My Mission?

I'm not sure how many people know this about me, but I once put in my papers to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I told everyone, because it was my plan. I honestly, and deeply, felt like it was what I needed to do. And when I say that I felt that way I don't mean "I felt pressured to go because it's what a good little Mormon girl is supposed to do" or even "I felt that since I was 21 already and not married that the only option left for me was to go on a mission"... I mean that I actually had many moments where I knew without a doubt that serving a mission was not only what I wanted to do, but it was what God wanted for me as well.

Well, extremely long story short...I didn't get to go.  By that time I was too far gone into my depression and wasn't able to serve.  I don't remember really reacting to the news, at the time.  I already knew before the letter came that they would tell me "no".  No matter what that paper said, I had told myself they just didn't want me because I am gay.  What I saw as my last shot at redemption was now gone because of this unyielding "disease" I just couldn't seem to fight.  All desire to go on a mission (at least the way it had been) left me that day.

I ended up coming back to BYU, as evident by the fact that I'm here now.  If I'm being honest, I'm not quite sure what made me come back.  BYU had always been part of my plan, but part of that plan had been to serve a mission and come back and get married and have a family.  Now I wasn't sure what the plan was, so I thought I should hold on to the parts I had left.

By the first month of school I had found USGA.  I started forming a new plan.  The rest, as they say, is history.


Update: April 6, 2012
My aunt called me today and left a message on my phone.  She was in the middle of shopping when she just started thinking of me and then just got the clear-as-day thought that "Bridey has been able to serve a mission.  Just not the regular one."  She called me the day I spoke in the campus wide panel discussion.  Actually while I was speaking.  I didn't find her voice mail until today though.

I have been able to do a lot of good here on campus, with the USGA and the other friends I have made because I came back to school at this time.  Maybe this is where I needed to be all along.


Update: October 6, 2012
Well as anyone who was even remotely paying attention to the little Mormon corner of the world today knows that the church announced that they lowered the age at which a young man or woman can serve a mission for the Church.

The age for boys: 19 --> 18
The age for girls: 21 --> 19

Well, everyone's first thought was how this is totally gonna throw things off at BYU for a while. As seen by this picture, here. -->

My thoughts were all over the place.  The one that dominated was "if this change had happened five years ago, when I was nineteen, things would have been so different...I might have gotten to serve..."  It took a while for me to remember that I was in a pretty messed up place (mentally and emotionally) when I was nineteen too.  I think I would have gone on a mission only because I had not yet faced all the issues I had with myself yet, and at that time I still believed that a mission would fix a lot of them.  Would it really have made life so much better?  I wonder if it would have made facing myself eventually that much harder.  Would I have become the same me I am today?  I don't know.  I don't think it would have been a worse path, only a different one.

Well, I talked to my dad about it and he said that same thing my aunt did six months ago, more or less.  So have many friends.  I'm pretty sure they didn't talk to each other and coordinate an answer. Maybe this is my mission.  To do as much good as I can, where I am.

~Bridey J.

Oo-koo-lay-lay

I have a Ukulele.  Her name is Bellatrix.  I bought her at a time when I was very depressed and I decided that giving myself something to do just for me would help.  I'm not the best, but I love to play. I already have a wide variety of music in my ever growing repertoire.  Please feel to browse my songs, and/or make requests.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World -- IZ
I'm Yours -- Jason Mraz
Melancholy Astronautic Man -- Allie Moss
When You Say Nothing at All -- Alison Krauss
Jar of Hearts -- Christina Perri
Island in the Sun -- Weezer
The Middle -- Jimmy Eat World
Superman (It's Not Easy) -- Five For Fighting
Maybe Katie -- Bare Naked Ladies
A Thousand Years -- Christina Perri
Born This Way -- Lady Gaga

Wandering

Yesterday I went walking through Barnes and Noble. I was in desperate need of a book I could just get lost in.  Going in there and expecting to walk out with only one book is like jumping into a pool and expecting to not end up wet. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm only saying I've tried it a million times and it hasn't happened yet. I accept the fact that I will never not buy something when I visit, so I've tried to limit myself to a certain dollar amount and that seems to work...most of the time.

