So...it’s been a while. And bam! It’s now 2020! Wow, where does all the time go? Well, here I am.
In 2020, I am now 34 years old. I have gone back to school for a Masters in Special Education, and am working as an Activities Director at an Assisted Living Facility. The job is pretty good, it is something I enjoy, and my employer is hilarious, however, it is not the kind of job I can see myself doing for longer than the next 3 years, if that. I would love to be teaching already, but at least I finally overcame my fear of failure, and went back to school. It feels great to know that I am working towards something I am passionate about again.
What got the ball rolling was that I found myself feeling stuck in a job that paid pretty well but that treated me horribly and did not value my work. I felt like I had to suck it up, and be happy, because I had no other prospects. These types of companies try to make you feel like you have no where else to go, and therefore drain you for every bit of work they can to the point of exploitation. I just knew that no matter how hard I worked, it never felt like enough, and no amount of money they paid me would ever allow me to feel fulfillment in my work.
I also spent 2 1/2 years working at the Provo Temple as an ordinance worker, and gained many wonderful and spiritual opportunities to grow spiritually with various callings within the temple. The original plan was to go on a mission. But then I felt that I could work on some things spiritually to prepare to on a mission by working in the temple. I started working in the temple because I was struggling attending the temple, so I thought, if I had a reason to go every week then maybe I could make that feeling change. Sure enough, it did. I felt welcomed and accepted, and happy in the temple. I felt so much spiritual fulfillment there, that I felt completely spiritually fed by attending the temple each week, and started to look at other prospects for my career path, rather than pursuing a mission at this time.
The only problem was around 31 years old, when I graduated BYU with my Bachelors in Dance, and I started down this path of what to do next. I really began to struggle with where I fit in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was attending the temple weekly, but all of a sudden started to find myself struggling to go to church. My health also took this weird turn, and really started to affect my energy levels, physical health, and mood. For most of my life, I had been pretty happy and healthy, I did have one part of my life where I struggled with a bout of depression, that is about the time in my life where I would say my spark started to die. After several years trying to nourish and feed my soul with light and rekindle the lost spark, I all of a sudden started to feel the depression sneak it’s way back into my heart. But this time with serious levels of anxiety tied to attending church. I could remove the anxiety by not going to church, and so, slowly over time I stopped attending church. But this time, I was not going to church because I didn’t know if the church was true and if God was really there. On the contrary, I have a very real testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ, and God, and the Holy Ghost, now more than ever before. However, now the problem really and truly is just me, and I have no one to blame for, but myself.
I am 34, and at 31 years of age I stopped attending the Young Single Adult Ward since I was aging out. In an attempt to go to my parents family ward, I felt pretty good for a while. I received a calling in the Primary as a teacher, and loved this, but slowly over time lacked the social experience of being around other single adults my age and started to feel a need to try attending a single's ward again. For those of you who do not know, there is this weird social stigma of attending a Mid Single Adult Ward. They are older single adults, and for various reasons, they are not married...and it's a hard concept to swallow, and difficult not to at some point think, what's wrong with me? And even though the ward was kind and welcoming to me, I felt like I was riding an emotional rollercoaster and had little to no desire to be there. I felt sick and ugly on my outside, and felt completely alone. Probably around the time that my health took a sharp turn for the worst, is when I started to really struggle with attending to church. I became severely anemic, it impacted my ability to attend work, and it wasn't until many months later that I was finally diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease. Even after I was diagnosed with this autoimmune disease, I would still go on for nearly a year, before I started to feel healthy again. In many ways, my health is what could have easily had an overall effect on my mood.
