Happy

Today was supposed to be my graduation from BYU, but of course that's not happening. I was feeling pretty depressed about that this morning, together with Jan being gone and Lucy breaking up with me, so I did what I usually do when I'm feeling down: I went for a jog. I suppose that's one benefit of all those years of ex-mutant therapy I went through--I've developed some good coping strategies for when life feels overwhelming.

It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining, just a little bit of wind to keep things cool, and Provo was full of happy people either graduating or taking off for summer vacation. I had a hard time getting going at first. Each step felt like I was lifting a ton, which is no surprise with all the emotional baggage I was carrying. I had to force myself to lift my foot off the ground each time. As minutes passed and I pushed myself forward, my steps grew lighter. It became easier and easier to push off the ground. My stride grew longer and longer. Eventually, I realized I wasn't even touching the ground anymore. My first impulse was to force myself back down, but I smiled as it dawned on me that I no longer have any reason to hold back. I waved goodbye to the sidewalk, looked up at the beautiful blue sky, and flew toward it.

Five months ago, it took all the courage I had to admit that I'm a mutant. Since then, I've been gathering up the courage to actually be a mutant. To be me. At first I insisted on calling myself Mormon X because the Mormon part of me was more important than the X, the mutant. Over time, I realized the Mormon part was obscuring who I really am, and gradually the X became more important. Perhaps, for a time, I was X-Mormon. That very quickly became ex-Mormon. But you know what? I don't really want to be defined by "Mormon" anymore. And honestly, "X" doesn't cover it either. I used to be Mormon, and that will probably always be part of who I am. I am a mutant, and that's also part of who I am. But that's not all of it. I'm Ben. I'm a guy who, among other things, can fly. I'm a college student and a writer. I'm a son, a brother, an ex-boyfriend, someone's future boyfriend, someone's future husband, someone's future father. There are facets of who I am that I haven't even begun to imagine.

As I've started this process of self-discovery, it's been helpful to sort it all out here on this blog. It's been great to meet others like me and see the different paths they've taken, to get a glimpse at the infinite number of possibilities available to me. But I'm at a point now where, for a while at least, I need to do this on my own. Maybe I'll blog again someday, but this will be the last post of Mormon X. That chapter of my life is over, and it's time for me to move on to something else.

As I soared through the air this morning, the song that I couldn't get out of my head was Pharrell Williams's "Happy." An odd choice, I know, for someone whose ex-girlfriend died, who got expelled from college, and whose girlfriend then dumped him, all within two weeks, but the truth is it's impossible to be up there, weightless and miles above any cares in the world, and not feel happy. After years of forcing myself to keep my feet on the ground, the thrill of finally cutting loose and enjoying the gift I was born with made me laugh with joy.

This, I thought as I sped through the air, the cold wind rushing by and the hot sun on my back, this is who I am.

Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater

I really don't have time for these conversations right now.

Lucy: I don't want to break up.
Me: What? Who said anything about breaking up?
Lucy: You're graduating and looking for a job. I still have a year of school to go.
Me: I'll find a job here.
Lucy: What if you don't?
Me: I dunno, we'll work something out.
Lucy: Long distance relationships don't work.
Me: ...
Lucy: I'd consider transferring to another school, but not for my boyfriend. I'd only do that for my husband.
Me: Are we seriously having this conversation? How long have we been dating? And the church wouldn't even let us get married in the temple. We'd have to have a civil marriage. Is that really what you want?
Lucy: You know how I feel about that.
Me: ...
Lucy: Is it that you aren't sure God is really okay with mutants getting married? Do you think the church's policy is right?
Me: No, it's not that. I've been thinking about it a lot--even though I should be thinking about graduating--and I'm pretty much 100% that the church's policy is wrong. I can't imagine a God who would tell us that marriage is so important to our eternal salvation, then deny those blessings to a significant portion of his children.
Lucy: Absolutely. I agree. Then what's the issue.
Me: ...
Lucy: What? You can tell me.
Me: It's just, well, if the church is wrong about that, and they're wrong about how God feels about mutant powers, then what else are they wrong about?
Lucy: What do you mean?
Me: I mean, like, did you know the papyri Joseph Smith supposedly translated the Book of Abraham from has since been examined by Egyptologists who say it has nothing to do with Abraham? That it's like the Book of the Dead or something?
Lucy: What difference does it make? So he was inspired to write something directly from God, instead of translating like he thought he was doing. What's the big deal?
Me: Never mind.
Lucy: What, are you going to go all Shawn on me now, and throw the baby out with the bath water?
Me: ...

