Sand Castles by the Sea

I want to vent a bit. I had a good conversation today. Started the process of maybe making a friend. And I hate that by tomorrow it will be gone. The issue stems from autism - specifically my own lack of "autobiographical episodic memory." Episodic memory is memory of stuff that happens to me. In simple terms, it means I forget almost everything that happens to me... as well as almost everything I learn about other people... within a day or two of it happening... and, perhaps worse, I forget any emotion or feeling that was associated with any of those events.

So the conversation I had today dies today. Even if I were to write it down word for word, the emotions would be dead by tomorrow. It would be like reading someone else's journal.

And I hate it.

I mean it's great to forget things sometimes. To be able to help someone process horrific events in their life and then not be scarred from it. To be able to survive abuse. To be able to wake up smiling when the night before I felt like all hope was gone.

But I hate it, because I know it's going to hurt me. I'm going to try to build a simple friendship and most likely it's all going to come crashing down since there will never be a solid foundation.

I had a thought not long ago that I have never made a friend. I'm so terrified of people and hurting them and getting hurt that I don't even try to really make friends. It's always someone else making friends with me. Which makes me wonder if I even can.

Maybe?

I hate that I can't remember people from my past. Maybe I have made friends. Maybe they were good friends. Maybe they've even been close to me. Except that I have no memories at all. I probably hurt all of them or made them run away. Or forgot they existed and neglected the friendship until it died.

I tried to capture some of the feelings. So here's a poem-ish thing. 

FYI this is NOT a build me up moment. I know that God makes everything right in eternity, that He is there for me personally, and that the people who are willing to be there with me in spite of the mess that is me are the people meant for me... but the poem doesn't address that. It's sorta depressing and sad. If you want something uplifting or if you need perspective or hope or peace you're gonna have to read a different post.

Sand Castles by the Sea

From the day I woke to living

Til each night I go to sleep

I find myself surrounded

By the dark and angry deep

And then I'm alone with sand

Castles I can build

With walls and turrets rising

Some of them are beautiful

Sublime

Others built too close to shore

Are touched by waves and there no more

Just moments after laying

The foundation

And then

A person stands there next to me

We build a castle by the sea

He says that's sweet

Let's build it higher yet

But each night

My island sinks beneath the tide

Castles don't build higher

Tomorrow comes

And then I'm alone with sand

The person that was next to me

He builds his castles inland

From "stone" and "steel"

And love and hopes and dreams

And next door

There's a castle built by someone else

There's a city

There's a world

Of everyone but me

Who builds castles

While I build sand castles by the sea

The castles that they build

All grow and rise and fall

Each changing as the days or years go on

The simplest ones are stone or mud

Made only days before

The grandest are of gold

Forty fifty years made tall

And everyone is building

Friendships as they talk and laugh

Lovers as they smile

Strangers as they pass upon the street

Castles made of hopes and dreams

Are built in every moment

With every single person that they meet

There's only sand upon my island

No mud or gold or steel

Which makes me think that maybe

None of those are real

Well maybe they are real for all of them

But not for me

I've learned that castles built inland

Can last for ages

That even huts of mud or sticks

Can last for weeks or years

Really?

No matter how I pile up sand

It falls

Even if I fall asleep 

Inside a massive sheltered keep

With walls built tall by many hands

When morning breaks it's gone

And then I'm alone with sand

The people come and go with time

Some build a day or three

But no one ever sees the castles

Drown beneath sea

They think they're built 

Of stone or mud or steel

But mud and stone and steel

Don't disappear

Which means it's me

Perhaps we build a castle

You of wood and I of sand

And days go by and then we meet again

I have no answers to your stories

No insight to your mind

No feelings for your hopes or fears or dreams

No castle made of memory

No proof we ever met

Nothing left but sand beside the sea

So who would spend their days

Building castles that can't be

Except for me?

It's hard to hope that someone

Would choose to live on sand

When others offer mud or stone or steel

It's hard to watch as people build just once

Then walk away

Because sand castles aren't things

They understand

It's hard to watch my castles wash away

Sometimes I end up crying 

As the tide comes in

And then I'm alone with sand

Love and a Handful of Soulmates

 Man this is scary.

Well, it was a week ago when I wrote this. I didn't want to double post and had a busy week, so it's going up now. Here's me wearing my heart on my sleeve.

At a fireside last week I started to tell a random stranger about one of my new central goals in life. She looked at me like there was something wrong, and even with my extremely limited ability to read situations I got the feeling that without a whole lot of background, any forward motion in the conversation would cause it to derail.

So background.

Deep inside my soul, there's an empty sphere. In the middle of that is a structure I call my scaffold. Well, there usually is. The scaffold is my own personal purpose. What I live for in life. My sense of existence. My ultimate goal and what I want more than anything in the world. For me, the structure in the middle has always looked like a castle. Or... I guess it actually looked a bit more like a temple. That's awkward. I've thought it was a castle for a long time. Either way, there's a structure made of golden-ish crystal inside this sphere in my soul, and on the outside of that structure hang a ton of little hanging things. Sort of like pendants. Each little hanging thing is a short-term goal, and the ground is littered with them. Every possible short-term goal in reality. Working out is a possible goal, or practicing the piano. Attending more social activities or eating healthily. Depending on the scaffold in the middle, some goals stick and others don't. Stuff that helps to build or achieve the main goal in the center will stick, while anything else won't. A low quality scaffold won't have many goals that stick, or will crumble under the weight of the goals that it requires.

