It's not a cry for help. It's a cry for recognition

I just looked at the last time I posted on here.

February 6, 2012.

Over a year.

I've been recoiling into myself.

I've been avoiding the topic.

But the readers of this blog are few. And they are all people that I have considered talking to, at one time or another, about this.

But in the end, I'm scared.

Terrified.

And if this post horrifies you, you can turn your back on our friendship. That is ok. I think I'd understand.

I am losing my religion.

Slowly, painfully, like life-giving blood oozing from my body. And, like a mortal wound, it gushed out at first. Frustration, pain, longing, loneliness, despair. And now, with each pulse of my spirit, my whole soul aches. The last little bit of that part of me is leaving.

Let me explain what I mean.

When I was barely 19, I had my first anxiety attack. It was crippling and horrible; my breath caught in my throat, my fingers and toes began to go numb, and it felt as if someone were constricting my whole body at once. I was in sacrament meeting when it happened.

Over the next 2 years, I phased in and out of activity in the church.

I submitted my mission papers after a period of 8 months where I didn't attend. My bishop approved, because one of my best friends had just attempted suicide, and he thought it would be good for me.

I went on my mission. My soul rejected my actions every day. I love that time for what I learned about myself and my God. I hate that time for what it forced me to become.

Ever since my mission, I've been struggling with the church. Silently, most of the time. It seems to me that mormons are nice to everyone except people who doubt, question, or leave. So I kept it to myself.

And yet, it was still happening. When I talked to people about what I felt, it was as if they were trying to help me solve a different problem. Here is an example of how the conversation seemed from my end:

Me: "All my fishes are dead."

Friend: "It's okay! I'll help you find them."

Me: "No  - I know where they are, they're just not alive anymore."

Friend: "Don't panic - I'm sure we'll find them. Where was the last place you saw them?"

And so you see, I couldn't really talk to anyone about what I was feeling. Partly because I didn't know what I was feeling, but partly because no one seemed to understand what I was saying.

And so, I planned to leave. To leave Utah, to leave everything I knew and loved. To separate myself from the situation, to clear my head. I needed everyone else's voice out of my head, so I could get some quality time with myself and with God.

Last summer, I think I knew it was the end of something. That's why I wanted to relish it. Why I wanted to spend every waking moment with the people I believed would shun me after they realized how I felt. I spent joyful days, hours, and moments with friends who may hate me after they realize who I am.

And then I left.

And I found a world I didn't know existed. A world of people who lived because there was life, and swam because there was water, and breathed because there was air - and never seemed to think twice about being happy!

I was angry and jealous and wanted to blend in. Happiness seemed always, to me, a glimmering prospect just out of reach. Something I had to concentrate on, and focus on, and every 3 months or so, I'd have a moment. But these people - they were happy! Really, really happy! Why? What was I missing?

I started to question everything, piece by piece. I've visited all the anti websites. I've read all the damning articles you could find on the internet. I have considered, and pondered, and prayed.

And here is my conclusion.

I love the gospel. I love my God. He is nice, and he is kind, and he loves everyone. And he doesn't like when we're mean or exclusive or unkind or judgemental. Because he never was. I love Christ. He is strong and gentle and constant. I love the restored gospel. I love that God speaks with men.

I do not love the church.

I can't love the church. It makes me feel wretched and awful about who I am. I can't be a good mormon if that means supporting the idea that people can't choose. Agency is everything in my mind. I can't be a good mormon if that means trying to deify evil things - like witholding the priesthood from black people, or making me swear my sacred oaths to my husband rather than directly to my God. I can't abide an organization that controls young people so rigidly so as to overpass the most rigorous regimes. I can't look back on my mission experience and all the indoctrination that was done there without feeling wretched and bitter.

I feel trapped and suffocated when I attend church, and I feel trapped and tricked and something close to rage when I wear my garments. I feel like the God I know and love wouldn't ask his children to do or support or say the things my church wants me to do and support and say.

I can't do it.

And so here I am, sobbing, as I write this blog. I feel so alone, and so hopeless. and yet so much freer and happier than I have ever felt.

 I will always believe in God.

But I cannot believe in the church

How and why to preserve fingerprints

Despair breeds creativity.

New ideas fester in the filth of depression.

Which explains why I've been so silent.

Because, for the first time in a long time, I was happy.

Happy, because I no longer felt imprisoned in an institution that claims divinity, but fosters judgement and hate. Happy, as I forged a new path into a new life into a glimmering future. Happy, because people love and appreciate me. Happy because I finally remembered who I was before It broke me.

The truth is, I hate romance. I hate the idea of needing only one person. Of abandoning other, fantastic pursuits to achieve the mundane with that person. I have things to do. Places to go. Don't let romance get in my way.

