I am not responsible for the burden of anyone's thoughts but mine. If I wear a tank top, it's because it's hot and I like how I look. It's because I get a rash under my arms if I sweat and rub too much under fabric. It is not because I think someone is going to look at me and think I am sexy. It is not because I am rebelling against anyone or anything. It is not because I am an agent of Satan.

They are just shoulders. My legs are just legs. It's just a body. It's only sexual if you tie those parts of me to sexuality, which in all reality and according to my experience has been done to about every part of my unfortunate gender's body.

How is it my responsibility to guard your thoughts against my body's mere existence? How am I supposed to have grown up a healthy, functioning member of society when all I've been taught about my body is that it's a mishmash of parts I can't touch or look at or explore or even learn to control for myself, let alone let other people see? How could I possibly be confident if it has been constantly stressed upon my young mind that it is my responsibility to cover myself lest I be looked at or molested or, god forbid, turn someone else's thoughts to sex as if they had no control over their own mind? If YOU teach YOUR son that a girl's exposed shoulders or legs or midriff are bad because they are sexual, if YOU teach them, through word or example, that those women are to be looked down on or scorned for the way that they dress, how can you expect them to respect the choices of any woman in their life? How can you expect them to learn to control themselves when they are inevitably thrust into a situation with a "provocatively" dressed girl? It isn't okay that my brother and male cousin can go sleeveless in their youth without being called out by teachers and parents, while my exposed shoulders would have gotten me shamed publicly by school officials and scolded by my parents. Nope, not okay.

I am so sick of feeling ashamed of my body. I was extremely "modest" as a young woman. I shamed other girls in my mind for wearing clothing that I personally deemed too low cut or too short. I thought less of them, while deep inside I held a burning jealousy for the confidence they had in their exposed skin. I hated my skin, just like I'd been taught to, and I hated that I hated it. Sometimes I worry that I will never stop hating it.

I take responsibility for the poor judgments I made of others. I have finally begun to take charge of and responsibility for my own thoughts, and I think that's a step in a wonderful direction. I feel better now than I ever have in my life, and I plan on continuing this transition into reality.

I fully expect other people to police themselves, including their own bodies, thoughts, and actions. I won't scoff at ideals that differ from mine so long as those ideals are not forced upon me. I refuse to force my perception of freedom upon anyone else, because the meaning of freedom differs for each person. I will not, however, continue to be silent on the matter of my personal freedoms being scoffed at through dirty looks or back-handed comments. I'll stand up for myself.

I absolutely will not take responsibility for your son's salvation. His thoughts are his, and to be healthy he needs to own them and to acknowledge that they are only up to him. Not my shoulders, back, cleavage, midriff, thighs, knees, or ankles, for that matter. A healthy adult recognizes that their actions belong only to them, and not the choices of their peers. By placing the burden of his decisions upon the shoulders of his peers, a culture of rape and sexual dysfunction is fostered and his personal progression is slowed.

Be an adult. Recognize that people have their own agency, and will inevitably dress differently than you would dress, or want your children to dress. In doing so you are freed to let go of unpleasant judgmental thoughts, self hatred, and self-shame. You are also freed to teach your children about true agency, about responsibility, and about the dangers of blaming others for their thoughts or choices. You can show them, through both word and deed, that they can learn to control their own minds. Your sons and daughters will be more likely to grow up confident, respectful, and kind. They will be much less likely to grow up hating themselves, their bodies, and their choices.

I am so much happier than I can ever remember being in my life. I care less about what other people wear, and I feel free to be myself in my own skin. Whether or not one chooses to dress according to a code of ethics, I have found that the most important thing is to monitor one's own life. It's less stressful, yields more positive social results, and strengthens personal relationships. Accepting personal responsibility is probably the single greatest thing I have ever done for myself.

I think it's important to remember that now, right this moment, will end. Time doesn't stop, it doesn't slow down. Precious and horrible moments alike will be done and gone before you even realize you're living in them. It's both torturous and wonderful to realize this. Every moment becomes beautiful. Every action or decision carries more weight with it, and yet becomes lighter. It becomes easier to move on, and each fond glance backward more enlightening.