I grew up, as a kid, wanting a family of my own. I'm a diehard romantic and an idealist. I believe soulmates exist even though I know they don't necessarily exist for me. My scaffold as a kid was simple. I wanted to get back to heaven. I wanted to be a missionary. But the biggest part of the structure? I wanted to be a dad. I wanted to find someone, fall in love, and grow old together working through whatever the world could throw at us. My patriarchal blessing even talks about that - that my future wife and I could lean on each other and that together we would be faithful, strong, and able to weather every storm.

Realizing I was gay made that structure seem a bit harder. But I still believed that God could just sorta smudge the lines and make it work. I mean, I've met or heard from hundreds of gay men who have somehow fallen in love with their wives and built families with love.

Yes, there are plenty of gay men who have also married women and ended up ultimately messing up their lives. And often they're far more public. But does the fact that they ended up messing up their lives mean that the miracles God did are any less real? David killed Goliath with the power of God, and ended up damned. God can still kill giants. Solomon received endless wisdom, and eventually turned from God. God is still wise. Just because that guy messed up, doesn't mean I have to. God can do whatever miracles He wants.

But that doesn't mean He's going to.

Most of the guys who've found wives seem to be emotionally stable. I'm not. Most had at least some attraction to women to build from. I'm completely repulsed by women who have any kind of romantic inclination toward me. Most have a group of friends in their lives. Yeah. Let alone the huge host of people who are obsessed with telling me and anyone else they can that happiness and love to a wife when you're a gay guy is impossible.

And I'm getting old. I mean some of the Bible patriarchs were like 100 years old when they found their wives or had kids. Compared to them I'm still a kid. God promises that everyone will have the opportunity for all blessings, which means that if I'm super faithful, I'll find a wife and fall in love in this life or the next.

But hoping that I can have a close relationship sometime after this life is hard. 

All that put together, my scaffold was struggling. There were cracks building throughout, stress and groaning inside the crystal building in my soul. I still definitely wanted to get back to heaven, definitely wanted to be a missionary. But goals started falling off and clinking to the ground. My habits began falling apart. And instead of hope and peace and meaning, it brought me pain. 

So I made the decision to try to be ok with being single. At least for this life. I read that some people have an easier life when they finally give up on wanting marriage or love in this life, or that stuff finally starts turning around for them.

So I took my scaffold - the thing that had always been most important to me - my desire to get back to heaven, be a father, be a missionary, and have an eternal family of my own - and I shattered it to pieces, expecting that I could easily swap something else in its place.

And... yeah.

So it turns out when I shattered the scaffold that held up all of my goals, hopes, and dreams, my life ended up completely meaningless. I struggled to get out of bed in the morning and would honestly rather count the days until my death. My morality went haywire and I made the worst decisions of my life. I accomplished nothing, felt awful, and found it hard to want to survive. Welcome to the last few years of my life. Definitely not an easy swap.

Long story short, trying to rip out a chunk of my soul and be ok being single didn't work. It didn't work at all. It may have worked for some people. Maybe they subbed something specific to their own lives into their scaffold, or maybe I broke way too much of mine when I was trying to remodel it. Either way, in my case, it shredded me to the core and pushed me to dull the pain by melting my soul in hell.

It's not ok. Me being eternally single is not ok. It's pain and awful and I'm not ok. I want a family. I really, really want a family, and that isn't going to go away.

So whatever scaffold I have, it has to include a family. So a wife, and kids of my own. As impossible as it may currently be.

At the same time, I've learned something about myself in the past few years. Truth be told, I'm 100% sure I could have learned it without temporarily losing my temple recommend, eroding my relationship with God, and putting my soul in jeopardy. 

While I want guys in my life, I want *good* guys.

Specifically, I want a handful of guy soulmates.

If I had to use adjectives? Bestest bro buddies. Or polyamorous celibate gay soulmates.

Polyamorous? Sort of. But not really. I've realized that, at least when it comes to guys, I just want more than what a single person can offer. I don't want possessive or jealous guys. I want guys who love each other, who love me.

Celibate? At least in their relationships with guys. I want temple-worthy, forward-facing guys who can be there for me and I can be there for. Guys who can look at each other and love without lusting after the body on the outside. Guys who'll do scripture study on their own, who pray, who put God FIRST in their lives, then their families, then the rest of us.

Gay? They don't have to be. There doesn't have to be romance there. As long as they're awesome guys who are expressive, communicative, and loving enough to be soulmates with a handful of other guys. Lol. As long as. As if that were the easy part. Ideally, they'll also all find their own wives eventually even if they're gay. I mean, I want soulmates - relationships that last forever - so we need to all get to the celestial kingdom. Whether they find them in this life or the next, they should probably have it as a goal for somewhere in eternity.

