Bisexual & Mormon--Leaving, and Coming Home

I'm not gonna lie.  I was disheartened to read my last nine posts and realize that I've been going through pretty much the very same mid-life crisis since 2012.  I still tell the story to everyone as if it's new!! The newest part is that my daughter, who has been warning me since she was about 13 years old, that she WOULD graduate early and head to California, is now about to graduate early and head to California.  I always knew that she wasn't kidding, but whoa!  It's like mid-life all over again.

Another new part is this:  Last year, she came out to me.  She came out as a lesbian, but is working very diligently to date boys right now.  She may be bi, or she may be swimming in a very, very small pool of possible "dates" at a high school with almost no "out" lesbians, unless you count her English teacher, who has two kids and is way too old to take my daughter to Jr. Prom. 

My daughter may be bi.

My reaction to her coming out surprised me.  I cried like a baby for two whole days.  I cried because I imagined how the Mormon kids in her school would likely react if she ever decided to globally come out (which, actually, except for testing the waters with her two closest friends, she decided against doing). I cried because it brought up all the old stuff in me, and I suddenly wanted to protect and save her from all those crazy people who were going to say stupid, hurtful things, and who were going to possibly leave her.  I cried about the "crush" she was experiencing with her best friend, a very straight and very devout Mormon who could never "like" her back.  I cried about the potential losses.  I cried because I had no idea whether there would be someone who would take her to the Jr. Prom.  And, I cried with joy, knowing that she was delighted at being able to be open with me about what she was experiencing. She is safe with me, I realize, in a way that I am still not safe with my own parents.

Probably, more than any other reason, I just cried because she is growing up so fast, is now graduating early, and is heading to California.  And I can't change or stop any of it... and shouldn't want to.  But what we should want, and what we do want, are rarely one and the same. 

So, the empty nest is looming large, and the irony is that I am finding that I need to be alone in ways I've never needed before.  I NEED it like I need water to drink and like I need sleep.  I'm kicking out my newest roommate at the end of the summer, and driving my child out to sunny Cal, and then I'm coming home to silence, but a different silence than I spoke of in my previous posts.  This silence, strange as this may sound, is alive and pulsating with the creative forces of my life.  I'm on the verge of something so new... and I don't need to know exactly what it is because I understand now, that my life is unfolding and will continue to unfold whether I poke my dirty little fingers around in it, or not.  

The past several months, I've been obsessed with two subjects:  1) Progressive Mormon podcasts; and 2) books, blogs, DVDs, and YouTube videos about transgender people.  ??? I can't explain either obsession, but I finally stopped trying to explain and gave in to the need to learn everything I can possibly learn about the lives of other recovering Mormons, and the experiences of transgender teens, children, adults, and their families.  I know.  I really cannot explain it.  But, I have learned SO MUCH.  And, after four years of lamenting that my mid-life crisis has seemed so much bigger than my actual life, and after 16 years of being inactive in the LDS church, while never quite being "out" of it, I've done something astounding.  I've turned in my resignation. 

I realize that this may not seem like a big deal to any of you, but it is a big deal.  A really, really big deal. I actually planned on never "officially" leaving.  I guess I thought if I lingered around the periphery that I could avoid having to do the harder work of grieving and saying goodbye to old ideas about happiness and purpose, and the even harder work of having to find, within this life of mine, some meaning that wasn't first defined for me in a Primary song book.  

I've turned in my resignation, and it isn't over yet.  I still need to hear back from the lawyers, and then from LDS, Inc., itself.  I've asked for no contact, but I suspect that could actually result in a few extra folks on my front porch over the next few weeks, but we'll see.  I'm no longer afraid, which is... well... quiet.  It's quiet to no longer be afraid.

So, maybe my obsession with ex and post-mormon stories, and with stories about transitioning children and teens, has something to do with crossing a threshold that I haven't been able to step over before now. Maybe it's about finally being willing, and more importantly, able, to come out.  Come out for real.  Come out as all the things that I am, and as all the things that I am not.  I am not gay.  I am bisexual.  I am not a dancer, and yet I am starting to dance again.

I am not a Mormon.

I am no longer a Mormon.  And my life is so happy, and so simultaneously sad. It's like being a mom who is about to send her youngest child to California to make her way in the great big world.  I'm so thrilled at who she is and at how brave, beautiful, and brilliant she is, and how driven she is to absolutely be herself, even if it means having to let her mom down and leave when it truly is time.  And I'm simultaneously sad.   Sad about the things that were once true about my life, and sad about the things that never were true about my life, and sad to set them down, and let them finally go.  I remember feeling sad as a little girl, thinking about how devastated my mom would be when I left the church. It was odd, considering I was so young.  How could I have known all the way back then?

It's time to set it down and let it finally go.  It never really was my life, and certainly hasn't been my life for most of my children's childhoods.  It's a story that only included me because my parents told it to me, and because I sang it, for so many years, in primary.  

