Category Archives: Being Gay

Communication

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My mother once told me that my grandfather would write a letter if he was upset or irritated with someone.  He would then put that letter in his drawer and hold on to it for a while before sending it to that person.  It was a kind of quarantine/cooling period for the thoughts to make sure they really were what he wanted to say before sending them off.  I’m pretty sure she told me this after having talked her ear off with an angsty childhood rant.

The take-home message from this object lesson was twofold.  First, be positive that what you are communicating is what you really want to say.  Second, be sure you are using the right medium.  The first was obvious, the second came later when I realized that though mothers may love their children very much, they do not deserve to be subjected to hour-long unfocused tirades about teenage injustices with the frequency I dealt them.

In this age of instant communication where words can travel faster than ever before, in quantities greater than anyone could have ever imagined, it can be hard to tell what, when and how things should be shared.  I’ve read some things online recently that should have been shared in a different format, at a different time if they should have even been shared at all.  Reading things like that makes me second guess some of the content I have wanted to share and how I have wanted to share it.  I have the ‘when’ but I’m missing the other two pieces.

There are a lot of things I want to share here for a great many reasons.  Mainly my whole coming out story (yes, I’m agonizing about this again).  I just worry about how it will be received and if it will accomplish anything remotely close to what I am hoping.  Where the risk is great, the potential reward is greater.  My problem is that I tend to be, for better or worse, a pretty risk-averse person and the idea of this blowing up in my face somehow is paralyzing.

I sometimes read other people’s stories and they leave me feeling depressed, angry, sad or dirty.  That outcome is the exact opposite of what I want to achieve here.  There may be some parts of the story which may be sad or frustrating the overall intent is show the journey I made to a positive and unexpected outcome from what seemed to be an impossible situation.  I think that I can pull this off, I just have to buckle down and do it.  It will just be important to listen carefully to feedback regarding the how, what and when of what I’m sharing to make sure I am communicating what I want to.

An Open Letter on Homosexuality and the LDS Faith

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Dear friends and family,

This letter may be difficult to read for my family and friends who are faithful members of the LDS church. I want you to know that I do not condemn or begrudge your membership in the church. I love you all very deeply. At this time, however, I have to make a stand and make hard choices about what is right for me, my life, and my continued happiness.

Five and a half years ago I began to come to terms with my sexual identity.  It started in the moment I finally realized and accepted that, which I had had adamantly denied to myself and the people around me for so long, I was different.  That difference being my sexual orientation.  In that moment, my sense of self, my understanding of where I fit into the LDS faith and the future of my mortal and immortal existence fell under a cloud.  Every iota of what I understood was being challenged at every possible level.

Even as the act of acknowledging what I then called my “same gender attraction” opened the floodgates of uncertainty, fear and doubt I was overcome by a sense of peace and warmth and joy unparalleled by any other spiritual prompting or personal revelation I had yet received.  I was trapped between the emotions of despair as I now found myself on a very isolated road in the spiritual world and excitement at knowing I was not some lone freak of nature without precedent or possible common ground.  The small and pathetic boy who I saw in the mirror and despised was replaced by a man who was capable of so much more than I thought possible and had accomplished so much more than I had been able or willing to admit.

I was beset by an avalanche of overwhelming ideological, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional conflicts.  In typical fashion, I began my research.  I researched dozens of articles in the church’s reference materials and read and re-read every possible passage in the scriptures for any possible hint at what direction I should go.  I found myself left with more questions than answers and the feeling that although I could choose to live life by the rules of the gospel, the aloneness would be too much to bear.  Even more disturbing to me was the fact that this isolation would mean I would be deprived of the opportunity to have a family of my own.    

In the months before I came out, after reading about Heather Armstrong’s struggle with post-partum depression and coming to grips with my own mental health, I had come to appreciate the experience she related of building her family.  Having a family of my own had seemed to be a foreign concept up until that point.  I think this was partially because I was antisocial and I was a bit of a neurotic mess, but mostly because I didn’t grasp the idea of taking a mate from the opposite sex.  By the end of her struggle with PPD, I saw the partnership she had built with the significant person in her life and the excitement and joy that raising a child brought into their lives, in spite of the life-threatening challenges they had to overcome.

I had been keeping a journal and had begun thinking of my distant children one day reading it in the time before I came out.  However, months after coming out and beginning my research of the teachings of the church, I found no way to reconcile my sexual orientation and my desire to have a family.  I wanted a family and I wanted children and this very new goal, this very new concept, this very righteous desire was suddenly dashed against the rocks.

Based on the meager selection of information I could find, I felt that if I had only been stronger I could have willed my homosexuality into non-existence, that if I could have prayed and studied harder, the desires would have been taken away.  I felt that because of this deficiency, both in strength and my very nature, I had destroyed my own children.  As a potential father, I felt I had not been strong enough to fix myself so that I could give them life.  I had deprived them of their opportunity to live and depriving someone of the opportunity to live their life can be argued as murder and I felt, in that dark moment, as though I had killed my babies.

It was the night I had this sickening realization that I first attempted to take my own life.  