Soulmates? You know the feeling when someone is so close to you that you can trust them with everything... and know they're on the same page? Where emotional interaction takes almost no effort at all because you know that they'll never assume the worst of you and always figure out what you're really thinking, no matter how hard it is? Where you trust each other, literally no matter what happens, because you are committed to being together for eternity and there is nothing that is going to get in your way. Where you're happy doing anything together, where you want to be better for the other person, where you find that everything you do revolves around "us" instead of me and them? I don't just want friends. Or close friends. I want everything close relationships with guys can offer except for sex. I want guys who will be extra fathers to my kids, brothers to my wife, sons to my parents. I want our lives to be intertwined - one family - so we share meals, share stories, share hopes and dreams. I'm thinking we have a massive house with 5 wings or something like that.

That's my dream. My goal. The scaffold inside my soul that supports the rest of my everyday life. It totally fills my hopes and dreams, and it's both strong and expansive enough to hang as many short-term goals as I want. There are parts that definitely need God to make them happen. I mean... I'm gay and I want to find a wife. That requires divine intervention. Also I'm pretty sure that finding *multiple* gay celibate soulmates who all love each other as an autistic guy with major mental issues, alone without God, is a probability of zero. So my goals surround two parts - before and after. First, putting myself into situations where God can do miracles - being more social primarily, and working to address my own social shortcomings. And second, shaping myself so that when the miracles happen, I'm ready to make them stay. Whether that means having enough money to buy a castle with 5 wings or strong enough to lift a fallen beam if that castle falls apart. Working out daily. Started taking supplements. Praying more. Studying the scriptures more. Being more social. Brainstorming new business ideas.

So that's it. That's my goal and the miracle I'm asking for: Love and a handful of soulmates. 

Who knows where the road will actually lead? I don't know what my future will look like. But, for now, I have something epic to work towards. A scaffold that fills my soul. It's exciting. Hopeful. Peaceful. Something that I can really, truly, honestly want and can motivate every moment of my every day.

And that's awesome.

Irrefutable Answer

 Well.

I got my answer.

Figuring out my main, central goal in life - the one that guides and directs and inspires every moment of my life - is important. So I made a plan to get confirmation.

Timing just happened to match up perfectly with this past week, when I went to the temple for the first time in years.

As an aside, I can't explain how much I've missed by being selfish. By taking my life into my own hands, "trying stuff out," indulging circumstances that I know aren't going to leave me with peace. I missed my little sister's sealing. My little brother's endowment. But even after all that I don't think the pain changed me. It had to be *me* to change me.

The first answer came as we drove - torrential rain pouring out of a sunny sky. Rain has been an answer from God for a long time in my life. Torrents out of the blue? Nothing else tells me that the God of the universe loves me quite as much as when He changes local weather patterns on my behalf.

But rain can come from a clear sky. And without the explanation that comes with it, someone could explain it away.

So more answers came.

The second answer was personal to *me.* As if God wanted to tell me, "David. I'm talking to you."

The third answer came during the proxy ordinance itself. The fourth? Words taken out of my journal, spoken in a prayer by someone I had never met.

The fifth answer came in the Celestial room, as I looked at the answers I already had. God and I talked, and He reminded me that He had already given me the answer the very first moment I had asked in prayer. But hey, I wanted it to be special, and it's a *huge* set of miracles to ask for, so it's ok to get confirmation, right? Yes. It's ok to want confirmation. And I got it, more than I could have ever asked for.

So what does that mean?

As we talked, I realized that, in order for the miracles I want to be possible, I need to be the centerpiece. Yes. There are aspects that only God can control. Things as impossible as parting the Red Sea or turning stones to light. But the followup? Making the miracles work in the long run? 

God could suddenly change my life tomorrow. But would I be ready for that? Honestly? Probably not. My life is still a bit of a mess. My room is a mess. No wait. There is probably a lot more mess than not in my life. And if God were to suddenly make all my dreams and hopes come true - if He were to part the Red Sea of my life in front of me - I would probably end up smashing into the walls and making them all come crashing down.

And that's why the greatest miracles of life can't just come from Him. They have to include me. I can't expect someone else to hold my life together. I need to be the one with self control. I need to be the one with faith. I need to be the one to ask for miracles and make them happen.

So I walked out of the celestial room with hopes and dreams, and promptly got my last answer as I fell down the stairs.

Man it hurt a lot. The temple worker at the bottom of the stairs offered me his chair, and even after a minute of deep breathing exercises I turned white, my vision blurred momentarily, and I went into mild shock. My best friend makes fun of me because he went through the Nuss procedure a few years ago (they cut your chest open, then implant pressurized steel bars to reshape the rib cage, and it's supposed to be one of the most painful post-operative procedures)... but I promise I'm not a wimp. 

Well.

The temple worker got me a bottle of water and my face turned the right color again. He found a wheelchair and, by the time I got back from changing out of my temple clothes, had also gotten permission from the Recorder to escort us all the way out to my car in the corner of the parking lot.

Switch that up into an answer from God? Life is still probably going to be painful. Maybe even excruciatingly so. I'm going to mess up. Fall. Get hurt.

But.

Even if I make mistakes, even if I stumble and fall, God is going to be there, beside me, the entire time. He'll be supporting me. Caring for me. Walking beside me.

So I got my answer.

Addiction Recovery Program

I went to an addiction recovery program meeting. My first one for me. I've been a couple times in the past - helping to support others in their addictions - but never for myself. Never for real.

The Addiction Recovery Program is based on AA - Alcoholics Anonymous - and is run by senior missionaries for the Church. At its core, the program is simple: weekly anonymous support meetings for those looking for healing, help, and hope. It follows 12 steps, just like AA, but approaches the addiction recovery process from a gospel perspective that takes advantage of a relationship with God and Church support.

