. Go ahead, laugh in my face, because that is what I feel like doing to everyone that likes to judge. Forget you. I can for at least a day, maybe two.
You know what I think? I think culture and propriety and half-truths and corporatism and institutionalism has done a complete mind-FU#* to us for the past 120 years. No, its not all about Joseph Smith and how we lost so much when he died. No, its not all about one thing or another. It's also not about religion. A huge chunk of it IS, but its not just about mormonism. I literally feel sick when i watch Fox news at work. I also can only digest a certain amount of MSNBC. Obama isn't perfect, but Fox and their friends are so sickening it almost makes me cry. Richard Dawkins is a complete moron, as well as Bill Mahr. There are so many utter and complete failures as human beings out there its not even funny. Ignorance is becoming the flavor in culture on all sides. Nobody wants to listen to you if you have much more than superficial knowledge about something.
The now bishop was elder's quorum president when I moved in. Someone felt the need to inform him of what was on my bookshelf and the bishop really felt the need to tell me that this was out of loving concern for my welfare. Really? Would I do that? Which books were they? I could go through a really big list of books that they could have easily been. Books that were at least available to Joseph Smith, historical pieces about Adolf Hitler or Marx or Charles Darwin. Heaven forbid we list books from authors not of our faith that write about Christianity. Heaven forbid we even glance at a book unless it is fiction and fills our heads with vampires and love interests and gives us ideas of escapism. We KNOW those aren't really. Those won't harm us the way non-fiction books will. Non-fiction books you put down after page one if you don't feel good about it. You wouldn't read the whole thing, otherwise you believe it, much less have it on your book shelf at home! Forget you.
It may sound like I am pointing outwardly and blaming everyone else for the position I am in today. This is called venting. It may be truthful thoughts of mine, yet they don't give the whole story do they? Only I know the whole story. Sarah confronts me because she wants more of the story. She always does it in a way that makes me feel like I am being put on trial. I never feel good when we talk and she has all this crap she wants to get off her chest about me. I usually end up looking at porn, drinking a bit and trying to forget everything she has piled on me. A few weeks go by and she tries it again. Different angles, different trajectories. She gathers more and different ammunition. I never feel good after our talks, she is never satisfied. What happened, really? Where is all the sin in my life to make me such a bad person for Sarah? Why does all this have to be about how my testimony doesn't line up with Nate Lincoln's or Peter Priesthood?