After that night, the options I had were distilled down to two very clear choices: I could remain active in the church and be alone until I died or I could seek my own way in the world and have chance to eventually build a family of my own.  I chose the latter.

The comments by President Boyd K. Packer last weekend forced me to re-visit the choice I had to make five years ago as the options became slightly more polarized: I could remain in the church or I could work to build a family of my own.

The decision remains the same and I will be resigning from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This decision has been a very difficult one.  It has been something I have considered over the last two years, but up until now I have always stayed myself from making this choice.  It means that for me to be able to pursue a family of my own, I forsake the principals and ordinances of the church which would keep myself and my family together in the afterlife.  The problem is that it has now been made very clear that the church, as an institution, separate from the individual beliefs of some of its membership, opposes my desire and–what I feel is my right–to have a family of my own.

Sincerely,

Eli

An Open Letter on Homosexuality and the LDS Faith

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Dear friends and family,

This letter may be difficult to read for my family and friends who are faithful members of the LDS church. I want you to know that I do not condemn or begrudge your membership in the church. I love you all very deeply. At this time, however, I have to make a stand and make hard choices about what is right for me, my life, and my continued happiness.

Five and a half years ago I began to come to terms with my sexual identity.  It started in the moment I finally realized and accepted that, which I had had adamantly denied to myself and the people around me for so long, I was different.  That difference being my sexual orientation.  In that moment, my sense of self, my understanding of where I fit into the LDS faith and the future of my mortal and immortal existence fell under a cloud.  Every iota of what I understood was being challenged at every possible level.

Even as the act of acknowledging what I then called my “same gender attraction” opened the floodgates of uncertainty, fear and doubt I was overcome by a sense of peace and warmth and joy unparalleled by any other spiritual prompting or personal revelation I had yet received.  I was trapped between the emotions of despair as I now found myself on a very isolated road in the spiritual world and excitement at knowing I was not some lone freak of nature without precedent or possible common ground.  The small and pathetic boy who I saw in the mirror and despised was replaced by a man who was capable of so much more than I thought possible and had accomplished so much more than I had been able or willing to admit.

I was beset by an avalanche of overwhelming ideological, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional conflicts.  In typical fashion, I began my research.  I researched dozens of articles in the church’s reference materials and read and re-read every possible passage in the scriptures for any possible hint at what direction I should go.  I found myself left with more questions than answers and the feeling that although I could choose to live life by the rules of the gospel, the aloneness would be too much to bear.  Even more disturbing to me was the fact that this isolation would mean I would be deprived of the opportunity to have a family of my own.    

In the months before I came out, after reading about Heather Armstrong’s struggle with post-partum depression and coming to grips with my own mental health, I had come to appreciate the experience she related of building her family.  Having a family of my own had seemed to be a foreign concept up until that point.  I think this was partially because I was antisocial and I was a bit of a neurotic mess, but mostly because I didn’t grasp the idea of taking a mate from the opposite sex.  By the end of her struggle with PPD, I saw the partnership she had built with the significant person in her life and the excitement and joy that raising a child brought into their lives, in spite of the life-threatening challenges they had to overcome.

I had been keeping a journal and had begun thinking of my distant children one day reading it in the time before I came out.  However, months after coming out and beginning my research of the teachings of the church, I found no way to reconcile my sexual orientation and my desire to have a family.  I wanted a family and I wanted children and this very new goal, this very new concept, this very righteous desire was suddenly dashed against the rocks.

Based on the meager selection of information I could find, I felt that if I had only been stronger I could have willed my homosexuality into non-existence, that if I could have prayed and studied harder, the desires would have been taken away.  I felt that because of this deficiency, both in strength and my very nature, I had destroyed my own children.  As a potential father, I felt I had not been strong enough to fix myself so that I could give them life.  I had deprived them of their opportunity to live and depriving someone of the opportunity to live their life can be argued as murder and I felt, in that dark moment, as though I had killed my babies.

It was the night I had this sickening realization that I first attempted to take my own life.  

After that night, the options I had were distilled down to two very clear choices: I could remain active in the church and be alone until I died or I could seek my own way in the world and have chance to eventually build a family of my own.  I chose the latter.

The comments by President Boyd K. Packer last weekend forced me to re-visit the choice I had to make five years ago as the options became slightly more polarized: I could remain in the church or I could work to build a family of my own.

The decision remains the same and I will be resigning from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This decision has been a very difficult one.  It has been something I have considered over the last two years, but up until now I have always stayed myself from making this choice.  It means that for me to be able to pursue a family of my own, I forsake the principals and ordinances of the church which would keep myself and my family together in the afterlife.  The problem is that it has now been made very clear that the church, as an institution, separate from the individual beliefs of some of its membership, opposes my desire and–what I feel is my right–to have a family of my own.

Sincerely,

Eli

An Open Letter on Homosexuality and the LDS Faith

Posted on by

Dear friends and family,

This letter may be difficult to read for my family and friends who are faithful members of the LDS church. I want you to know that I do not condemn or begrudge your membership in the church. I love you all very deeply. At this time, however, I have to make a stand and make hard choices about what is right for me, my life, and my continued happiness.

