I Stopped Believing in Forever

When every day hurts, you stop believing in forever. Wait, that was loud enough-

WHEN EVERYDAY HURTS YOU DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE IN FOREVER!

I can't think of one or more clustered-happy memory that makes up for the emptiness my mental illness leaves me. When people said the "good makes up for the bad" - They hadn't meet me....

There is so much culture in my ex-Mormon life style that runs deep, including the thought of forever. The idea that "families can be together forever" sounds appealing to most Christians. They jump on that shit, hard core. When sealed in the temple (marriage) your current and all future children are "sealed" to you for "all time and eternity". But those covenants- aka a two way promise between god and you- are only kept when you keep those promises. Divorce isn't part of the promise but it happen to my parents. That was when I was first confused about forever, I was told god would work things out in the end even though no one had any comforting advise to offer. And I believed it. Even though I doubted and then later hoped that my parents would never get back together; there were really weird loop holes in the Mormon faith regarding marriage. And most of them were pretty sexist. (men can request temple divorces, but women can't, the only way for a women to get a temple divorce is to remarry in the temple to another man. A man can have multiple wives, but a woman can't have multiple husbands- alive or otherwise) It grew to a point I didn't want anything to do with my family and truly hoped I'd never see them in the eternities. But how do I break a contract I was written into, when I wasn't the benefactor?

It then continued to "Where did I want to be when I died, if not with my family?". This is a popular religious ideology that is meant to guilt, shame and control your actions to live a specific way now and be promised something 'greater' later. My mental illness has taught me that nothing is worth this pain and life burdens. Even though for many years I told myself it would be worth it. It had to.

#Woke

Slowly the Mormon belief system became vile and self sabotaging with who I wanted to be. I was living it because other people around me wanted me to. After all not drinking/using drugs/lying/cheating/stealing and wearing modest clothing were a very popular and society praised things. And in western Maryland so was being racist and bigoted towards the LGBTQIA community. Indeed some of those things are healthy & lawful choices. It had only helped me being a private nanny to say I was Mormon, All about family and children. It was who I was. It was what I choose stay for so long. It was my identity. But those aren't the only things Mormons did or believed. It eventually hurt too much to stay. I was lying to myself, it wasn't me anymore. My sexual sins were just something I told myself I will deal with when I come face to face with god on judgement day. Until then god can mind his business. I was knowingly choosing to live a "telestial life". Which is the lowest degree of heaven in Mormon beliefs. I believed god wouldn't create a life for humans that is so unbearable that they would kill themselves....

And I was right, he wouldn't, because god isn't real. And my faith disappeared.

There simply is a bunch of un-mormoning I've got to do with my life. Every time I open a door there is another thing I need to heal, unlearn or do better at. Most trauma came from my family, and not the Mormon church. But today while picking a topic to blog about I thought about the concept of forever.

Moving now to the "forever" possibility in relationships..... It's rare, very rare. This is coming from the girl who's great-grand parents had 73 years of marriage and died within 3 months of each other in their 90's. Buts also the daughter of divorce. My mother is on her 3rd abusive marriage. And countless other close loved ones divorcing. People change, people grow out of love, people die, and we move on. Nothing is forever. And I think that is beautiful. It's not just okay, it's a part of life. Learning to love the new things and change is a skill. This moral code that we can only be with or love one person at a time is complete rubbish. Love is expressed in many ways. Not just romantically and intimately with sex; which seems to be the biggest hang up with in religion. Some of my asexual peers don't ever want sex in their lives and want multiple lovers in their life. *gasps* You're shamed for choosing not to have sex and you're shamed for having it unless it meets a specific requirement of marriage.

Essentially there aren't enough good things happening to me to want that something to last forever. After all my perfect weather day is someone else's mediocrity. Speaking of perfection.... the Hebrew word for perfect is actually better translated to "growth, completion or mature" For example the tree is a "perfected/mature/complete" form of the seed. Jesus was the complete form and example for humans. bla bla bla Without getting too far off topic- we give meaning and power to the things in our life. Words, events, religion, you name it! Our bodies play a role in our enjoyment or distaste and help form opinions on the things in our life. When happy hormones like serotonin, dopamine and Oxycontin tell you something feels good. So when you do something and you like it- odds are you are going to do it again. Where as you do something and it don't like it, you probably won't, Unless maybe you were conditioned to like something, and then out grew it. You shouldn't have to be shamed for being different. This is all to say your brain is functioning properly to begin with, and mine isn't.

Forever isn't appealing to me. Be with me for now, in this moment, it means so much more. If it happens to continue for a while, fantastic. But nothing lasts forever.