Chapter 14

It was a new morning. One that smells like rain. One of those mornings when you can feel the invisible dust rise up to meet the distilling vapor. One of those mornings that oozes spring.

Who would have known the turmoil of the night before?

In a word? He said. Girls.

Then I started to wonder; am I part of the problem? And why is it plural? Do I actually mean something to him or am I part of a bigger problem he is having with double-x chromosomes in general?

It’s not a problem with my testimony, I told them. I know it’s true. It’s a problem with my desires and convictions. If I leave, I know I will be sinning against the greater light. And yet there they are, in my mind. Those two pathways. Rapidly separating, but remarkably similar, from what I can see. The one to the left leads into a thick forest. It leads into the trials of a life rich with the gospel. The one to the right leads into an equally dense grove of trees. But this one leads to the trials of a life devoid of hope. I have to choose which one I want. And even though I know which one is “right”, I still see the choice.

They tell me to choose the gospel. They tell me that it’s worth it.

Then he terrifies me, and tells me that maybe I have to take the wrong one to appreciate the right one.

Life is the time when we are not dead. Love is the time when we are not alone Happiness is the time when we are not sad. Wrong is the time when we are not right. The question is, then, can any decision be made at all? Any decision at all? Last time I tried this he almost killed me. Is it going to take my life being threatened to turn me around this time too? Why does it feel like he hates me?

I know you are all called to this mission, I told them with tears in my eyes. I just have a hard time believing that I am.

I know that Heavenly Father loves you, but I can’t feel that he loves me. It’s kind of the “with friends like this who needs enemies” philosophy. With a father like this, who needs satan? He is supposed to be the source of all unhappiness and the source of all lies. Then why does it feel so wrong to do what’s right?

He told me to stop tiptoeing down a road that would lead me straight to my bishop’s office. He told me to make my decision and stick by it. But it’s not that easy. He told me to go back to the crossroads and wait there safely, or to jump in head first and risk it all. Stop skirting the line, he said.

Do I have to know wrong to do right? Is that why keeping the commandments is so hard? And if so, then God planned for us to sin, and that seems against his nature. I don’t doubt His existence. I don’t doubt that he is. I doubt that he cares. What kind of sick person enjoys watching other people suffer?

They do it because they want what they see on the outside to match what they feel on the inside.

Because looking at unharmed, innocent flesh is too painful when your soul is screaming in agony.

Rock bottom looks the same every time. Well, both times. It looks like 4am on an uncharacteristically warm morning in march. It looks like loneliness, it feels as if you’re past feeling. It’s your body going into shock because of what you are feeling emotionally and spiritually. It’s the ends of the nerves going fuzzy and feeling as if they’re asleep. Because otherwise they can’t process the exquisite pain. Exquisite. Carefully or elaborately done; very intense.

This time, I didn’t yell. This time, I didn’t run. This time, I stayed. Probably because I couldn’t move.

Does this have anything to do with conversations you’ve been having with Brenner? She asked?

It was then that I realized. When I was 19, I went sledding. I went the wrong way because no one had told me where to go. I realized that I was going towards a drop off. So I put my hands back in the snow. I tried to stop myself. By that time, I was going too fast. I went off the edge and lost the sled. I landed on my hands. And as they poured blood all over the slippery rocks, the only feeling I felt was the ice-burn. Of trying to stop myself. Not the pain of losing the skin, or the splinters. They were peripheral damage. I felt the ice-burn more keenly than anything else.

I feel the pain of trying to stop the already-rapidly moving process more than the actual pain of the other parts.

Of being sent home. Of wondering and doubting. Of humiliation.

Don’t get me wrong, I had to get those out. I had to fish them out while still bleeding, just as I had to scrub the skin off my hands and get the dirt out before my skin could heal over it.

There was one splinter left in my thumb. I didn’t realize it until it had healed over. So a few days later, I went upstairs to the apartment above me, where they had the strong stomachs necessary to dig it all out.

It HURT as they reopened the wound. Tearing away at the freshly healed, tender flesh. It bled and bled as they tried to get the splinter out. It had nestled its way down into my flesh so that it rested right near the bone.

The conversations with Brenner dug away all the freshly healed skin, so that I could see that it was still there.

The doubt.

Two years ago, I ran away. And I made my decision. That He asks too much. And that I wasn’t going to do it anymore. Two years ago, I met Jodi. She never even asked me if I believed. She just expected me to stay.

So I did. And then it started to heal. And it continued. And as time wore on, the real thorn dug itself closer and closer to my soul. To the essence of who I am.

Talking to Brenner opened it back up. Made it necessary for me to get it out this time. It turned my room into a temple-prison. Where the pattern of the light coming through the bamboo blinds is etched on my memory. Where the fever broke. A two year long illness, where different symptoms came and went and came and went. It’s finally over. The worst part, at least.

The moment when the fever broke came when I went back to the taxi.

I left her there, standing on the side of the road in Artashat. She was wearing that black skirt she always wore, and her blue shoulder back hung by her side. I watched as she got smaller. She had called the taxi. She had put me in it. When we rounded the corner, I somehow choked out in Armenian “turn around. Go back.” But by the time we got there, she was gone. I couldn’t see her anymore. In that long taxi-ride to Yerevan, I kept singing the same thing over and over again.

Indz het eghir du misht, Im ter bari

Ko dzaina togh hokus , Hangist beri

Indz het eghir du misht ter

Kez misht karoghtem yes

Orhnir indz im purkich

Galis em kez

So this time, I went back to that moment. I got out my hymnal in Armenian. I opened it to page tasnaerku. I began to sing.

The tears began to flow. By the end of the song, I was full-out crying. And as I prayed, I felt the world go still. I felt the angels that surround me, busy though they are, bow their heads in reverence. This time, I felt who they were.

Ancestors, from years past. Descendants yet to come. Brothers and sisters who were never born.

He told me he loved me. He told me he loved me because I brought so many people together with my pain.

The thing is, I know it’s not over. I know that. But as I prayed, I felt those hands on my shoulders, my legs, my feet, turning me down the path to the left And now that I’ve chosen, I can see where it ends. Somewhere higher up than I am right now. That’s all. The path that looks exactly like the other one. The path of the gospel. I know this is an uphill battle. Just because the fever has broken, doesn’t mean that it’s over. I have so much further to go.

But the splinter is out. The thorn is gone. I had to dig deep to get it.

He brought me back to two years ago. To deal with the root issues.

Like I said, I make connections quickly.