The truth is I am a horrible dater. I have had a few rotten experiences with dating that really made me question how it is suppose to work. The only time I had a positive experience dating was with a non member, who treated me like the world, but I just was not in the right state of mind to date anyone outside of my religious beliefs. To be honest, dating within my religious values has been really difficult for me. It has a been a huge disappointment. Because I have had more success dating outside my religion than within it. One experience I had dating a member, was dating a gay Mormon, the only problem was at the time, I was not looking for a relationship and he was. When we dated, I wanted to end things, but he was pretty persistent in trying, so after letting my guard down, it ended as quickly as it began. I found out later, the reasons of it not working out were outside of my control. I have nothing against gay people, but I think this experience really scared me. I literally cannot date people, without wondering if they could possibly be gay in the back of my mind. Conflicted gay Mormons for me are the most confusing. I think bottom line is if you are a gay conflicted Mormon, please, just be honest with the relationship before getting into one, or trying one out. Some girls have fragile hearts, and putting the pieces back together, well, it is hard, and we have difficulty making sense of the situation, and what just happened. I was not looking to date a gay guy, he found me, and well, that experiment went south quickly. I believe that deep core values need to be shared by two people in a relationship, so in dating outside my religion typically proved to be a short lived experience and would also never last very long. But right next to shared values is trust. Needless to say, I am much more cynical than ever, and struggle with trusting others.
My friends will tell you, when I first meet people, I don't trust them, nor like them. It's almost as if I live a life of "guilty until proven innocent." In my younger days, I just had so much love and excitement for everyone, I was sooo social, and happy. I just trusted everyone, and got along with everyone. It was over many years of hellos and goodbyes that I started to lose trust in people. I started to isolate myself, and be less welcoming to people in my life. I live a very guarded life now, where really the only people I ever allow into my life are the people that have proven the test of time. The one's that are persistent, and endure conflict, distance, separation, or that have gotten married, but still care to keep in touch. These people are few, and I treasure them dearly. However, this makes it very hard for me to let people in to where they can hurt me, or hurt the people that I love. But even though, this warped mind interferes with my ability to have healthy relationships in my life, I still embrace the feeling of being proved wrong. Some of my closest friends today are people that I sincerely thought would never make it, and they prove me wrong every day. These friends, humble me, and bring me some of the greatest joys in my own dark times. And some people who I thought I would never live without, by their own choice, have moved on without me in their life...which I guess is law of agency, and is a difficult one to accept. However, I do feel very blessed with some of the best friends I could ever hope for.
So back to where I am in life. I am at a point in my life where I love everything about the gospel, I just don’t like dating in the gospel. So when I have these odd conversations with the Lord in my prayers, typically it turns into, “It’s not you God. It’s me. I love the church, I know of these truths. But why is it so hard to go to church? Or date in the church?” Unless you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you may not understand the full pressure of getting married within the church for a temple marriage. But their is a ton of pressure to do it, and do it the right way. But what if you struggle dating good members of the church? What if good members of the church don’t want to date you? It almost leaves you feeling a sense of un fulfillment, and really starts to mess with your way of thinking. Women in the church strive to be a wife and a mother, and without these two things, older single women feel very lost in the church, and Bishops of these mid single adult wards are very much aware of this. I appreciate their kindness and sensitivity in addressing these topics at church, and do recognize that they really are doing their best in their calling to have everyone feel welcomed and needed.
I lay here thinking, I love the church with all my heart. But then have rushes of anxiety when I have to face going to church now. Why can’t church just be about going to church, why does there have to be this added pressure to meet someone. Why does nobody like me? I know I am not drop dead gorgeous, but I am also not entirely ugly. My spirit is not ugly. I don’t know, what is ugly? I try to view life as precious and beautiful. For me true beauty is in the spirit. So ugliness is really a cold heart that lacks compassion for others. But really, I try to live a life where I can see the beauty in everyone, so I start to question my own beauty and self doubt seeps in. Especially with the Hashimoto's I am probably living my heaviest weight ever at this point. It's weird because I do have a love for myself and my body, and I do want to do better. But the part of me that I least love is my spirit, and even though I have a great testimony of God's love for his children, I often still forget that I am one of his children also. It's as if I believe in God's love for everyone, except for myself, and I know that this belief is a lie. I just have to keep reminding myself, his love extends to everyone.