Like I said, I really don't have time for this right now.

Mo' Mutants, Mo' Problems

Longtime readers with a sharp eye for detail (and who care about these things) may have noticed an addition to my sidebar: I've added a link to the MoMu Directory.

To any new readers who came from the MoMu Directory, welcome!

MoMu, if you're not familiar with the term, is short for "Mormon Mutant." I'm more a fan of "Latter-day Mutant" myself, but I'm biased because that's the term I made up. Still, doesn't "MoMu" sound ridiculous? Alas, the interwebs have spoken, and MoMu it is. As I learned back in November, there is a significant online community of people who have some level of affiliation (current or past) with the LDS church and who have mutant abilities.

Honestly, it's kind of overwhelming. In the first place, five months ago I thought I was the only one in the world. Not literally, but it sure felt like it. And now, reading through the oodles and oodles of MoMu blogs out there, I feel like everyone is a Mormon mutant. I seriously wonder sometimes if every single person on the planet is a mutant, but only a small percentage of us admit it. It's a ridiculous thought, I know, but still the sheer number of Mormon mutants out there makes me feel at once comforted and... I dunno... unspecial.

All those MoMu blogs are overwhelming in another way too. I see all the different ways people choose to reconcile their faith with their mutant power, and I get selection anxiety. There are active Mormons who "struggle with UPP," angry ex-Mormons who openly identify as mutants, and everything in between. To make it worse, it seems everyone is convinced that their way is the right way. How the heck am I supposed to decide what I'm going to do?

I can't tell you how much time and energy I spend stressing about this. I can't concentrate on school because in a month school will be done and I'm going to have to decide what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. I'm going to have to choose who I'm going to be, and suddenly I feel unprepared. Four years of college and even my two years of missionary service did not get me ready for this. But, as I keep reminding myself, I can't make this decision now, precisely because I'll be done with school in a month. I have papers to write, books to read, finals to study for. If I want to graduate, the rest of my life will have to wait.

Gifts of the Spirit

I snorted. "You think it comes from God, then?"

"How do you know it don't?" I turned to her and I saw she was leaning forward, like she was excited. "Maybe it's one of the gifts of the Spirit, like Paul says in the Bible: to one is given the gift of healing, and to another the gift of miracles, or prophecy, and like that. Who's to say there ain't more that Paul didn't talk about?"

I raised my eyebrow. "'To some is given the gift of turning into a big scary rock monster?'"

"Well it sounds stupid when you say it like that, but why not?" 

 --Dan Wells, "The Mountain of the Lord"

Theric Jepson recommended a while back that I read Dan Wells's story "The Mountain of the Lord" and I finally got around to it this week. It's a great story, found in Jepson and Wm Morris's great anthology Monsters & Mormons. "Mountain" is about a kid who is presumably a mutant, about a hundred years before being a mutant was cool (or even heard of, for that matter). This kid is a Mormon pioneer in an early Utah settlement and has the power to turn into a big stone monster. He starts out hating his power, believing it's of the devil, but over the course of the story he comes to believe that his power just might come from God.

I've spent too much of my life feeling bad for myself because I'm a mutant, and now because Jan left. I love Jan and I miss her, but I can't live my life waiting for her once-a-week phone calls. Deep down, I know that she is doing something amazing--she's devoting her life to helping people, to using the gift God gave her to make the world a better place. Instead of moping around and feeling bad for myself, I should learn from her example. Just as God gave Jan her healing power for a reason, there's a reason why he gave me my power to fly. I just need to figure out what it is.

In the meantime, I'm going to focus on the day-to-day stuff--going to school, doing my home teaching, finding ways to serve the people around me. Maybe even dating. We'll see. For now, I'm going to stick to BYU standards, which means no using my power. I've got less than three months before I graduate, and there's no reason to throw my chance at a college degree down the drain. But after I graduate? I guess I'll see where God wants me to go from there.