And so, as I stared at the screen, I hated myself for needing that.

He picked a short, flat-faced average woman. Does he look at her the way he looked at me? Those warm, honey eyes almost disappearing in his joy? Does he hold her like he held me. Warm and safe in his strong arms. Does he kiss her forehead when he thinks she's dozed off? Stay awake a bit longer because that means he gets to feel like he's protecting her?

I wish I could hate him. I wish I could think he were terrible. Not worth my time. I wish I could listen to breakup songs and think about all the things I couldn't stand about him. I wish I could forget that he existed.

The problem is, I still love him. Part of me believes I always have. The other part of me knows I always will.

And so, as time has passed, and I've started pushing the limits, I always keep the most significant element of my physicality guarded and untouched. My heart has always and will always only bear the fingerprints of one man.

SO. Here is the month of August. Which is starting soonly. Next week, actually.

Let me tell you about it. For me.

That first wednesday? I fly to Long Beach. Get picked up by some friends I've had for over 10 years now. And spend the night in a hotel room in Anaheim.

That thursday?

DISNEYLAND! The land of my dreams. If I could, I'd have my wedding reception there. I'd just rage around in a white dress and do what I want. And little girls would see me as a princess for a day. Maybe they'll forget about the animated, unrealistic princesses of years past, and dream to be me.

Oh, and club 33. Going there. JOY!

Then, on that friday, one of my best friends is having her rehearsal dinner in Santa Monica. Only 3 of us left standing! Stand strong, ladies!

On the 6th, i go to that wedding.

Then, 3 days later, on the 9th, I fly to portland. YAY! Blackberries, blueberries and huckleberries OH MY!

On the 10th?

I cross my fingers.

I fly back to Utah the 17th, to go back to work.

On the 20th, I'm still crossing my fingers.

And on the 25th?

Oh, the places we'll go.

I'm going CRAZY!

I thought I had gone through most of my life without getting jaded by thing. Without having really "lasting effects" of things. Basically I thought I could go into any situation without worrying about "last time".

I was wrong

I'm trying so hard to convince myself that nothing good can come of this. That there is nothing to hope for. Or look forward to.

I just feel like I'm going crazy. I'm trying so hard to not think about him. But of course, then I do.

Relationships only end in 2 ways.

I'm ready to try method 2.

Things Change

Things Change

Leah Pettit

Period 3

Mr. Ellis

When I was seven years old, a new family moved in around the corner, They had 5 kids, whose names all started with K – Klara, number 3, was just my age. The following Sunday, I met Klara at church, and we were fast friends. We spent tons of time together. After all, it was summer, so every day and most nights we spent in each other’s company. We were exactly the same – rowdy, hyper girlie girls who only talked about the 6 handsome Benson boys who lived down the street.

Klara and I were troublemakers. We’d climb trees in other people’s yards, play in the mud in our new white socks just to make our moms mad, eat disgusting combinations of food such as a cookie, toothpaste, and ketchup sandwich, play in the sprinklers wearing her mom’s high heels and petticoats- you think of something random and crazy and we did it.

Klara and I wrote, directed, and starred in plays. We would come up with silly non-coherent plots and expect our parents and a few select others 75 cents to see them. We would act out ridiculous scenes and expect laughter and applause. We had so much  fun, even my older sister (who was “too cool”) got jealous and insisted on acting with us.

Our families mostly got along as well. All except for Keegan, Klara’s 14 year old brother. We’d lock him out of the house and raid his room, and when he’d finally catch us, he would drag us outside and mercilessly peg us with water balloons. The worst incident by far occurred was when I was about 9 years old. Klara and I locked Keegan out, and he shocked and scared us by gasp flipping us off. We let him back in the house out of terror, and he was so angry he carried us outside, a kicking and screaming 9-year old under each arm, and used cheap yellow rope to tie us to the splintery wooden poles that held the aluminum panel over her patio up. He left us there for 3 hours, until Klara’s sister Kelsey rescued us. Periodically during the 3 hours, he and his doofus friends would walk by, point, and laugh. I had rope burns for 3 days.

Klara and I had officially become one person. That is, until the day that Klara told me that her father, who was a sergeant in the United States Army, was being relocated to Oklahoma. I cried. So did she. Over the next month and a half, we cried alot. But the day finally came that Klara drove away, and her once busy, happy house was empty save for the memories we shared there. I was devastated.

But Klara and I wrote each other every other week. I felt so special, addressing a letter to “Edmond, OK”. In every way except for physical distance, we were closer than ever. But then she started moving on. And I hated her for it.