I walk through the isles staring at all the titles on all the covers that I will never look past.  Occasionally one might catch my eye, but if the blurb doesn't sell me then it doesn't make the cut, and back on the shelf it goes. Not to be caught judging a book by it's cover, but I'm on a budget.  Familiar authors and titles are scattered among those I have never seen before.  I have to touch each cover, as if the paper feel of it will help me find the chosen few that will come home with me.  I honestly wish I could take them all with me, even the ones I know aren't that good, and trust me when I say those do exist.  I just want to get lost in someone else's head for a small while.  I want to see the world through a fresh pair of eyes, even if those eyes have only seen in someone else's imagination. I want to be living a new life and go on some unheard of adventure, even if it's only for a few hours.  I want to get to know these people who will never actually be, and at the same time they will live much longer than I ever could. I want to...no, I need to feel emotions that stem from someone else's universe, because my own emotional entropy can't be conveniently placed back on a shelf when I need to deal with my life.  It is my minds eye, with the help of these words, that can form everything from spaceships to relationships, all that hang in the balance every time I turn a page.

Every hour spent wandering is worth even the few minutes of escape I know it will grant me.

~Bridey J.

Pride

This was my first time going to a pride festival.  My over all assessment is that it's a lot like the Medieval Fair that happens every year in Norman, OK.  "How so?" you might ask.  I will tell you.

There are three distinct groups of people that attend.

1. Those that finally get a time to be themselves and not be stared at.  They dress in all manor of outrageous, colorful, and sometimes shocking clothes (if any at all) that tell the world "today you see on the outside who I am on the inside every other day".
2. Those that use this opportunity to dress like the #1  people for the sole reason of "because we can".
3. Those that are there mostly for the food, the attractions, and to buy stuff.

Now I have absolutely no problem with people dressing up and celebrating something.  It's never bothered me when my guy friends would wear their kilts to school the week of the Med Fair (unless they went commando on a windy day). But it really gets under my skin that so many people come to pride dressed up in drag and in over-sexualized versions of what society seems to think the "gay lifestyle" is. Now don't misunderstand me. If that's who you really are, and this is your way of celebrating you, then by all means be loud and proud.  But I always thought the point of Pride was to show people that you are proud of exactly who you are. If you don't dress or act like that the other 363 days of the year, why would you do that on the two days that are all about celebrating you?  I just don't understand.  I'm very sure that Salt Lake City is quite tame compared to New York, Seattle or even San Francisco.

That being said, I would like to say that this year I was able to celebrate who I am.  I had the incredible opportunity to be part of a group of us that received the Utah Pride Courage Award on behalf of the USGA members that worked to make the "It Get's Better" video.  This year's grand marshal, the ridiculously beautiful Dustin Lance Black, presented the award to us. This meant so much to me because he's not only a Hollywood celebrity, but he is also an openly gay Mormon himself (not to mention a small town Texas boy).

Grand Marshal Dustin Lance Black leading the parade.

The next day I participated in the very first group of Mormons marching in a pride parade. Under the name "Mormon Building Bridges" over 300 LDS members came out, dressed in their Sunday best, to show the LGBT community that they have allies where they never thought they would. We were originally somewhere toward the back of the parade, but DLB insisted that we were up front with him. 

Mormons Building Bridges (I'm on the front right)

There were people, both in the group and in the crowd, that were just bawling. So many people never thought they would ever see a day when these two seemingly mutually exclusive worlds would come together like this.  The amount of love that was present there was unbelievable. It was almost overwhelming at moments.  I saw members marching with their little children and holding signs that said "Jesus said love Everyone" and "I'll walk with you, I'll talk with you" from the primary song written by Carol Lynn Pearson for her gay husband.  I also looked out into the crowd and saw all these spectators cheering and screaming for us. It meant something to them that there were people that were willing to stand up and tell them "I love you because of who you are, not in spite of it". They were so accepting. I'm talking about both sides.  That morning there was no longer an "us" and "them".  There was only "we".  It gave me hope about my own future.

This is who I am.  I am a Lesbian.  I am a Mormon.  This year I got to show people I am proud of that.

~Bridey J

Journey

I've been AWOL this last month, trying to recover from the high that came after the panel and the video and the equally intense nothingness that came in the weeks afterwards.  I'm sure there's all five or so of you that might check my blog fairly regularly and to you I apologize for my absence.  To the rest of you...suck it up, I'm allowed to take a vacation.  I still have about a million posts I've half written, started and never finished, that I'm planning on finishing soon.  So just keep your pants on.

My dad told me before I started this blog to be careful.  It doesn't take a lot of brain power to go on the internet and complain about stuff.  I hope to inspire and uplift my readers.  Sometimes I'm not sure I can do that, but I will try my best to leave you with something to think about.  I've been thinking about a lot of things lately, most of which feel very heavy and deep.  Many of these things I have thought through many times and I thought them to be resolved within me.  But as a very wise, bearded friend recently shared with me, peace is a journey, not a destination.