But it's more than that. It's an opportunity to be open, honest, and candid with others who get it. It's an opportunity to listen to the miracles that happen in the lives of other people and to see the hand of God touch them. To get help. To feel belonging.

I was stressed about which meeting to choose. Going to the church website for addiction recovery program meetings (https://addictionrecovery.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng) was overwhelming. There are roughly 6 types of weekly meetings:

1. For both men and women
2. For men
3. For women
4. For family members
5. For men, specifically for pornography
6. For women, specifically for pornography

I found one for men & pornography at a time and place not far from where I live. I didn't know what to expect, so I emailed the coordinator and he gave me some basic directions. Introduce yourself with just your first name, don't feel obligated to say anything.

I got there a few minutes early and waited in my car. The room was changed, but easy to find... so I was the first one there. 

Meetings are built on both anonymity and trust - something I want and understand, so I'm definitely not going to go into detail about people or the things they shared. 

But my personal experience hit me.

We had an opportunity to share something positive in our lives - a tender mercy - if we wanted to. We read the 12 steps, then read the details of one specific step a paragraph at a time. Some people shared their thoughts on the step itself. Then we moved into the sharing portion, where we had the opportunity to share our own experiences.

And this is where it hit me.

>>>

Hey. My name is David.

The other guys: "Hey David."

I'm a recovering addict, from X.

This is day ###.

(Claps from the other guys)

And then I was able to honestly talk about me. My life. My issues this past week. The up, the down, the places I saw God and the places I struggled. Without fear of anyone thinking I was weird. Without fear of someone getting angry because I hadn't shared before. Just simple acceptance from a group of strangers who will be there next week to cheer me on.

Thanks I'm David

"Thanks David"

I didn't know what to say about my addictions. I wasn't really sure of the definitions, or the days, and to be honest I felt inadequate and alone.

I didn't know anyone. I wasn't sure of myself. But as I listened and watched and felt, I felt something there in that room that has only rarely happened before.

I felt like I belonged.

Here's a handful of guys who want God in their lives. Who are willing to own up to their inadequacies and sometimes talk about them. Who have their own lives, their own struggles, their own motivation, but once a week they come together into a room and bare a piece of their souls, "This is Day 1," or like the guy who did a 5th Sunday Meeting in my ward, "This is day 3000 and something."

There was something powerful there. A sense of camaraderie, a sense of hope, and the simple presence of God there reminding us all that He cares. It's the feeling I've always craved from Elder's Quorum and other meetings. 

Complete safety. Complete belonging. Completely someplace ok for me to be me.

I don't know anyone in the group. And anything they said, like most everything people say thanks to autism, disappears from my memory overnight. But there is something powerful about the fact that I can come again a week later, and see some of the same faces. Listen again to their lives, applaud the hope they have for themselves, be there for them and them for me. I find myself hoping that all of us will be able to add more days to our counts and wanting to keep them in my prayers.

They'll probably never read this. But thanks guys, for being there for me.

And to any of you here at (G)MG. Anyone who has ever lived with addiction - whether it's pornography or sex or video games or anything at all, far in the past or still in the present - I'll make a rare invitation.

Try it.

You don't have to be a member of the Church. You don't have to be a faithful member of the Church. You don't have to commit to going every week. You don't have to say anything at all. 

But try it.

Look up a meeting online. Find one close to you, or find one that offers videoing in if that isn't possible (I saw some offered that). Email the coordinator if you're stressed about it. Download the Addiction Recovery Program manual on the Gospel Library app, or get one for a couple dollars at a distribution center. Go, for yourself, and really be present.

And hopefully, your experience will be like mine... and you'll find a place where you can be yourself, surrounded by people who can support you week after week, in a place where God resides.

Ask Him for Miracles

 Is it ok to just write here? I think it is, right? Sometimes I worry about writing the "right" thing. Something that's meaningful, impactful, something that can reach out and be worth your time.

I guess I worry about you a lot. The people who find (G)MG and spend your moments here reading. Something made you come here - whether it's something as light as wanting to hear about my life... or as deep as wanting hope and help and perspective and hoping that something here will somehow help.

And then I feel inadequate.

I mean, right? Who's kidding me. If you get anything from reading here, it probably has nothing to do with me.

So.

Tonight I'm just writing. I'm not going to promise to write more regularly. I am trying to write more, as a coping mechanism for some of the messes inside my head. But I'm not going to make a promise only to forget about it and then break it and not feel bad until I remember it sometime somewhere far in the future when I think about making it again. Some of my thoughts, some of my hopes. 

This week I felt... dead. Different from depression. When I'm depressed, I feel bad about myself. But this time my emotions disappeared completely, and I felt like there was nothing inside me. On the upside, all the bad emotions that have been holding me down disappeared for a day as well. No anxiety, no... anything. So I worked out at the gym. I talked with my parents about the issues in my life for the first time in a long time. My mom knew a therapist from her ward who was able to give references and I'm going to start therapy again. Well, at least try again after going through maybe 15? 20? therapists in the past and feeling a disconnect with all of them. Simply finding someone who can communicate with me, and get where I'm coming from... I don't have high hopes, but then again you can find meaning in the most unreasonable places. That's what (G)MG is right? So why can't I find a therapist that works for me in the same way? 