And yet, there is the richness of my heritage and culture.  I'm not talking about pioneers.  I'm talking about the art of Mormon women (crochet and cooking and needlepoint and music) passed down to me from my mother and my grandmother and all the generations of Mormon mothers before them. I'm talking about hymns and primary songs. I'm talking about stories of survival and service.   I'm talking about the richness of family connection and of green jello at Family Home Evening.  I'm talking about the things that I've forgotten that I loved.  I've been wondering what I'll do for the next 45 years, (without an eternal companion to go with me on missions?), and here it is.  I'm going to speak and live Truth.  I'm going to serve and advocate for those who are most vulnerable, and I'm going to live life.  I'm living it already.  And I'm going to cry when my sweet teenager leaves home in less than a month.  After 24 years of "momming" other humans, I deserve to cry a little.

And then, I think I'll sleep. 

Sweet Avalyne.. the life giver.

So, I thought I was being pretty sneaky when I set up this blog under my gmail name. It also happens to be a URL name I've used for years on Yahoo and more recently on a Twitter account. Because my actual name doesn't appear anywhere public in any of these places, I was pretty sure that I could stay comfortably closeted while still writing about my personal experiences. I've used Avalyne as a little cover identity when wandering the Internet on poly sites and other bi, and sex-positive blogs, commenting here and there with a hope of maintaining some anonymity. Of course, that's ridiculous. This is the internet. And, as I mentioned, I've used this name for years. I've Googled my actual name many times over the years, curious to see what prospective employers and potential stalkers might find, and I have been pleased to note that aside from a poem I published and a few comments on a poetry forum I participated in a few years back, nothing significant shows up.Whew. Safe.

And then, my delusional little "safety" bubble burst.  Last week, after years of hearing people's comments about their experiences on OK Cupid, I got curious and decided to check it out.  I'll be honest, I'm not  ready to date yet and I stated that I'm just looking for "friends." To drive the point home, I've listed "overweight" as my body type (which it is) and have refused to answer or make public any of the sex-related questions. I mean, seriously, if I wanted that kind of date, I'd reopen my old Swingular account. pffhh!

So far, I've had only one email from a guy asking if I was going to post a picture (at least he didn't waste my time with small talk!).  If you can't tell, I'm a dating site cynic, and to use my grandma's phrase, I'm "full of vinegar" when it comes to these internet dating deals.  I find them so annoying and stressful, in fact, that I had a full day of little anxiety attacks the day after I created my profile. My anxiety was made worse on the second night when one of the questions asked if I liked to Google a potential date before going out. I got the bright idea to Google Avalyne68.  Oops.  Up came a full list of references to me, my full name, my history, my old MySpace page, etc.  In fact, some website which asks for money to find people you are looking for, has pulled a not-so-great pic of me from somewhere, created a full profile of me, and apparently lists where I live and where I work.  Fabulous.  On top of all that, this blog, my Twitter account, and my Yahoo account, all those accounts which do not list my name, came popping up right along with the sites which do. There's no getting around it.  My name is associated with all my nutty history.  So, hey.  I guess I'm much more "out" than I'd hoped.  I guess it's a good thing that I'm not planning to run for President anytime soon!  (And, it's also a good thing that most of my family and friends know a lot about my life)!!

But, as I sat staring at the long list of wild links, all associated with a name I'd just signed up with on a dating site, I couldn't help wondering:  "What if I ever want to "pass?"  Okay, my bi and gay friends, before you throw tomatoes, you have to admit, I'm not the only person in the world who has fantasized about this.  What if, for instance, I wanted to date some nice, straight, stable, healthy, spiritual guy who might even possibly be interested in settling down for a quiet, healthy, grow-old-together life? What if I wanted to date a  prominent business man, or even a nice, wealthy CEO (and I don't mean in order to be his weekend bi-sexual fantasy--but what if I actually wanted to DATE him?).  What if he wanted to take me home to meet his elderly (because I'm not so young anymore, myself) parents, and some extended family member decided to Google me?  I suppose I could go through and systematically close all my accounts. I could reopen accounts under a different name.  I could eliminate all traces of Avalyne.  Honey Sweet Avalyne.  For some reason, I'm loathe to do that.

Avalyne is a handle I've used since before I divorced, since before I came out, since before I even knew who I was.  She was the life giver, a healer, pulled from a limited-edition Larry Elmore print. A woman whose magic could possibly save the dying man she touched.  She was me, separating from my husband of nine years, in my first year of nursing school, struggling to deal with my fears, my sorrow, the crazy stirrings of my feelings for the first woman I ever allowed myself to love.  Avalyne is my alter ego.  It has never been a stranger she was healing.  It was always me. I'm not hiding behind miss Avalyne.  I am her.  And, I'm not sure that I'm ready to put her to rest, yet.

