The Instagram algorithm constantly shows me artfully designed posts portraying the journey of healing and grief, how it is not linear. I saw one the other day that had a feminine figure traveling along the line of a rhythmic heart beat. There were several upward angles, then there were a few big dips, some short flat lines that would characterize what it is like to live with grief. It's a friend I've welcomed. I initially resented grief because of the pain that inevitably rears its head, but if there is anything I have learned in the past five years traveling this tumultuous road, it is that grief and its accompanying anguish and sorrow is proof that I have loved deeply. That to love is the greatest risk in life.
I have often talked about the grief of losing my brother to suicide, the instant and agonizing heartbreak I felt when I got that phone call and every month that followed the despair I felt watching his casket lowered into his final resting place.
Grief is often felt when there is loss. Generally, it is associated with the death of a loved one. But grief is more broad than that. There are no limits to grief. When there is love in a relationship, for a community, a career path, a home, grief settles in on the sidelines, waiting for the moment something comes to an end. You break up with your significant other. You leave a beloved community. The career in which you once found much satisfaction just hasn't been enough for you lately, so you quit. You are forced to reckon with a decision to leave your home and start over somewhere new, possibly foreign and unknown. Grief makes its move.
So it was when I had a moment of reckoning with the church and realized my heart wasn't in it anymore. I couldn't get it to beat to the same rhythm no matter how hard I tried. I have been through all the stages of grief in my faith journey: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The funny thing about grief is that there really isn't a destination. One cannot simply go through each stage, wrap their grief up in a tidy little bow, and be finished. It's an endless road comprised of twists and turns, the scenery fields of wildflowers, muddy puddles, rocky terrain, deep trenches. You could be in the most beautiful setting, but while you're not looking, you stumble into a ditch.
I have come so far in my faith journey through setting boundaries, maintaining relationships with people who remain in the church, feeling more at peace and less in constant anger. But no matter how well I'm doing, there are still moments where I find myself in the anger stage. Grief is not linear.
I believe the question people wonder to themselves isn't necessarily why I feel anger, but instead, why I choose to express my anger when I feel it? Is my intention to harm members of the church? Why can't I just keep it to myself?
This answer is easy. Bottling up my feelings makes me feel worse. When I feel worse, I'm bound to explode. When I acknowledge my anger about something I heard or saw about the institution I once found myself in love with my whole heart, I write. I have to write. I have to share. I want people to know why I hurt. I want people to know why I ache.
Why I rage,
Why I cry,
Why I shake.
Because when we feel we are acknowledged, seen, and heard, we can continue to make strides in our healing. The raging sort of anger begins to subside and transforms into the righteous kind. We feel less inclined to find reasons to be angry with the church day in and day out and instead feel anger when necessary, when we feel called to protect someone, to defend them.
General Conference weekend was hard. I tried my very hardest to keep myself in the dark about what was said, to allow members to relish the peace I know was felt during many of the addresses. But the moment I saw active, Queer Latter-day Saints reeling from some hurtful things shared over the pulpit, my heart ached. It continues to ache. When my heart aches, I speak. I speak because words carry power to connect, to inspire, to heal, to change. I cannot speak for everyone in the ex-Mormon community, but I know that many of us do not have the intention to destroy the church, but rather to improve it so that everyone can truly thrive.
Because when you've loved something so fiercely...deep down, all you want it the best for it. That's what I want. I feel anger, sorrow, hurt, sometimes even laughter at things I used to do, because the church used to be the biggest part of my life. I loved it. I found community with the people in it. When my brother died, my life changed. I changed. Things that didn't matter before began to matter to me. I began to see people for who they are and not for who they should be in order to be accepted. I was told to be careful, that I was heading down a dangerous path.
Eventually, it became too much for me to stay when the church I loved didn't seem to love me back. I felt othered. Walking away allowed me to question the things I had stashed away. Had there been more people in my corner, ready to hear me, ready to stand with me instead of change me and demand I be a certain way if I considered myself a members of the church, perhaps my entire belief system would never have imploded. Two years later, I find myself comfortable with the unknown and all the possibilities it has to offer.
While I am thankful for where I am now, I still grieve my life in the church. I grieve my community. I grieve believing I had the absolute truth. I grieve the relationships I lost because of the path on which I've found myself. I grieve the lens through which I saw the leaders I loved. If I were offered the opportunity to unsee what I have seen, I would be tempted to snag it.
That grief I feel leads me to speak when the heat has them bubbling. It's a different kind of fire in my bosom, but it burns nonetheless. We all have something we want to say. Imagine what kind of relationship we could foster between members and former members if we could open our ears to hear, and our hearts to truly listen.