Living in the moment is a fairy tale. Even if we sometimes manage to realize where and when we are and feel the gravity of it, we cannot possibly hold the thought in our minds without missing out on the moment at hand.

Sometimes I look back at days when I was more outgoing with fondness, and other times with disgust. High school had both good and bad moments, as did my experience at BYU-Idaho. I try to grasp at where I am now, and I realize that I'm not actually sure. I know that I'm trying to be the best person that I can be, though sometimes I fail. I can't pinpoint myself in the present. One day I'll be able to look back and put a label on this part of my life, like I can with moments passed.

For instance, I can tell you all about the theater moments in my life and the moments when I was closest with my group of friends. I can tell you about when I was story telling champion for my elementary school. I can tell you what it was like when I was in love with my first boyfriend, or what it was like when I began questioning my childhood beliefs. I can tell you about all of those times in my life, but I cannot accurately tell you about right now. Right now is as indefinable as thoughts are intangible. Somehow I find that I am not only okay with this, but I revel in it.

Right now, this indefinable point in my life, is whatever I create it to be with the decisions that I make. The most that I can hope for, that anyone can hope for, is to someday look back at right now, this small moment in life, with fondness.

I want to know.

This story is much too long to tell in detail without turning it into a novel, but I'll hit the basic points.

When I was a little girl I wanted to know everything, and for whatever reason, I wanted people to know that I knew everything. I was, what one might coin it, a sass. I told my mom what was what, I pestered people with millions of questions, I shared random facts picked up from Magic School Bus with even more random strangers, and I never, EVER, admitted that I was wrong without some good strong evidence. Sometimes not even then.

As I grew older I realized that I would never know everything, but I still felt the need to try. I became rather proficient in the art of inference, and I often came to the correct logical conclusion when it came to simple natural processes I observed in nature. I found-and still find-the natural world around me incredible.

However, I ran across a lot of things that I couldn't explain, and no one could explain to me. I wasn't phased by them though, because I knew that someday, when I died, I would find out. Whether it was sooner or later, I knew that I would meet my heavenly father and he would tell me everything. Or maybe I would suddenly just understand? Or maybe there were classes for the things science hadn't been able to tell us in this life in the one after. No matter which way, I knew that I didn't need to worry about the questions that were unanswered because someday I really could know everything.

That was my life for a very long time. About 75% of it, actually. When I was 16, things started to become shaky for me. I caught myself making excuses for my beliefs or writing off what seemed like perfectly sensical research, just because it didn't quite fit with what I had been taught from the very day I was born: That I was a direct spirit child of the one true god, and that one day I would meet him and be judged for my actions in this life. I was very good at making what to me were sound rationalizations for denying people rights, ignoring emerging data from legitimized research, and thinking harshly of other people to name only a few. I couldn't honestly bring myself to ask the all important question: "Am I right?"

I graduated high school with scars. I was confused and exhausted and why couldn't people just get along, why were we fighting wars that slaughtered droves of innocent people and how come my friends couldn't just be happy their own way and how was it right that god could have put people I love--put me even-- down on this earth with seemingly uncontrollable desires and passions that, if not painstakingly controlled for the duration of this life, would damn them to an eternity without the ones they love? How was it fair that habits that were ingrained in me as a child, before even the age of baptism, condemned me to an eternity of disappointment from my mother. I couldn't reconcile this in my head anymore as week after week my desire to control myself strengthened and week after week I failed at doing so. I couldn't tell my mother, I couldn't bring her more pain than life and I had already brought her. I kept it between myself and a bishop for years because I absolutely could not hurt my mother.

I left for college. I learned that the LDS church had finally come up with a way to reconcile evolution with my deepest religious convictions, and I was so incredibly relieved. I had kept it secret for years that I leaned toward believing the theory of evolution was true. I led the music in my singles ward. I tried to fit in, to get past the insufferable immaturity of some of my roommates, and to uphold relationships with the roommates that genuinely cared for me. But again and again I failed and I failed to control myself. I prayed and I prayed and I wanted with all of my heart to change. I didn't go to my bishop at BYU-Idaho. I couldn't face failing anymore to another human being. I thought that it could be, this time, between my god and I. He had allowed me to become this way, this horrible horrible wretch of a person, before the age of accountability, and I thought it was his responsibility to help me change. I failed. I couldn't do it anymore.