I started taking supplements and at least one of them gave me crazy dreams and anxiety and insomnia. So maybe I should take it in the morning. Except I designed it to be taken at night. So I'm gonna try it for a week and see if it keeps happening before I switch it up. I don't want to take a slew of pills so it's just 3. A combination supplement with Ashwagandha and other stuff that my family business sometimes makes. Omega 3 krill oil. NACET. It's ironic that I designed supplements so long ago and have the most issues of anyone I know and yet I don't take them regularly. I think it might be the NACET that gives me crazy dreams.

But I also had a conversation with God. Like a real conversation. I talked to Him and told Him everything. That I felt so lost. That I wanted something to be a guiding goal. That I felt so messed after feeling like I had lost the central aspect of my faith. Twice during the conversation someone knocked on my door. Just to tell me they loved me. That only happens when I have intense conversations with God. Yes God, I know You're there. And that You love me and want me to get the message. I knew it already. It's not like I forget. I think. But even You sometimes make a show of love. Like a knocking door in the middle of the night.

We talked, and I thought about what I would want, if I could have anything. Truly Anything anything. If God could do a miracle, or a dozen miracles, what would fix my soul? What would fill my heart?

And I thought of what I want.

It's a lot.

It's more than I have ever felt like I could ask for before. Partly because it's more than I've ever seen someone have. And more than I could ever accomplish in a handful of lifetimes. I calculated, and playing with the stuff I've got, I'm pretty sure it would be tough.

So we talked. I asked God for a handful of miracles. And then I started to figure out what I should do on my side.

Reality: nothing I do will really make a difference when it comes to what I'm asking for. Saving a couple of cents will never bring world peace. That's the difference I see in scope.

But that's how my past conversations with God have gone. He asks me to be better. To push myself. To do things that I wouldn't normally do. To be a person that I wouldn't normally be. And He fills in everything else.

So I have a list of things I feel like I need to do. Stuff that, as soon as I asked God for miracles, I knew I had to do on my side.

And I'm doing them.

And I'm already seeing stuff.

I mean I went to a potluck tonight with like 800 people. I knew maybe 3 of them. I sat at an empty table, left to grab food, and when I got back there were a bunch of other people. And 4 of them have adult kids with autism. And wanted to talk about it.

Um.

Autism in 2000 was around 1:150. Which means in a group of 800, there are around 5 who are autistic, assuming they have half a dozen close family members, maybe 30 max would have autistic kids. That 4 out of those 30 would sit at my table, just by percentage... yeah I don't remember percentage calculations. 8 spots at the table. 100 tables. 799 people could sit next to me. There's less than a 30% chance that one would sit at the table... let alone one.

So as I tried to be social, I found myself surrounded by people who wanted to listen to me. Who gave me an easy role to play. Who asked me more questions than I wanted to answer, but who really wanted to know the answers. One of the roles I know, one of the things I can do. And, yet again, I knew that God cared.

Yeah.

I'm here. I'm trying. I'm wanting to be a better guy. I'm putting myself in the right places. And He's here right beside me.

I have to get confirmation on my goals before I share them here. I want to go to the temple and feel like they're ok to ask for before I put them on the internet. Before I tell all of you what I'm wanting. Because maybe it's what I've wanted for forever, but I haven't been willing to want it for real. Or maybe I haven't been able to believe it was possible.

And it probably isn't. Yet miracles happen , right? And if I've learned anything at all from my conversations with God, it's that I don't expect enough. I ask for little miracles. But not the ones that would change my existence forever.

So do it.

Whether you're me as a kid, looking for hope when you feel all alone, or me today looking for meaning and hope when everything feels lost.

Talk with God. Tell Him everything.

Commit to changing. To doing anything He asks.

And then ask Him for miracles.

There is Peace in Christ

My cousin's farewell was today. It brought back some memories of my own mission years ago.

I thought I was hot stuff as a missionary. I knew all the scripture masteries and felt I could easily teach about gospel subjects. I learned Italian faster than anyone else in my MTC group and was fluent enough to teach a lesson on the plane flying out.

Yet.

I was clueless.

I had little to no social awareness. I didn't understand interpersonal relationships, and I'm sure I dragged my companions through the pits of despair. I tried. But building a relationship with someone who forgets everything you talked about just two days prior is tough.

It's like building a sand castle with someone. You can make something beautiful, something meaningful, but it's also ephemeral and fleeting. I have to look in my copy of Preach My Gospel to remember the names of my companions, and find photos of them to remember their faces. And with the exception of a few moments, my memories of them are completely gone.

Realizing now that episodic and autobiographical memory issues are common in autism makes it easier for me and the people around me now.

But during my mission I didn't have that perspective.

And yet somehow it still worked out.

God still accomplished His work. Even through me - a broken, messed up, bipolar, autistic guy who, if I had been diagnosed beforehand, probably wouldn't have been allowed to even serve.

And that's the point.

God doesn't ask me to be perfect. He doesn't ask me to be ok. He doesn't ask me to be able to connect with everyone emotionally or be an amazing friend to everyone I meet. 

He just asks me to do my best, even if that is far less than the ideal I wish for. And that best is perfect. I am a part of His plan, meant to grow in the place I'm planted. The growth I experience, the messes I make - they're all part of the plan for me and the people around me.