And, I'm not sure that I'll ever again be able to "pass."  This is how it often is for me now.  I can't undo my history.  I can't (and don't want to) hide it.  But, I'm also not sure that I want to wave the banner for it anymore.  I'm tired. And I find myself longing for a normalcy that I used to believe was possible, but which alludes me here in the land of Avalyne68. I'm not interested in being the straight man's fantasy, always fielding his hopes for that threesome. I'm not willing to deny my sexuality for the woman-centered life that most of my lesbian friends require of their partners.  I've been a poster child for total transparency, but dating with "honesty" ends up feeling more like a bad scene from Chasing Amy, anymore. The stable guys and gals I'd want, don't want me... at least not without a very long disclaimer.

I think I'll continue to date myself for awhile.  I did go back onto OKCupid and change it to say I am bisexual (instead of straight), and I changed what I was looking for from "Guys who like Girls," to "Everybody." Why the hell not?  And after just a day, there were suddenly several new visitors to my profile;  mostly men with handles like "horny4you" and "Letsgetbusy."  Sigh. Here we go, again, folks. No need to fasten any seat belts.  Horny and I won't be meeting for coffee anytime soon.

Shame. Lesson #1

As I work to write these first sentences, I am surprised at the intense, flooding emotion that accompanies the memory of my coming out. I'm so far from that day in 2000, so "healed," and so "evolved" from what I was back then, that I forget sometimes what it was like for me. I remember the shame more than anything else. I remember the devastation of my parents. The hurt in my mother's eyes.  The tears in my father's. I came out to them separately, at my rental home where I'd gone to clean and paint between renters. I hadn't meant to do it that way.  I don't know how I'd meant to do it, exactly.  I just knew it needed to be done, and then, there they were, each stopping in at different times in the day to see if I needed anything, if I needed help.

I was the good girl, growing up.  I was the child they'd never had to worry about.  In fact, I was so piously religious in college that they'd had to ask me to tone it down a little so that they could stand to be around me. I was the good mother, the good daughter, the kind one. I was the one with the amazing testimony of God. I was the victim. My family had been able to hold onto the idea that my soon-to-be ex-husband was the bad guy and the sole reason for our pending divorce. I'd been married nearly 9 years, had three young children, was back in school to become a nurse. I was the one who sacrificed for everyone else. I would never hurt anyone on purpose. I was naive.

A few months before, we'd all gone to my brother's home for a family birthday celebration. At that time, he and his wife were extremely conservative, listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and discussing politics whenever we gathered together, assuming for some reason that we all agreed with their political points.  Somehow we got talking about the "gay" agenda. Up until a year before, I'd remained active in my church, but I'd been asking questions. New questions. Things I'd never been willing to ask or explore before, for fear of possibly straying too far from the only religion I'd ever known, or from my close, enmeshed family who wanted to stay together "forever."  I'd never let myself open my mind or heart to the possibility of loving a woman, or of doing anything that was contrary to what I believed was God's will, so what I encountered, through the course of that heated discussion that day at my brother's home was both uncomfortable and surprising to me. As he and my family exchanged what I deemed to be ignorant, unkind, and bigoted comments about "those people," I had the distinct thought, "They just don't know that they are talking about me." The discussion was about adoption, and about not allowing "those people" to adopt, and as I began to speak, began to counter some of their thoughts with my conflicting ideas, I actually said something about the law affecting people like me. I wasn't entirely conscious of what I was saying or where it was leading me. I'd had years of practice keeping myself invisible, even from myself. My father, who practiced law, caught my reference and immediately thought that I was referring to my new status of "single," because of the new law in our state which prohibited unmarried adults, living together in a household, to adopt a child. The law affected more than the gay community. It affected all unmarried "partners" whether gay or straight, but it had been expressly drafted to prevent gay couples from adopting children, or non-biological gay parents from being able to adopt their partner's biological child. My father turned to me and said, "This law doesn't affect you.  You're not in danger of losing your children.You are their biological mother and they have a father. Why would you be worried about adopting?"

What was key for me that night was not the specific issue of adoption. I wasn't worried about adopting.  What I was doing was more important. I'd inadvertently named what I'd been holding below the surface for years. I realized that night that I identified as being more like "those people" than like my family.  It was a startling discovery, not because it was new but because it was the first time I'd let myself really see it. I'd like to say it was freeing in that moment, but it wasn't. I put it back to sleep for a few more months. I was very good at putting my truths to sleep. Later, after coming out, I'd think back and be able to see so many other moments like that in my life, moments I'd glossed over or ignored, moments when I'd touched something real and deep inside me, but had shut it down quickly, knowing on some unconscious level what it would mean to let it be seen. 