Four years of bi-weekly letters, and semi-annual phone calls. Then, in the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I found out she was coming to visit. I was ecstatic. Two whole weeks with Klara – what could be better? At the airport, I was so exited that I told my sister to drop me off at the wrong terminal – I ran halfway across LAX in sandals and a jean skirt.

When she came off the airplane, I looked right past her. She wasn’t the Klara I knew, but I eventually recognized the tan, freckly face, brown eyes and big smile of my best friend. She dropped her bags and hugged. She cried. We were together again.

But Klara was different. Or maybe the problem is that she wasn’t. She was still sloppy, naive, rude, obnoxious, and self-centered, but I had changed. I was hyper, yes, but I was now a neat freak, flirtatious, and entirely focused on school, swimming and my music. She still only talked about the 6 handsome Benson boys, and I had moved on to the high school boys I so eagerly flirted with. By the end of the two weeks, we couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

We drove to the airport, listening to the beatles very loud to avoid conversation, and right before she boarded her plane we hugged – for the last time. We exchanged a few half-hearted “I’ll miss you”s and said we’d write. We never did.

It’s three years later, and thinking about Klara still makes me want to smile and cry. We grew apart. That’s all. And now, the only thing to do is look back and remember picking honeysuckle, writing plays, a tearful goodbye, and a disappointing reunion.

Tease

Tease

Leah Pettit

Period 3

Mr. Ellis

It was a summer night – the kind that are so warm that a single touch can overheat every inch of your body. I was in a park, playing hide and go seek. I was wearing red dickies – the red that you would still be able to see even if you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I was sweating – my parents though I was at my house in Newbury Park; they told me they trusted me.

The streetlamps were close – close enough to cast strange shadows around the jungle gym, where I was curled up at the top of a tube slide, my head resting on my knees. He hid at the bottom of my slide. We talked, casually, laughed, he told me my face looked orange next to my pants. We were alone. the person who was it was searching 500 yards away. I stood up in the shelter of a plastic tower. I remember how hot my mouth felt and how tight my muscles were. he started climbing up the slide. Seeing his arms flail and his white socks scramble with the effort he put into reaching me made me smile – it still makes me smile. he put so much effort in to getting to where I was.

he emerged from the slide, his knuckles turning white as he lugged his bulk up towards me. he was about 2 feet away. I suddenly had the urge to fan myself, but I stood still.

We stood near each other, talking, for probably 3 minutes, though I don’t remember a word we said. All I could hear was my own heartbeat, all I could feel was my boiling insides. The conversation died. he put his hand on my stomach – I could feel his sweat through the thin layer of white fabric stretched over me. My hands started sweating.

he got closer, closer, and just as I could feel his hot breath on my mouth, I turned my head, winked, smiled, bit my lip, and walked away.

Running out of Gas

Running Out of Gas

Leah Pettit

Period 2

Mr. Ellis

My headlights pierced through the otherwise pitch dark night... it was just my luck to be stranded in a stretch of road that was void of streetlamps. Like a racehorse that had run out of steam from being ridden for too long, my noble steed – my blue 1987 Toyota pickup – was quiet in defeat; it had run out of gas.

After dialing my house, and learning what triple-A was for, I did the only thing I could do: sat back, locked my doors, and turned up my radio. If there was anything threatening outside my car, I didn’t want to know about it. Simply knowing that I was within 15 feet of a ravine shrouded with mystery – or was it bushes?- was enough to keep me rooted to my seat.

A few pairs of lonely headlights passed; no one seemed to care much about the blue truck parked with its headlights on. Well, one person: a police officer. Yes, a car pulled up behind me, and when the driver’s side door opened my heart skipped a beat – what was this person planning on doing? It was only when I saw the uniform that I felt, for the first time in the presence of an officer, relief. I rolled down my window, and the kind officer shined a not-so-kind light in my face. After a few questions, a few unwanted tears, and a reassurance, Officer Dean offered to stay with me until either triple-A or my parents showed up. I accepted his offer, and settled in for what I thought was going to be a ten minute wait.

Half an hour later my parents showed up, in all of their pajama’d glory. Officer Dean left, with only one “you should be more careful”. A full hour later, a big greasy man with a big greasy truck pulled up beside my now dwarfish looking pickup. He said he worked for triple-A, so, against my better judgment, I opened my gas tank. Weren’t repair men supposed to be young, attractive, and look nice in white shirts, like in the movies? This man had yellowing fingernails and teeth, bad breath, and enough chest hair to satisfy all the rogaine users in the world. Despite my distrust, he did fill my gas tank with enough gas to get me to the nearest gas station, and with a toothy goodbye and a final glance at the neckline of my shirt, he and his “must-be-compensating-for-something” truck were gone. Following  a quick fuel-up and a lecture from my parents, I felt like I had run out of gas.