This last weekend I went down to St. George, UT with some friends.  Usually when I go hang out down there I spend Sundays watching the Game Show Network in my condo while eating cheese-its and taking advantage of the opportunity to just do nothing.  However, I've been doing a lot of nothing lately, so at the request of my amigos we went to an early morning sacrament service at the nearby Mormon congregation.  I have been somewhat avoiding church lately.  It feels different and it's like I'm the only one who notices.  I could go into some "square peg/round hole" analogy, but it's not that at all.  For so long I was focused on this idea that once I resolved the struggles and issues I had with my sexuality things would go back to the way they were and I would stop feeling so distant from the peace and acceptance I was promised the gospel would bring to my life.  But just like Schrodinger discovered, you can't unknow the cat is dead.  The things I have lived through have shaped me different.  It's not just that I feel like I don't fit in, the truth is I know I don't fit anymore.  

My whole life I've been told that there is a path that is narrow and hard, but it's also the way to eternal happiness.  Now I find that I'm not on the path I thought I was at all.  I go to church and can clearly see that the life that lay in front of me is so different from the one everyone else will travel.  Not just being gay, but everything is different.  The answers they give in Sunday school seem empty for me.  Even messages about families and the temple cut deep into my heart.  It all means something else now.  Words that used to easily bring comfort now just leave a feeling of indifference. I am on the road less traveled by, but I don't recall a diverging fork anywhere.  I don't know if this road has the same destination, and that scares me every day.  Even though I have accepted myself, that doesn't mean I am at peace.

I often forget that my journey is far from over.  The destination, whatever it may be, is miles in the distance.  I may find peace many more times, and just as many times it might be taken from me.  I need to trust that this is not what the next sixty years will feel like.  I need to have faith that there is something to hope for.  I sometimes wonder if my choices are between an empty life and a hollow eternity.  If I choose what makes me happy today, will the promise of eternal joy still be mine?  Each day I get out of bed is a choice to believe there is something more waiting for me in the next sunrise.  I have to believe that, or I don't think I'll have the strength to continue.

~Bridey J.

It's Been A While

First I would like to apologize to what ever readers I actually have out there.  I have about six or seven posts I've started and then decided I would finish it at a later time and then never came back.  I've been dealing with who knows how many people these last few weeks because of the panel we had on campus, and then the seemingly-perfectly-timed-and-planned-but-in-reality-not-really-planned-at-all release of the group's "It Get's Better" video (I already posted it somewhere on here), and all the press from that.  My name is now in I can't even begin to count number of newspapers, magazines, blog posts, and other internet things.  Weirdly enough, my biggest concern is that someone will hear my name and like it and give it to their child and then I won't be the only one, because I like my name and I really like being the only one.  On top of all that crazy stuff happening, I had finals.  My dad might murder me a little (or a lot) if I admit that all this Gay stuff might have had a negative effect on my final grades, because it really stressed me out and left me with not a lot of time to study in the end...so let's keep that between you and me.

I have talked to so many people, and have ignored so many more.  At first they were all asking "Why did you do it?" and "Who the hell are you?" and now all they're asking is "What's your real agenda? Why are being so vague? Does it really get better?" and crazy stuff like that.  I'm being analyzed and attacked from both sides and to those people I say...you may have listened, but you didn't really hear a single word we said...and I hate you all because you stress me out.

I feel like I have a lot to say, but when I think about it I get full of emotions.  I have this problem where no matter what I feel, be it happy, sad, angry, afraid, or sleepy, if I feel a lot of it then I will cry.  This is not a voluntary response, I assure you. Cut my hand off while juggling chainsaws...cry.  Feel like no one is really listening...cry.  Reading the chapter when Dumbledore dies...cry.  Can't find matching socks...cry.  Shout out to my great grandma Elfie, for passing on the crazy gene.  My point is that I will be moving forward and trying not to dwell on all the crazy things that have gone down and are sure to come.  I'm in a new place, and I might be getting an amazing job, and recently I've been spending my time with some extraordinary people.  Here's to the future the begins right now.

~Bridey J

It Gets Better

Wednesday night I was on a panel with some of my friends who are gay and out and help me run USGA. My friend Brandon and I have been doing this for the last two years (ish), but it's always been in individual classes. This week I came out to way more than the 600 students that were in attendance at this panel. I'm gonna talk about how I felt, not word for word what happened. If you want that please click here.

It was absolutely exhilarating! At one point Adam and I answered a question about our future and ha talked about how one day he hopes that he and his husband and his children will be coming to church as a family. He got a round of applause! At the end I bore my testimony about the love that I know that God has for every single person in that room and the love and acceptance I know he has for me as a lesbian that will end up with another woman. I got a standing ovation and I started to bawl my face off. It was so amazing!

If you want to continue the message I started please watch this video and then pass it on.

Bridey J.