I came home. Home to beautiful Lehi, Utah and the cemetery to sing in like the failure freak that I was. I had failed to be friends with everyone in high school. I had failed my family at being the mediator they needed after the remarriage. I had failed myself and god and my mother time and time and time and time again and again and again. All I had was singing like a freak in the cemetery and going on lonely walks. Dramatic, I know.

I found a job. I was hired on the spot at my interview for Payless. I rose quickly and within six months was making 1.50 more than I had been before. All the while I was talking and connecting with people from different walks of life, realizing that these girls whose lives were ripe with mistakes similar to my own were, in fact, incredible people. I wore tank tops once in a while, guilt only manifesting when I was spotted by my mother. I felt free, like I was finding something real. Something that made sense. My church attendance declined.

I prayed, though. I prayed and read the Book of Mormon and asked and asked for help. I wanted to be clean. I continued to fail as I always had. When I prayed, repented, I felt dirty. I tried and tried to forgive myself, but you can only forgive someone so many times before forgiveness grows tiresome.

I got a new job. The Red Balloon Toy Store was opening again, and my favorite manager of all time wanted me to be her assistant. I jumped at the opportunity for a multiplicity of reasons, one of them being the guarantee of surrounding myself with people who were LDS. I was too close to falling away out of doubt and pain and the thought that there was goodness outside of the church.

I reconnected with Jonathan. Jonathan and I had always had fantastic conversations. I looked up to him. He inspired me to research and to push myself, to prize fact over feelings and truth over emotions.

This is when I really took a look, from the outside, at what it was that I'd believed my entire life. All it took was another person like me who wanted to be perfect, to know everything. I found that my beliefs, while beautiful and comforting, were built upon a foundation of deceit. The founder of the church I revered was shown time and time again to be a con man, no matter how I tried to dismiss these accusations as slander and hatred. Hatred is rarely borne of nothing. There was such obvious proof that the text I'd bound my life to had been falsified, even so obvious as the way in which the text was expressed. It wasn't even in the correct form of English for the time period, it was written to sound like The Bible. I tried to work my mind around that as well with thoughts like, "Maybe the Lord wanted the books to be similar in that way," or "Maybe this is just a test of faith." But then my research led me to The Book of Abraham and it's resource, a common funerary scroll that had absolutely nothing to do with Abraham, that had been translated from the Egyptian by those who could and which made absolutely no mention of the prophet. Again my heart turned to the possibility of Joseph simply using the scroll as a medium for the contents of the book, but my head knew that was quite a stretch. As counts of racism and plundering and polygamy and slavery came repeatedly to my attention, I realized just why my leaders had always warned me against seeking out these things: The farce was too plain. Some may be able to turn a blind eye and continue on in the church faithfully, but I knew that I could not. I could no longer ignore or reconcile the role of women according to the LDS gospel, either, nor could I bypass the research bringing to light the incredible power of the human mind to fabricate and believe false stories and events. To feel power and comfort from its own imagined sources. It was almost too much.

If I had not had Jonathan beside me, confused and hurting himself, I don't know that I could have gone on with my life. My entire family, millions of people, had been conned. I wanted to scream, to shout, to riot! I wanted to shake my mother, tell her she could be free of the burdens she carried. It was okay that she hadn't been sealed for eternity to a man, her dearest wish, even though she'd married two return Mormon missionaries. She could go and live her life and be free from all the hurt that reconciling her life with the church had caused her. I needed to apologize to my best friend for telling her I forgave her for having a girlfriend. I needed to let my dad know that I forgave him, that I understood that his life was hard and that it wasn't entirely his fault.

For a while, I couldn't. I couldn't tell anyone anything, because I couldn't bring myself to disappoint my mother, my friends. I couldn't admit to anyone that I'd been wrong my entire life, and I'd hurt people because of it.