*Completely off the topic, but I had a moment where I was asking a resident to come down and eat lunch. He said he was too busy looking for a remote. I suggested to him to take a small break to try to eat something, then he could say a prayer, and go back to searching for his remote again and would probably find it then. He told me, "A prayer?!?!? You realize I am going to hell right?" This was a guy that many people find disagreeable, and rude, and driven with much anger and rage. And trust me, he even would get under my own skin at times. But I just told him, "I don't think it matters which way you are going," in reference to praying as a sinner. Then he asked, "Are you going with me?" And I just giggled, I don't know where I am going. I realized then, that most people don't pray because they feel unworthy of God's help. I felt so incredibly grateful that I know, that even on my worst day, at my worst hour, that I still know and can rely on God's help through prayer. A lesson that I have learned very clearly through my own life experiences.
I mean really, it does have to do with doubting myself. I feel beautiful in the temple, it is as if I truly have a good sense of who I am eternally, but have great difficulty viewing how the Lord sees me in this world. I have these small moments of feeling where leaving the church would make me much happier, and then a sudden surge of you have tried to leave before, and you knew it was not the right path, and it led you to a foolish sense of fulfillment and happiness that proved to be darker and lonelier. This was around the first time I struggled with a deep sense of depression, around 25 years old, when I felt unsure of my beliefs and questioned God's existence, and my place in the church. Over the next year, and through consistent searching for truth, I worked my way back into full participation in the church again.
Today I look left and right on social media, and see how dear friends of mine have come and gone within the church. What I have realized, is people who leave the church, can very much live happy and fulfilled lives. Not all people living within the church are happy. And not all people outside of the church sad, or even bad. In fact, I have met some of the loveliest people in my life, outside of the church. One time, I talked to my mother, and she responded with "Where do you get these wild ideas?" I was like mom, "What about these people that I meet outside of the church that are just beautiful people with beautiful spirits. God cannot forget them just because they are of different religions. Clearly God loves them too, and will not forget them, especially if they are trying to live their life to their highest potential." I find myself thinking, what about people who are born in other faiths, that live so purely and faithfully to the religions they are born into? Now, I know I don’t need the answers to these questions. But they are questions. I find myself thinking, if I marry outside of the church there are no guarantees, but if I marry within the church, there may still not be any guarantees. It’s truly a risk. I mean, not all LDS relationships are successful. But I admire the relationships that blossom, and my heart always breaks for the ones that don’t make it. My heart just yearns for all people to be happy and live their lives the best that they can. That they may feel loved and accepted, and a sense of belonging. That's it. I just want to feel like I belong to my church. Not a sense of isolation, or disappointment. Or a sense of being unfulfilled.
I have some ongoing jokes with people on how I am a Jehovah’s Witness or that I am a Jew, because I don’t go to church regularly anymore, or because I ask for so many days off from work for school. Please do not take this the wrong way, I have nothing against the JW’s or Jews, and this story is not to demean or take anything away from those belief systems, because I am sure they are wonderful walks of life. I guess the real point of my story is, I don’t know who I am again. I want to walk this way of a Mormon life, but it is not as easy as most people think. I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and know it to be true, but even the everyday members of the church face their fair share of trials and tribulations in this world. Sincerely, I am not living a bad life. Most days I am doing okay, and seem happy enough. Some people have it way worse, so I shouldn't complain. But this is where I am today.
