Certainty From The Place Of Least Inspection

I'm going through a lot right now, and by "a lot" I mean more than I could articulate. There are days when I feel like I'm on a roller coaster and when I'm feeling so much that my heart feels like it's beating out my chest and shooting through my finger tips. My emotions are raw right now and I'm feeling exhausted from all that there is to think about and process.

In this moment I am devistated. I miss having my best friend with me and I miss seeing her and laughing with her. I can't believe that we're no longer married. My mind is in shock and I feel such an intense loss from this experience. I could go on and on at how amazing she is, at how lovely and beautifully she lives her life. I'm grateful for all she has given me and all she is. I just miss her so much and it hurts more than I ever thought it would. The pain is sometimes too much.

I'm lonely and I'm tired and I'm wanting answers in all of this. I'm grasping for some semblance of truth and any reflection I can find of assurity. I am clinging to myself for dear life and I'm holding on to the only certainty that I feel...I know that I exist. I know that I feel and I know that I am alive. I feel it I see it and I am appreciative of the fact that I have that small truth in my life. For this moment I have me and I am me. I can see the world and experience the world, and the only thing that is truly real about it is myself, because through my eyes and my body I embody truth.

My emotions, my struggles, my bordeom, my confusion, my angst, my loss, my fear, my anger, my euphoria, my sighs, my itch, my toes, my gaze, my intent, my patience, my longing, my triumph, my dissapointment, my sounds, my steps, my chills, my cries, my whispers, my rage, my contentment, my reasoning, my peace, my love, my tenderness, my grief, my kneel, my introspection, my pull, my gestures, breath, my frown, my goodness, my zeal, my presence, my karma, my grasp, my laugh, heart, my experience, my memory, my time...

I use to live in a way that caused me to surrender every peice of myself in order to survive. Part of why I loved the Church so much is that it told me exactly what to do and how to do it. I was expected to do certain things a specific and exact way. I was taught to be something concrete and specific and I knew that I was expected to think a certain way and behave in a certain way. My motto was: "please tell me what to do or I'll end up being myself." And that was the way I lived my life. I had to have my parents and peers tell me how to live and how to think, because otherwise I was affraid that I'd end up being who I really was. If you think about it, it's pretty terrifying for a gay Mormon boy to think about the prospects of being himself and feeling safe in his own true skin.

It's hard enough standing out by not liking sports or being interested in talking about hunting and cars, let alone admitt to everyone around me that I didn't like girls. And the Church provided such a safe haven from myself. I was protected from my own skin, from my own desires that when I was aksed what I wanted to eat or what movie I wanted to go to I couldn't tell you because I was committed to being someone I wasn't. The more I asked myself what I truly wanted and the more I looked within myself to find answers, I was finding that who I was deep down inside wasn't who the Church wanted me to be and who my parents wanted me to be.

And now I find myself in the opposite camp. All I have is myself. I'm alone and I'm standing on nothing but me. I'm truly aware now of all that's inside me and I'm more than connected with what I want to get out of life and even though it's scary and foreign I see myself reaching higher than I ever thought I could. I'm sometimes so happy looking at my own skin that I have the impetus to kiss myself and hug myself. I know what it's like to feel good in my own skin. And it's not about coming to understand who I am, but it's about embracing my inner strength and looking at the beauty that is truth and that is certain truth. I am me and that's all I can be certain of. And all that's left is uncertainty, and I'm ok with that.