I continued to research and to seek knowledge. I began to feel that not only my religion, but all devotion to and belief in deities or higher powers had the potential to harm. I apologized to Panda, reconciled with my father, married my best friend. I began to live.

I still cannot bring myself to talk to my mother about it. She doesn't understand that her love isn't enough. I need her to understand that I'm happy because I found the beauty in this world, this universe. I don't need god to dwell on Kolob, I don't need to feel like a monster because of things that happened in my childhood, I can be human. I don't need to become a god. I can't stand the thought of her suffering over me because she believes she will have to "come down to visit me" in the afterlife. Eventually she'll have to know, of course. Eventually she'll see me being my irreligious self and feel the pain of a mother who has lost her child.

This is why ex church members are angry. We are angry because we have been conned and tricked. Because this seemingly well-meaning church has torn our families away from us on the premise that we have apostatized and cannot live with them together forever. They believe we are spiritually dead, and the pain that our deaths causes our loved ones is unbearable. This is why I am angry. Of course I can't leave this alone! It would be irresponsible and unfair to my loved ones. This church, while it tells a seemingly love filled narrative, is the breeding grounds of judgement, pain, and hatred like any other faith. Because if you don't conform, you are damned by those who have. My mother, my beautiful, kind, intelligent, loving mother, is going to feel pain because I cannot deny myself the truth of the inconsistencies that I have found. We are not angry at god, we are angry at men and the pain and suffering they have caused by conning millions to believe that they are naturally dirty and vile. One cannot be angry with a being that one does not believe exists.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to know everything. I never will, but I can at least try to stand by what I do. I know that I love my family. I know that I want to be a good person. I know that this world needs work, and that I have to do my part to make it a better place. It's the only one that we've got. I know that, so far, there is no evidence for a god of any kind in this universe, and that major religion as it is practiced today has hindered the progress of our species. I know that animals deserve kindness, that they do not deserve the treatment we have given them. I know that all humans are equally valuable, and that discrimination based on race, sex, or orientation must be equally warred on. I know that whether or not there is god, I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make this world a better place for everyone, every creature, than it is right this moment. I know I will no longer lay down and hope for a better afterlife. I want to move forward.

I am agnostic and, for all intents and purposes, anti-theist. If there were a higher power, I think they'd be pleased with me. Not because I discriminated against minorities, went through archaic rituals, and prayed my entire life, but because I am trying to do good in the world and to make it a better place for everyone to be.

This life is all I've got. I'm going to do all the good that I can.

Shrapnel

Shards and bricks and pieces of things that I used to know float round me still.
They prick me at disquieting times, whispers audible as they brush and bruise my skin. "Return to us," they hiss, their voices peppered with embers glowing dimly from the violent explosions that have rocked my world in recent years. Obviously evil, yet terribly enticing. Familiarity is always enticing.
I suppose I'm in mourning for the life I once lived, for the foundation of supernatural knowledge I unwittingly lorded over fellow travelers, the one that supported my fragile and fatigued existence.
It was easy to believe that I knew everything, that the something that I had was the one and only true something. It was easy to believe that I was truly incredible in the scheme of the universe. I am, but now I know it's for more fantastic, wonderful, incredible reasons than I could have hoped to conceive upon my pedestal.
This particular moment of realization was the atom bomb to my fantastical foundation. That there could be a more pressing, wonderful purpose for life had never even crossed my previously distracted mind.

Star stuff.
Life in the freezing, churning methane oceans of a distant moon.
The lives of titanic, indestructible monsters on this planet, and then their sudden and very final  disappearance.
The consistantly astounding and ground breaking evidences of the power of the mind.
Sophisticated language in creatures here on earth that are not, in fact, human beings.
The ever increasingly clambering claws of society to keep it's control over equality and self worth.
The discovery of true humility.

These are the many things that have blown apart my entire world.
The shrapnel remains. It fades, if slowly. It does at least that much. But the ghosts of my pedistal taunt me almost always.
I want to know. I want truth. I want real love.
I will have no less.

I am not chocolate ice cream.

Maybe you clicked expecting something satirical along the lines of, "comparing women to frozen treats is a terrible and dramatic example of promoting unrealistic expectations."