I guess, I am just hoping to spend this next year, finding myself comfortable in attending weekly church every Sunday again. And overcoming my own obstacles in life. I want to rediscover my own happiness and live a fulfilling life every day. I want to live my life with rich meaning and purpose again, and I want to make weak things strong. Much love to everyone, who can relate to losing their spark, and trying to light their path again. May each person build a desire to live their best life every day. May everyone feel a sense that they belong. I send my peace and love to everyone! Merry belated Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
In 2020, I am now 34 years old. I have gone back to school for a Masters in Special Education, and am working as an Activities Director at an Assisted Living Facility. The job is pretty good, it is something I enjoy, and my employer is hilarious, however, it is not the kind of job I can see myself doing for longer than the next 3 years, if that. I would love to be teaching already, but at least I finally overcame my fear of failure, and went back to school. It feels great to know that I am working towards something I am passionate about again.
What got the ball rolling was that I found myself feeling stuck in a job that paid pretty well but that treated me horribly and did not value my work. I felt like I had to suck it up, and be happy, because I had no other prospects. These types of companies try to make you feel like you have no where else to go, and therefore drain you for every bit of work they can to the point of exploitation. I just knew that no matter how hard I worked, it never felt like enough, and no amount of money they paid me would ever allow me to feel fulfillment in my work.
I also spent 2 1/2 years working at the Provo Temple as an ordinance worker, and gained many wonderful and spiritual opportunities to grow spiritually with various callings within the temple. The original plan was to go on a mission. But then I felt that I could work on some things spiritually to prepare to on a mission by working in the temple. I started working in the temple because I was struggling attending the temple, so I thought, if I had a reason to go every week then maybe I could make that feeling change. Sure enough, it did. I felt welcomed and accepted, and happy in the temple. I felt so much spiritual fulfillment there, that I felt completely spiritually fed by attending the temple each week, and started to look at other prospects for my career path, rather than pursuing a mission at this time.
The only problem was around 31 years old, when I graduated BYU with my Bachelors in Dance, and I started down this path of what to do next. I really began to struggle with where I fit in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was attending the temple weekly, but all of a sudden started to find myself struggling to go to church. My health also took this weird turn, and really started to affect my energy levels, physical health, and mood. For most of my life, I had been pretty happy and healthy, I did have one part of my life where I struggled with a bout of depression, that is about the time in my life where I would say my spark started to die. After several years trying to nourish and feed my soul with light and rekindle the lost spark, I all of a sudden started to feel the depression sneak it’s way back into my heart. But this time with serious levels of anxiety tied to attending church. I could remove the anxiety by not going to church, and so, slowly over time I stopped attending church. But this time, I was not going to church because I didn’t know if the church was true and if God was really there. On the contrary, I have a very real testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ, and God, and the Holy Ghost, now more than ever before. However, now the problem really and truly is just me, and I have no one to blame for, but myself.
I am 34, and at 31 years of age I stopped attending the Young Single Adult Ward since I was aging out. In an attempt to go to my parents family ward, I felt pretty good for a while. I received a calling in the Primary as a teacher, and loved this, but slowly over time lacked the social experience of being around other single adults my age and started to feel a need to try attending a single's ward again. For those of you who do not know, there is this weird social stigma of attending a Mid Single Adult Ward. They are older single adults, and for various reasons, they are not married...and it's a hard concept to swallow, and difficult not to at some point think, what's wrong with me? And even though the ward was kind and welcoming to me, I felt like I was riding an emotional rollercoaster and had little to no desire to be there. I felt sick and ugly on my outside, and felt completely alone. Probably around the time that my health took a sharp turn for the worst, is when I started to really struggle with attending to church. I became severely anemic, it impacted my ability to attend work, and it wasn't until many months later that I was finally diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease. Even after I was diagnosed with this autoimmune disease, I would still go on for nearly a year, before I started to feel healthy again. In many ways, my health is what could have easily had an overall effect on my mood.
