Busted

Well, that didn't take long. I haven't posted for a couple of days because I kind of freaked out after something happened on Sunday. I'm still getting used to having a "secret identity," and I was bound to screw up sooner or later. Turns out it was sooner.

When I'm on my Mormon X page on Facebook, there's a message on the top that says "You are posting, commenting, and liking as Mormon X — Change to [my real name]." On Saturday I was messing around with things and apparently I changed the setting so that I was posting as myself. I didn't post anything on Saturday after that, so it didn't make a difference, but when I went back on Sunday to put up a link to my new blog post, I didn't realize I was doing it under my real name until after posting. I caught the mistake pretty quickly, deleted it, and then re-posted as Mormon X. I wiped the sweat from my brow, took a deep breath to calm my nerves, and said a silent prayer of thanks that I'd noticed the error right away.

When there was a knock on my bedroom door two seconds later, I literally jumped out of my seat. I closed my browser and opened the door. It was Greg, the roommate who is also my home teaching companion. "What's up?" he said. 

"N-n-nothing," I stammered. My hands were shaking and I was drenched in sweat despite the fact that it's November. I probably looked like I was high on something. 

"Did I just see what I think I saw?" he asked. He went on to explain that he had been on Facebook in the other room when the stalker bar on the right showed "[My Real Name] posted a link to Mormon X." It was only there for a second, but it caught his eye because he'd been following Mormon X since a friend of his from California had posted a link on Wednesday. He'd found my story about Lucy's priesthood blessing on Thursday night strangely familiar, but he figured we weren't the only guys at BYU who had given priesthood blessings to sick girls that night, so he chalked it up to coincidence. Until now. 

He probably saw my face turning green (metaphorically--that's not a mutant power of mine), because he put a hand on my shoulder and said with a goofy grin, "No worries, man. My sister's a mutant. I'm totally on your side."

This was all too much for me--the panic of realizing I'd screwed up, the shock of being found out, the relief of unexpected acceptance. My knees gave out and I dropped to the floor. Greg sat next to me and I just stared at the shaggy orange carpet for a few minutes. Once I calmed down, we talked. He asked about my power, about how it felt to be a mutant at BYU, about how I planned to deal with it for the rest of my life. I didn't feel judged or freakish or anything. I just felt like a guy with a problem. And a friend I could talk to about that problem. 

Thank you for being that friend, Greg.