Five and a half years ago I began to come to terms with my sexual identity.  It started in the moment I finally realized and accepted that, which I had had adamantly denied to myself and the people around me for so long, I was different.  That difference being my sexual orientation.  In that moment, my sense of self, my understanding of where I fit into the LDS faith and the future of my mortal and immortal existence fell under a cloud.  Every iota of what I understood was being challenged at every possible level.

Even as the act of acknowledging what I then called my “same gender attraction” opened the floodgates of uncertainty, fear and doubt I was overcome by a sense of peace and warmth and joy unparalleled by any other spiritual prompting or personal revelation I had yet received.  I was trapped between the emotions of despair as I now found myself on a very isolated road in the spiritual world and excitement at knowing I was not some lone freak of nature without precedent or possible common ground.  The small and pathetic boy who I saw in the mirror and despised was replaced by a man who was capable of so much more than I thought possible and had accomplished so much more than I had been able or willing to admit.

I was beset by an avalanche of overwhelming ideological, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional conflicts.  In typical fashion, I began my research.  I researched dozens of articles in the church’s reference materials and read and re-read every possible passage in the scriptures for any possible hint at what direction I should go.  I found myself left with more questions than answers and the feeling that although I could choose to live life by the rules of the gospel, the aloneness would be too much to bear.  Even more disturbing to me was the fact that this isolation would mean I would be deprived of the opportunity to have a family of my own.    

In the months before I came out, after reading about Heather Armstrong’s struggle with post-partum depression and coming to grips with my own mental health, I had come to appreciate the experience she related of building her family.  Having a family of my own had seemed to be a foreign concept up until that point.  I think this was partially because I was antisocial and I was a bit of a neurotic mess, but mostly because I didn’t grasp the idea of taking a mate from the opposite sex.  By the end of her struggle with PPD, I saw the partnership she had built with the significant person in her life and the excitement and joy that raising a child brought into their lives, in spite of the life-threatening challenges they had to overcome.

I had been keeping a journal and had begun thinking of my distant children one day reading it in the time before I came out.  However, months after coming out and beginning my research of the teachings of the church, I found no way to reconcile my sexual orientation and my desire to have a family.  I wanted a family and I wanted children and this very new goal, this very new concept, this very righteous desire was suddenly dashed against the rocks.

Based on the meager selection of information I could find, I felt that if I had only been stronger I could have willed my homosexuality into non-existence, that if I could have prayed and studied harder, the desires would have been taken away.  I felt that because of this deficiency, both in strength and my very nature, I had destroyed my own children.  As a potential father, I felt I had not been strong enough to fix myself so that I could give them life.  I had deprived them of their opportunity to live and depriving someone of the opportunity to live their life can be argued as murder and I felt, in that dark moment, as though I had killed my babies.

It was the night I had this sickening realization that I first attempted to take my own life.  

After that night, the options I had were distilled down to two very clear choices: I could remain active in the church and be alone until I died or I could seek my own way in the world and have chance to eventually build a family of my own.  I chose the latter.

The comments by President Boyd K. Packer last weekend forced me to re-visit the choice I had to make five years ago as the options became slightly more polarized: I could remain in the church or I could work to build a family of my own.

The decision remains the same and I will be resigning from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This decision has been a very difficult one.  It has been something I have considered over the last two years, but up until now I have always stayed myself from making this choice.  It means that for me to be able to pursue a family of my own, I forsake the principals and ordinances of the church which would keep myself and my family together in the afterlife.  The problem is that it has now been made very clear that the church, as an institution, separate from the individual beliefs of some of its membership, opposes my desire and–what I feel is my right–to have a family of my own.

Sincerely,

Eli

It’s May

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In just a couple days I will have been out of the closet for five years. Five whole years. I’m sorry, but I honestly think that the NIST and the global scientific community have pulled one over on us. Obviously, what we consider to be the last five years on the calendar are actually ten years total. It’s the only obvious and logical explanation for what has happened. My life has changed dramatically (I know I keep saying that, but it bears repeating) in the last “five” years.

In many ways I feel strongly that I have two birthdays. I have my chronological birthday which counts the number of years I’ve been alive. I also have my gay birthday which counts the number of years I have been truly alive.  I think there is a very, very significant difference between the two states.  Before I came out I lived and grew and did a lot of faffing about.  After I came out I had new eyes and built a dramatically different understanding of the world around me  and began to conceptualize who it is I want to be and take action on that.  I became a whole person in the days and weeks following my self-outing and I can’t begin to fathom what life would be like now without that.

A year ago I began a series of posts talking about the process of me coming out.  After a very short period of time I encountered a number of difficulties which I outlined here and stopped writing.  I’m at a point where I think I can pick up on this again.  I am at a point where I have more solid footing and I can write more earnestly about what happened, now five years past.

I’m working on making more time for my writing as well as other hobbies such as photography.  I’ve always loved photography, but haven’t had equipment or drive to do anything about it.  I’ve addressed the equipment side of things.  I have a lovely Canon EOS 20D and hopefully as of tomorrow a fully functional iMac from the latest range.  I just have to get my ass in gear and go.

So there you have it.  It’s May.  It’s spring.  This is my month and it’s time to get up and go.