The truth is I am a horrible dater. I have had a few rotten experiences with dating that really made me question how it is suppose to work. The only time I had a positive experience dating was with a non member, who treated me like the world, but I just was not in the right state of mind to date anyone outside of my religious beliefs. To be honest, dating within my religious values has been really difficult for me. It has a been a huge disappointment. Because I have had more success dating outside my religion than within it. One experience I had dating a member, was dating a gay Mormon, the only problem was at the time, I was not looking for a relationship and he was. When we dated, I wanted to end things, but he was pretty persistent in trying, so after letting my guard down, it ended as quickly as it began. I found out later, the reasons of it not working out were outside of my control. I have nothing against gay people, but I think this experience really scared me. I literally cannot date people, without wondering if they could possibly be gay in the back of my mind. Conflicted gay Mormons for me are the most confusing. I think bottom line is if you are a gay conflicted Mormon, please, just be honest with the relationship before getting into one, or trying one out. Some girls have fragile hearts, and putting the pieces back together, well, it is hard, and we have difficulty making sense of the situation, and what just happened. I was not looking to date a gay guy, he found me, and well, that experiment went south quickly. I believe that deep core values need to be shared by two people in a relationship, so in dating outside my religion typically proved to be a short lived experience and would also never last very long. But right next to shared values is trust. Needless to say, I am much more cynical than ever, and struggle with trusting others.
My friends will tell you, when I first meet people, I don't trust them, nor like them. It's almost as if I live a life of "guilty until proven innocent." In my younger days, I just had so much love and excitement for everyone, I was sooo social, and happy. I just trusted everyone, and got along with everyone. It was over many years of hellos and goodbyes that I started to lose trust in people. I started to isolate myself, and be less welcoming to people in my life. I live a very guarded life now, where really the only people I ever allow into my life are the people that have proven the test of time. The one's that are persistent, and endure conflict, distance, separation, or that have gotten married, but still care to keep in touch. These people are few, and I treasure them dearly. However, this makes it very hard for me to let people in to where they can hurt me, or hurt the people that I love. But even though, this warped mind interferes with my ability to have healthy relationships in my life, I still embrace the feeling of being proved wrong. Some of my closest friends today are people that I sincerely thought would never make it, and they prove me wrong every day. These friends, humble me, and bring me some of the greatest joys in my own dark times. And some people who I thought I would never live without, by their own choice, have moved on without me in their life...which I guess is law of agency, and is a difficult one to accept. However, I do feel very blessed with some of the best friends I could ever hope for.
So back to where I am in life. I am at a point in my life where I love everything about the gospel, I just don’t like dating in the gospel. So when I have these odd conversations with the Lord in my prayers, typically it turns into, “It’s not you God. It’s me. I love the church, I know of these truths. But why is it so hard to go to church? Or date in the church?” Unless you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you may not understand the full pressure of getting married within the church for a temple marriage. But their is a ton of pressure to do it, and do it the right way. But what if you struggle dating good members of the church? What if good members of the church don’t want to date you? It almost leaves you feeling a sense of un fulfillment, and really starts to mess with your way of thinking. Women in the church strive to be a wife and a mother, and without these two things, older single women feel very lost in the church, and Bishops of these mid single adult wards are very much aware of this. I appreciate their kindness and sensitivity in addressing these topics at church, and do recognize that they really are doing their best in their calling to have everyone feel welcomed and needed.
I lay here thinking, I love the church with all my heart. But then have rushes of anxiety when I have to face going to church now. Why can’t church just be about going to church, why does there have to be this added pressure to meet someone. Why does nobody like me? I know I am not drop dead gorgeous, but I am also not entirely ugly. My spirit is not ugly. I don’t know, what is ugly? I try to view life as precious and beautiful. For me true beauty is in the spirit. So ugliness is really a cold heart that lacks compassion for others. But really, I try to live a life where I can see the beauty in everyone, so I start to question my own beauty and self doubt seeps in. Especially with the Hashimoto's I am probably living my heaviest weight ever at this point. It's weird because I do have a love for myself and my body, and I do want to do better. But the part of me that I least love is my spirit, and even though I have a great testimony of God's love for his children, I often still forget that I am one of his children also. It's as if I believe in God's love for everyone, except for myself, and I know that this belief is a lie. I just have to keep reminding myself, his love extends to everyone.
