Butterfly Wings

 I haven’t written in a while. There has been a reason for that: I had some parts of myself that I was becoming aware of that I wasn’t ready to share with the world. Things I was keeping hidden because I didn’t know how to handle them myself, much less how I could expect others to react to them. Things that have been part of me for a while. But, recently, I decided to come out. I am queer. I currently identify as pansexual and non-binary, but as most people in the queer community understand, those labels are transient ways of explaining how my experience is different. When people talk about how “those labels aren’t the most important part about you” they don’t seem to understand that we get that. Those labels are a way of trying to build community and explain our experience, and nothing else.  But I digress. As most of you know, I have picked a new name to go by: Jay. I chose this name, because it has deep meaning for me. A Jay is a type of butterfly, a beautiful black one wit...

 My spouse and I live with roommates. It’s been great, because we get along well, and it’s like having your own support system that you live with. We like to drive to church together, but as we are all young adults getting there on time can be what I like to refer to as “a struggle bus.” Our struggle bus was having a hard time yesterday morning, and we made it to church halfway through the sacrament while the bread was being passed. As the prayer on the water was being said, I resigned myself to not getting the sacrament this week, because we hadn’t gotten the bread yet. Then, I deacon came over, holding a tray with both bread and water. In that moment I felt seen. I felt like God saw my efforts and accepted them, even as they weren’t perfect. 

There has been a lot of drama at BYU in the last couple of weeks. We have had people posting open letters on the doors of classrooms, protests outside the Wilkinson center, people handing out flyers outside devotions, and people standing outside yelling their opinions. It's been stressful for the whole school, and it has put me greatly on edge. There are so many sides to the issues, and I have been feeling that acutely. Everyone wants to be right, and oftentimes they are not willing to listen to each other. People on both sides have been accusing each other of being bad Christians. I joined the protest on Wednesday, and it left me reeling a bit.  This is an unpublished and unfinished blog post from  March 2020. This was during the protests on campus, and during the time I finally came out to myself about my queerness. I just wanted to make it available to look back on. 

I feel like owning a car simply means that you will have problems with it. Not necessarily big ones, just little ones that need to be addressed. It can get a little frustrating for me as a new car owner and adult to learn that. Adult problems are weird because they are oddly convoluted and simple at the same time. For example, I've been struggling with the car locks on my door. I recently got a new key made so that my brother and I can more easily share the car. After we made the key, we learned that the car lock is jammed and doesn't work. On my car there is only one lock, and it's on the drivers side door. So, when it's jammed, there is no other way to get into the car except by using the car remote. Well, that was in the process of breaking, so not only are the keys useless for getting in, I was loosing the only way to get in. This last Thursday, it broke. And my car was locked. I had to call the locksmith to get in my car, and now have to take the lock in to get fi...

In high school I used to write in pencil. I was afraid of making mistakes, especially spelling mistakes, and I wanted to make sure I could always fix them. I loved erasers especially because they could make those mistakes disappear. I would often go back a fix my mistakes in notes I took from months ago. I would even write in my journal in pencil. Then, my senior year, I went back and looked a a journal that I had kept a couple of years ago. The pencil was fading and it was hard to read the words I had written when I was younger. I was upset, and I took it to my mom. She told me that pencils fade after a while, and that often something written in pencil would eventually fade away completely. I really took this to heart when I got to college and I changed my mind. I started taking all my notes in pen. I bought a pack of multicolored pens and I would take notes in a different color for each class. I would get pen all over my hands, and I had to cross out tons of stuff, but note taking ...

What is the answer to our greatest questions in life? Who am I? What am I doing here? How should I treat people around me? What is moral? What is the purpose of it all? These questions come to us all every day in different small ways. I ask variations of these questions to myself regularly. Right now, I am taking a class where we explore one of these questions and right a 15-25 page scholarly paper on it. So, these questions have been floating around in my a little more than usual. I guess since we have been finding scholarly sources for these papers, I have been looking for the answer to these questions in the world. I was realizing this week, however, the answer to these questions doesn't come from the world. I have found parts of the truth in good things like psychology, good books and movies, philosophy, politics, and other good ideas, but I haven't found much peace. Every time I think I've found it, I learn more about the idea, and realize that, while it has trut...

This last week moving back to school has been crazy. School hasn't even started yet and I'm already super busy. I have been unpacking, buying a car, applying for jobs, volunteering, applying for volunteer positions, going to doctors appointments, meeting with the bishop about being a temple worker again, and doing all the paperwork associated with getting two jobs. I feel like for every thing I do, two more things are created for me to accomplish. I have been running around a lot and it has been stressing me out. So, when two days after I bought my car three different warning lights came on, I was pretty ready to give up. Yesterday, as I was driving my roommate and myself to the grocery store, I was ranting about how stressed I was. I was so upset I started crying a bit. I was paying attention to the road, and I hadn't been driving very long, when I suddenly looked down at the dashboard. All of the warning lights were off, and my car was driving perfectly. I was stunned. ...