While a piece that would be hipster and ironic, you may be surprised to learn that I have literally been compared to ice cream by another human being. It was an innocent comparison, I think. It was not meant to be demeaning or offensive. I wouldn't have been offended at all if the compare-er in question hadn't used it in an attempt to excuse himself from responsibility for his actions. Chocolate ice cream rules.

It was quite a while ago, but the words still ring in my head once in a while, late at night when they'll pester me most. Something along the lines of, "It's like a little boy who's allergic to chocolate, and it's his favorite flavor. He LOVES chocolate, but he can't eat it. It's bad for him." The quote isn't exact, but it's close enough to convey the message that came across to me: I was chocolate ice cream, I was bad for him, it was all my fault.

As a young lady--Nope, doesn't quite cover it... As a young perso--Still no. Hm... Welp, as a human being in this day and age, my body gets compared to a plethora of inanimate and emotionless objects. While not precisely useless, chocolate ice cream is incapable of thoughts and emotions(no matter what those darned vegetarians say), and therefore cannot be blamed for the boy making choices that might hurt him or the ice cream. Nor is it comparable to me as the living, breathing, emoting creature that I am. But that isn't the only time I've had my body compared to food.

I once heard that if I lost my virginity for whatever reason outside marriage, no one would want my cupcake.

Teacher:"See this cupcake?"
Youth: "Yes."
Teacher: "Who wants it?"
-everyone wants cupcake-
-teacher licks cupcake-
Teacher:"Now who wants it?"
Youth: "Um, ew?"
Teacher: "That's right. If you have intercourse outside of marriage, will the kind of man you want to marry want to marry you? The answer is probably no."

That's an extreme version of the story that I heard multiple times growing up, but it makes my point: I've been compared to dessert too many times in my life as it is.

When I was a child, I was molested. Yikes, I know. While the above lesson and others like it may have been well intended, they did a lot of damage to my self esteem as a child. I was dehumanized, so it is unsurprising that being compared to chocolate ice cream might strike a nerve.

Three specific thoughts here:

I am worth no less because I was taken advantage of, nor would I be any less of a human being if I had willingly participated in the sexual contact. My cupcake looks delicious, thank you very much. Also, I am not a cupcake, and my sexual exploits are not actually a good measure of my worth as a person.

Second, objects do not work well as a metaphor for humans or their relationships: Your actions are yours to own, and it's not the ice cream's fault that the boy is allergic to it. It's still delicious. It has no say in whether or not the boy will choose to be around it or not... Or if he'll try to sleep with it, then feel guilty and throw blame all over the place in the form of bad metaphors.

Finally, I'm a young woman, a human being. I am not chocolate ice cream.

The Ghosts Upon My Back

I want my wings.

I'm trying to climb out of this place,
This dark that has clipped and torn and pulled out my feathers.
Beautiful feathers woven of innocence and blind belief,
With quills of tear hardened resolve and a wingspan strengthened by how swiftly I've had to fly in order to escape reality.

I want my wings back.

The ghosts protruding from my back are weak and fallible.
They want to be wings, but wings lift you.
These useless things weigh me down, make me heavy.
I am heavy and I cannot climb out of this darkness.

I find menial hope here and there,
Reasons to wait through the dark night to greet the sunshine,
But my feathers grow back slowly.
They grow differently.
They grow with great determination, with wills I didn't know I had.

Wills for others outside of myself
Wills to be strong enough to lift them, us.
To give us hope.
Wills to lift myself,
To escape breezes made of pretty lies and forced morals.

I must climb out of this darkness.

My quills seem to come in more painfully this way, but I shoulder it.
Embrace it.

I must have my wings.

I need to fly out of this place,
This angry pit of shame dug by cons and tricks.
I was deceived into believing that the only way forgiveness can be given is to make payment,
To shore off wings, to sacrifice sons.

The feathers blossoming on these heavy ghosts of mine are pale gold
They are silver and rose colored
Brilliant and shining.
Strong.

I will fly again. I will have wings.

Wings borne, not of innocence, but of knowledge.

Wings strong enough to make me free.