What was also key about that night and it's direct connection to my coming out was the thought I'd had that my family was only saying those intolerant things because they didn't know they were talking about me. This was my naive belief that led me to so nonchalantly blurt out the truth to each of my parents a few months later.  Somehow, in my joy at discovering the truth about myself, and in my relief at finally being able to open up and have what I considered to be a truthful and honest relationship with my family, I forgot what they believed, and I overlooked how they might feel when I shared myself with them. I honestly thought that they'd see immediately that they had been wrong all along. "Oh," they'd say, "We didn't know that we were talking about our own beloved, kind and amazing daughter.  Now that we know we'll be more careful about what we say in the future."  Sorry. What??

What happened instead on my coming out day was that I suddenly became one of those people. In the exact words of my mother, who told me that the only hope for my children was that I give them to her to raise, I'd become one of "the dregs of society, in the same category as drug dealers and ex-cons."  I just had no idea, she said, of how society would see me. My children would be outcasts and would have no friends. They would end up turning to drugs and alcohol and the "parking lot crowd" to try to fit in (they were 7, 4, and 2 at the time). All this was on the second day. The first day was worse, because that was the day of grief.

I'd made a bad decision, coming out on that day. I'd arranged to spend the night at my parents house, which was near my rental.  They were watching my children for me while I worked to make the house livable for the next set of renters.  I'd chosen to speak to my father and mother, each alone.  Each had said a few things then left me to continue working on the house.  My father had asked me if I was sure, and had mostly looked at the ground, kicking at an old mat on my back porch step while I talked.  My mother had cried, and told me that it meant she had failed, and started berating herself for not holding more family activities when we were younger, when she'd had the chance.  All of that was hard.  I knew they'd have a hard time understanding but I'd thought I could "hold" their hands through it, walk them through it somehow.  I had not anticipated the depth of their emotion and anguish.  I had not anticipated my own. I didn't feel like my mother's failure. In fact, just a couple of days before, she'd been praising me for my strength and courage, for divorcing and going to school full-time, working and taking care of my children. She'd called me a good mother. The flip-flop was so sudden and extreme that I could hardly follow it.  I was confused.  This was not what I had expected. I was still holding on to a little balloon of hope and anticipation, thinking this was the key to having a closer relationship somehow. I was finally telling them the truth and I thought that would make things better. I'd blamed myself for the fact that I didn't feel close to them. I'd accused myself of holding back a part of me that they might want to know. By this time I was dating a woman, and I was ecstatically in love. I wanted to share it with them, the way my sisters shared their boyfriend stories and brought boys home for Christmas.  I don't know why I thought this would be possible. I'd never felt this way about my ex-husband. I'd never been able to express myself in this way to my family, so this was new and exciting for me, and I'd been hiding it.  

When I walked into the house that night, the mood was so somber.  By now, my parents had told my sisters.   My father sat down across from me at the table and cried.  He shared his beliefs with me, told me that I'd never have a hope of getting to the highest kingdom of heaven, that I was lost.  I couldn't cry with him.  I didn't know how to respond.  He asked me if someone in church had hurt me and if that was why I was doing this. I assured him that no one had hurt me. I told him that I didn't believe the same way anymore.  I was kind, but firm. I was firm. After that, everyone wandered around crying and talking about me as if I wasn't in the room, as if I had died. "I remember that her dark curly hair, and those cheeks.  Remember her sweet little face?"  It was surreal, but I couldn't access emotion. I couldn't get angry and put my kids in the car to go home. I was paralyzed. I went to bed in their basement guest room after tucking in my kids, and I felt frozen. I couldn't cry, couldn't move.  My therapist had given me an image to help me through rough times which I had never used up until then. She'd told me to imagine myself buried in rose petals, and when someone said something unkind to imagine the rose petals catching the words before they could get to me.  My family wasn't being intentionally unkind.  They were doing all that they knew how to do in that moment, and yet I'd never before experienced anything so devastating as watching them mourn me while I was still alive, sitting next to them, talking out loud to them but not being heard. I don't know that I'll ever experience anything quite like it again in my lifetime. I can't imagine anything harder than that night, knowing how much I'd hurt them but also knowing that I couldn't make it right. I couldn't take it back. I'd awakened from this long, sleepy coma, and there was no way to go back to that innocent place.  I wrapped myself in rose petals to absorb their sadness and mine, and finally fell asleep.

I wish now that I hadn't been so alone in my journey, that I'd sought out friends and support before coming out. My new love had left for 9 weeks of basic training.  I knew exactly three gay people. My new "girlfriend," one college professor (suspected, but not confirmed), and a young guy at work who was still trying really hard to not be gay, planning how he could marry a woman who was so gorgeous that he'd HAVE to be attracted to her forever, and then he could stay in his religion and raise a family. I had  no phone numbers of people I could call.  I knew nothing. I knew I loved being with my girlfriend, and that I wanted a closer, more authentic relationship with my parents. And that was it.