*Completely off the topic, but I had a moment where I was asking a resident to come down and eat lunch. He said he was too busy looking for a remote. I suggested to him to take a small break to try to eat something, then he could say a prayer, and go back to searching for his remote again and would probably find it then. He told me, "A prayer?!?!? You realize I am going to hell right?" This was a guy that many people find disagreeable, and rude, and driven with much anger and rage. And trust me, he even would get under my own skin at times. But I just told him, "I don't think it matters which way you are going," in reference to praying as a sinner. Then he asked, "Are you going with me?" And I just giggled, I don't know where I am going. I realized then, that most people don't pray because they feel unworthy of God's help. I felt so incredibly grateful that I know, that even on my worst day, at my worst hour, that I still know and can rely on God's help through prayer. A lesson that I have learned very clearly through my own life experiences.
I mean really, it does have to do with doubting myself. I feel beautiful in the temple, it is as if I truly have a good sense of who I am eternally, but have great difficulty viewing how the Lord sees me in this world. I have these small moments of feeling where leaving the church would make me much happier, and then a sudden surge of you have tried to leave before, and you knew it was not the right path, and it led you to a foolish sense of fulfillment and happiness that proved to be darker and lonelier. This was around the first time I struggled with a deep sense of depression, around 25 years old, when I felt unsure of my beliefs and questioned God's existence, and my place in the church. Over the next year, and through consistent searching for truth, I worked my way back into full participation in the church again.
Today I look left and right on social media, and see how dear friends of mine have come and gone within the church. What I have realized, is people who leave the church, can very much live happy and fulfilled lives. Not all people living within the church are happy. And not all people outside of the church sad, or even bad. In fact, I have met some of the loveliest people in my life, outside of the church. One time, I talked to my mother, and she responded with "Where do you get these wild ideas?" I was like mom, "What about these people that I meet outside of the church that are just beautiful people with beautiful spirits. God cannot forget them just because they are of different religions. Clearly God loves them too, and will not forget them, especially if they are trying to live their life to their highest potential." I find myself thinking, what about people who are born in other faiths, that live so purely and faithfully to the religions they are born into? Now, I know I don’t need the answers to these questions. But they are questions. I find myself thinking, if I marry outside of the church there are no guarantees, but if I marry within the church, there may still not be any guarantees. It’s truly a risk. I mean, not all LDS relationships are successful. But I admire the relationships that blossom, and my heart always breaks for the ones that don’t make it. My heart just yearns for all people to be happy and live their lives the best that they can. That they may feel loved and accepted, and a sense of belonging. That's it. I just want to feel like I belong to my church. Not a sense of isolation, or disappointment. Or a sense of being unfulfilled.
I have some ongoing jokes with people on how I am a Jehovah’s Witness or that I am a Jew, because I don’t go to church regularly anymore, or because I ask for so many days off from work for school. Please do not take this the wrong way, I have nothing against the JW’s or Jews, and this story is not to demean or take anything away from those belief systems, because I am sure they are wonderful walks of life. I guess the real point of my story is, I don’t know who I am again. I want to walk this way of a Mormon life, but it is not as easy as most people think. I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and know it to be true, but even the everyday members of the church face their fair share of trials and tribulations in this world. Sincerely, I am not living a bad life. Most days I am doing okay, and seem happy enough. Some people have it way worse, so I shouldn't complain. But this is where I am today.
I guess, I am just hoping to spend this next year, finding myself comfortable in attending weekly church every Sunday again. And overcoming my own obstacles in life. I want to rediscover my own happiness and live a fulfilling life every day. I want to live my life with rich meaning and purpose again, and I want to make weak things strong. Much love to everyone, who can relate to losing their spark, and trying to light their path again. May each person build a desire to live their best life every day. May everyone feel a sense that they belong. I send my peace and love to everyone! Merry belated Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
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