There is peace in Christ. God knows me, He knows my needs, He knows the people around me, and life and all its circumstances is designed to help all of us come as close to Him as we can be.

Longing

There's a feeling that sometimes calls out to me. It's like a current that's cutting through my mind. And when it hits, it makes the world around me almost disappear, and I find myself unable to look away. It's like a pressure pressing down on my heart and lungs and soul, like a hidden fire that wants to be set free. Yet it's also like a calmness - like an ocean wave that's heavy, dark, and deep - and I know that if I fall inside I'll never get out. Or maybe I'm already in it.

It's a feeling that brings an odd clarity of mind, like the moment before depression's going to hit. It gives me a chance to my laundry when I had no desire at all, or it gives me space to go work out when I had no plan to. Or tells me to stop and write when there was no reason to write at all.

It's a feeling of loss as if my soul has been carved out. As if I'm missing something that was part of me once before. It brings a sense of urgency - that I'm supposed to be *doing* something. That I should *be* somewhere. That I should be writing, or working, or moving, or doing something more. 

It's a feeling of loss. A feeling of wishing, for that something to return. As if I just were immersed in a storyline and got ripped out, but worse. A feeling that makes me feel alone in a massive world. It's a feeling that, once it settles in, is on the verge of hopelessness... as I realize the pain has only started to begin.

I call it longing. Yearning. It's a feeling beyond the hold of my ability to disconnect. In most cases I can separate what seems like logic and emotion. I can process feelings separately when the time is right. 

But with longing, somehow, nothing else exists.

There is no other feeling. There is no other thought. It's as if my life and history stop for just a moment and they're gone, and I'm alone with longing, unable to tell exactly what is wrong or if it's even wrong at all.

In the years that I've felt longing, I've fought a war within my heart. I've tried to drown it or to bury it, or tear it apart. I've tried to figure out what it is telling me, to follow if it's asking me to move or do or be or try something new.

And I don't think it is.

I've tried connection with others. I've tried falling in love. I've tried indulgence in the worst way I knew how. I've tried reading, writing, service, temple worship, prayer, exercise, supplements, or healthy eating. But everything I tried, whether good or bad or in between, did nothing to staunch the feeling. Sometimes they could cover it up. Sometimes they could pull my mind away. Sometimes they could even bring me peace. But deep down inside, in the core of my soul and being, it is always there. Always waiting. Always existing, never changing, unwilling to move no matter what I do or think or try.

I don't really think I understand longing. But I'm most inclined to think that maybe longing is just a feeling that comes from ripping my soul away from heaven. A side effect of both being alive... and glimpsing or imagining, somehow, the fulfillment that comes from Heaven. Maybe since my mind's so broken I can feel it every now and then - a desire in my soul to go home. It would make sense if that's the case. Though the thought that there could be a feeling that transcends mortality - like pain or longing of the soul - makes the science part of me cringe a bit inside, that could be used to partially explain why it seems to override the presence of other feelings or thoughts. Maybe?

Maybe it's something different. But like I said, I've tried a hundred thousand things. And while love, connection, success, growth, learning, and service all bring me peace, they don't really interact with longing. 

Or at least what I call longing.

Timeskip

One of my least favorite plot devices used to be the time skip. In a written setting where time seems to flow consistently, a sudden change in the flow of time makes it easy for me as a reader to recognize that I'm an outsider. It breaks the immersion and makes me wonder "exactly what happened?"

Sometimes time skips are because an author simply wants to skip ahead to the good part. Sometimes they hide crucial details to a twist in the story that will be shown later on.

In my case, there were a number of things. 

When the prophet asked us to focus on Christ in all references to the Church and our faith (by changing all references to Mormon / LDS to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) I felt sorta lost. The focus makes sense. Jesus Christ is the center of my faith, and I want everyone who finds (G)MG to know that. But my naming sense is awful. And it seems like the trend is to either put the whole name in it - like the change from lds.org and mormon.org to thechurchofjesuschrist.org - or to remove the references completely - like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square or LDS Newsroom to just Newsroom. I don't want to remove references to my faith and just have my blog be called (Gay) Guy. But I don't know how to change it. And writing a blog called (Gay) Mormon Guy without changing the name makes me feel uncomfortable. So that's one reason.

Another reason is that (G)MG had always been about my own personal experience. One guy's interpretation of his pathway in life and his efforts to get back to Christ. I think one reason that was so easy was that my life was mostly just about me, or me reaching out. But for a while my personal experiences intertwined with other people. Which meant that the ups and downs of my feelings were about those circumstances. And while my feelings about people are valid, I felt like those belonged in a journal... rather than being posted online. I felt like if I shared my honest feelings, they would make the problems even bigger than they were.

But the main reason? It was probably because of pride.

I was a mess. (G)MG has always been my place to show my progress moving forward to God. It's a part of my "good guy" identity - the story I would write to myself if I were younger, facing the problems that I've already seen. And there are some things that I didn't want my younger self to experience.

I don't think a time skip was the right choice. It would have been a better help to chronicle the mistakes I made as I made them, or at least to share my own feelings. It could have helped me be more honest with myself and helped me change earlier. I'm sure that writing itself would have helped in that case, and if it happens again I'll start a random anonymous blog again.

