As I Please

In light of my post-therapy clarity, I wanted to write about the rebellious act of doing as you please. This might seem simple to some, but my post-Mormon following will know, you can leave the chapel in a blaze of glory, or quietly resign from the organization, but the hauntings of “choose the right” will sing you to sleep for years to follow.

I was talking to my therapist about how I really struggle to trust myself, how every decision comes with a sense of impending doom, and the sort of looming feeling of being damned has lurked over me since my elementary school years. I am sure this also comes along with coming of age in a global pandemic, and the knowledge of the earth I am inheriting is burning under me, but an EMDR discovery was made today, that made me realize this “the world is ending unless I save it” mentality has been plotted into the soil of my mind since before I could recognize that the toddler staring back at me in the mirror wasn’t another friend in nursery.

Some of my earliest memories are those of being faced with uncertainty, and the inherent feeling of dread that followed. There is one memory, of walking the halls of my fathers school, and sitting in his classroom after-hours. I loved spending time there. It felt like a special secret, getting to see the school after hours like that. The gang of teachers kids always got this special knowing of the staff, the space, and their parents work days. My dad left me in his classroom, letting me know that he would be in the supply room, which I had been in many times before.

After some time, I found myself questioning how long my dad said he would be gone, and when he would be back. Had it been minutes or hours since he left? I felt the creeping feeling I would in years call Anxiety settle into my chest. I decided to walk down to where he was, trying to find reassurance as to when to expect his return. I walked down the hall, and was presented with two identical doors. I knew one of these was the supply room, and one was a computer lab. I couldn’t tell which was which. I stood paralyzed with fear as the uncertainty pounded through my heart, I could hear it in between my ears. After some mental deliberating I picked a door and walked through.

It was the wrong one.

I saw rows of monitors staring back at me, judging me, confused as to why I was there, and a voice rose from behind one, “Oh your father is in the other room sweetie”.

I don’t remember much of what happened next, but that my father found me hiding under a stack of chairs back in his classroom, my face burning and my eyes wet.

He asked me what happened, why I was so upset, he asked me if anything happened, if anyone spoke to me, he was trying to find a reasonable reason for my upset.

He asked me if someone was mean to me.

He asked if I was hurt.

He asked if he was gone too long, where I had gone, just trying to piece together what was happening in my mind.

But I didn't know either, I just know that it felt like burning. It felt like eyes from above. It felt like shame.

I told him I was just scared. I couldn’t remember where he said he would be, and when I guessed, I guessed wrong.

And wrong wasn’t just a simple mistake. Nursery school had taught me that.

Wrong was the opposite of right.

And right is what you must be.

In everything. In how you dress, what you say, what you eat, how you think, what you do, where you go, how you breathe. It must

be

right.

Unless of course you WANT to put your eternal life, family, prosperity and immortal soul on the line, you

must

be

right.

And so now, as a 21 year old, finally away from the pain and suffering of my former religion, I think that I have begotten myself of “it all”.

I am everything that my younger self was so afraid of becoming, and everything she secretly longed to be.

And yet I sit here, in my life, and those eyes I felt on me then, I still feel on me now, this time from the inside, 1984 thought-police style, judging, berating, shaming, all in the name of self preservation of self defense, of protection.

And yet, even though it feels like ache, excavation, and falling, I try, in small and simple ways, remind myself that even though my world was falling apart, and has been for years as I remove myself from the all consuming narrative of what I once believed to be “God’s Great Plan”, that I now see as a bunch of creepy old men in suits desperate need to control the uncontrollable human spirit, I realize that there is a whole world waiting for me, that is soft and warm, and loving just like I found in the hands of the women of the church, but without the hatred, bigotry, and shame.

I find myself building my parachute on the way down, and I have for years, but the ground isn’t as unforgiving as I was told it would be.

Hell feels quite nice this time of year, the flames a lot calmer than the cold shoulder I found in those pews.

And the one thing I have found is the biggest rebellion to it all, is doing as I please.

There is an insatiable desire I have these days, to get to know myself.

What do I like? How do I like it? How does this pleasure, in all capacities, feel in my body, feel on my skin?

What parts of me can I excavate from the foscilized layers of societal pressure and shame?

What communities, spaces, both physical and emotional, allow for me to fall and fall hard into myself?

How do I build, with intention and gentle reparenting, space for me to fail? To find bravery and inspiration in “I don't know, but let’s find out”?

I recently had a friend tell me, that according to my astrological chart, there is deep self care to be found in the pleasures of life. In self-care, in a good meal, in a new book, a good view. And letting my body, and in turn my soul, tell me gently what she desires, what she wants, with no judgment, shame or envy, has been the greatest joy of my 21st year of life.

So if asked, what I am up to these days, what I want, I will say in simple defiance of the looming doom I have known these many years, that even in the uncertainty, I am carving my own compass, I am listening to the song, I am setting aside the shame of the unknown, of “what if”

and I am doing as I please.