But time skip it was.

One flashback. Since Covid started I've spent a lot of my free time reading. I went to Japan with my little brothers in January of 2020 for a business trip, and while I was there my little brother suggested an anime called Infinite Dendrogram. It didn't have enough episodes (2) to sate my curiosity, and in my search to understand, I discovered the world of syosetu - the online webnovel community. It's a community of gazillions of people all embracing a writing style that matches mine, but in fiction - episodic adventures written as time goes on. Syosetu (syosetu.com) is a free online Japanese webnovel platform, and in Japan it's the most popular entertainment website bar none. Aspiring authors begin their journey on syosetu, where one in a million somehow becomes famous. Their webnovel gets picked up and turned into a manga, and if that manga is popular enough, it turns into an anime.

That's where I learned to hate and also appreciate the time skip.

So today I'm at church. It's been a time skip. And the easiest way to explain what's happened in a webnovel is the ubiquitous status screen (for those who aren't familiar, a status screen is used in games or some types of novels to show the growth or status of a character using numbers. In a growth-oriented system, strength, dexterity, agility, perception, intelligence and/or any other characteristic can be turned into numbers to compare the character with others and to show change from the past).

Physical Strength: my physical strength is less than it used to be. It's been almost two years since I went to the gym regularly. I can't run far without being breathless; I can't lift as much as I could; I'm not happy with my body image.

Physical Strength Goals: I *want* to exercise more regularly, but the past few times I've quickly gone gung-ho into exercise I also quickly got sick or injured. I think that, instead of immediately trying to work out for hours each day, I'll go for a few minutes. Working out in the morning is best for me because it gives me a base to start.

Social Interaction: My social interaction is close to an all-time low. Being around my family causes me stress. Getting a text message or a phone call or an email causes me stress. I have almost no social energy, and find that I don't want to go anywhere or spend time with anyone. I'd rather curl up in a ball than do almost anything.

Social Interaction Goals: I want to be a reliable friend and family member, at least in what I can do. I recognize that social interaction is a struggle for me. I don't remember people's names, and it's easy to forget almost everything about them. I'm going to a ward mission meeting this Wednesday. I'm going to ward choir today. I'm planning to go to FHE tomorrow. They're decorating cookies, so I'll take a healthy cookie alternative and stuff I can decorate it with so that I'm not just sitting there. And I'll try to spend more time with my family. Also, I deleted personal social media apps off my phone a year ago. While it disconnects me from others, at the same time I think that it's a better choice. I don't see idealized photos or read picture-perfect stories, so I don't find myself longing for that or comparing it to my own life. (I do see that in novels, and it messes me up... but that's another story lol)

Spiritual Strength: This one is awful as well. For all the time I spent reading, scriptures were far less. My family reads the scriptures each night together though, which has been something that I have appreciated and loved. I don't have a current temple recommend and missed my sister's sealing, my brother's endowment, and my best friend's endowment because of that.

Spiritual Strength Goals: I'm meeting with my bishop today for tithing settlement. I'm committed to having a current recommend. I want to be a solid spiritual support for my family and the people around me, and for myself. I'm going to start focusing on kneeling prayers. Writing here is also a goal. I'm going to get back to God. I'm going to heaven with my family. And I'm going to be a faithful, happy, thriving member of the church here.

There's the timeskip. Maybe I'll write more moving forward. My status is low, but I'm facing forward... and for now that's enough to be ok.

Also. As someone who has blogged exclusively on an iPhone for over a decade, I'm glad that blogger *finally* has an interface for phones.

Gay and Faithful: Broken Roadmap

Being gay and faithful is simple from the outside. I don't have sex, try to be as awesome as I can be, and God will make me into an incredible human.

But there's a lot more to it.

Yes, as a guy attracted to other guys, I get powerful urges to be sexually active with them. The stereotype of gays as hypersexual is a broad generalization, but it's founded on indisputable evidence - many first dates in the gay community involve sexual activity, and there are accurate memes of gays waiting until the second or third date to trade numbers or share their real names.

But the real drive that draws me to men, and that has pushed me far outside my own comfort zone, has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with connection and love. Unlike my urge for sex, which waxes and wanes, my desire to truly connect with someone, to love and be loved, has slowly grown in magnitude until it sometimes becomes all-consuming.

And that's where the issue starts.

I'll be candid here. Befriending straight guys hasn't worked for me. My primary love language is touch, and my second is time... which means that both are central in allowing me to really feel connected with and loved by someone else. In in today's hypersexual society, touch between straight men almost doesn't happen. Touch between gay and straight seems to happen even less - the straight guy doesn't want to send the wrong messages, the gay guy doesn't want to send the wrong messages... and touch is the first thing to go. 

Perhaps men with other primary love languages find it easier to thrive, but in straight society I find myself caught between a rock and a hard place. I feel a mixture of draws: compelled to beg for connection, obligated to subdue my desire for it, afraid of the consequences for seeking it, pushed to seek it somewhere else.

I don't know about the experiences of other guys... but my desire for connection is overwhelming. When it hits hardest, I would readily trade my job, my savings, my health, and even my connection with friends and family for the kind of connection my heart thinks it needs. And I guess that makes sense - the Bible instructs a man and woman pursuing an ideal marriage, which is the epitome of connection, to forsake almost all else in order to truly be one.

Pitting the desires in my heart against one another, it's only a matter of time. If I'm unable to thrive on the scraps of connection begged from straight society, and unwilling to mark myself as a solitary martyr, I'll find myself drawn outside of my home in straight society into the gay.

But unlike my experience in straight society (and especially a religious straight society) where sex is a topic addressed by friends and family, in my experience in the gay world sex is often the beginning of the conversation. 

On the surface, the expectation for sex looks similar to the expectation in straight society: if a guy and girl fall in love, commit their lives to each other, and get married, then it's overwhelmingly likely that sex will be part of that.

In the straight world, however, intimacy comes before sex. It's fully possible, and often culturally encouraged, to save sex until after marriage, which means developing incredibly close, intimate bonds with someone and even pledging your life to them before being sexually active.

In the gay world, it comes after. 

The broad expectation in gay society is that I'll have sex with anyone if I really intend to get close to them. Before I get close to them. Friends are almost always friends with benefits. There are exceptions. But my overwhelming experience has been that, especially when mutual attraction is involved, sex is a gate, and intimacy and closeness are locked behind it.

Like I said at the beginning, being gay and faithful looks simple from the outside. I don't have sex, try to be as awesome as I can be, and God will make me into an incredible human. But if my desire to connect with someone overrides all other desires, and I can't find enough connection in straight society, then ultimately it will seem to come down to a choice between two options: 

1) Choose to not have sex, trust God, and live a life likely without love / deep connection with another person

2) Choose to have sex, develop love / deep connections with another person, and redefine / salvage my relationship with God

I know that God will love me no matter what I do. I don't know what the future holds, or how much my actions affect it. I also know that life can be absolutely miserable without connection, that "men are that they might have joy," and that relationships are the most important part of life.

Pulling all those apart, and faced with those two choices, it's not surprising that churches are seeing a hemorrhage of gay members leave their folds, or that some churches are redefining their doctrine to allow sex between men. Few people want to mark themselves as solitary monks, and none make that journey without developing an indomitable force of will over a lifetime... and even the most faithful religious leaders would be reticent to preach a solitary life as the golden standard that will lead to eternal happiness.

And so, while people's faith and will hold them, they live lives as quiet, closeted, struggling martyrs. They find meaning in their faith. They do incredible things. They believe. Many probably hope, as I once did, that by showing enough faith God would intervene and do some kind of miracle to make it all better. Or at least easier.

And when their faith gives out, or the desire for connection grows intense, many end up leaving the churches they once loved. Not because they don't believe it, but because their imperfect faith, or society at large, has failed them and left them feeling they have nowhere to go. Suicide seems a viable option to end the pain, and their religion - which promised eternal happiness and salvation at the price of faith - usually takes the biggest hit.

Back to my story.

Like many other people, my life has more than one problem. Being gay is only a subset of the circumstances in my experience. Over the years I've fought and lived with bipolar depression, autism, major anxiety, crippling fear of abandonment, and major memory loss. Each of those, by itself, has categorically crushed me, destroyed my psyche, left me reeling, and pushed me to the brink of death and despair.

Unlike being gay, though, for those conditions there was no way out. There was no temptation I could give in to that would make my life temporarily bearable. No journaling or introspection or therapy that could make it better. No action that would dull the pain. 

Nothing that could help. 

Which meant that, in my darkest hours, when family, friends, and life itself failed me, I turned to God.

And I found Him.

And my relationship with God is the one thing I am not willing to give up in exchange for a relationship with someone else. Everything else is on the table; I'd move to Australia and be a nomad in the desert if I had to; but my relationship with God, and the things He asks of me, I choose to put first.

I think one of the reasons that religious leaders may be loathe to preach a solitary life as the standard to uphold is that God is not usually a solitary God. In almost all cases, He expects me to reach out to others, develop friendships, and find meaningfully mutual experiences. Yes, I believe He teaches that sex leads to happiness only between a married man and woman. He doesn't bar me from love.

But that's as far as doctrines go.

Right now the thing I feel missing most in my life being gay and faithful is understanding where I'm trying to go. If I were straight, I'd be moving toward an eventual marriage. But I'm not. Which means that I literally have no idea what it is I'm supposed to do next. I'm sure this is a great learning and growing experience, but it's also candidly ugh.

Just two examples:

There is no doctrine on celibate partnership - a committed, romantic non-marriage relationship between gay men or women where both commit themselves first to God and don't have sex. It's a popular option in some Jewish and Christian circles.

The doctrine on appropriate boundaries of intimacy simply instructs people to follow the guidance of the Spirit, which can protect in countless unnamed situations, but can also make it difficult for people who aren't used to the Spirit. Leaving things open to personal interpretation also doesn't cover messy cultural discrepancies - example: if it can be good (since stuff is either good or evil; there isn't an in-between) for an unmarried guy and girl to kiss while they are dating, what does that say about two guys who are falling in love, who also plan to stay sexually pure? Regardless of culture, there isn't currently any solid doctrine on questions like that, which can make it difficult from both a social and personal standpoint to develop intimate relationships that are also within the bounds of faith.

There's no resolution in this post. Sorry. And the fact there isn't any amount of clear resolution is, I think, a core reason of why we are losing people. I'm sure it'll come someday; in the meantime this is what I've got to work with.