The Void Is Void

Anyway, what can I say? I'm gay, yo! I like dick. I felt incomplete when I was married to my wife, a void in my chest cavity was throbbing for me to fill it with an emotional connection with a guy. And I think about that often. This void, this incomplete feeling, a ferocious desire to have an intimate bond with a guy drove us to end our marriage. Was it my fault? I guess. Should I have filled the void with the sweet word of God? I knew you were thinking that!! Don't tell me that you weren't for a second like "well, Elbow should have just focused on his relationship with the Savior to fill that void!" Even if you didn't mean it, it still crossed your mind. And that's ok. It crossed mine too. And I thought about it and I don't think the Savior wants me filling that kind of a void with him. There are spiritual drives to be connected to a higher power and to a spiritual community, and there are emotional voids that need to be filled. I can't fit a square peg in a round hole, ya'll! Who am I talking to? Sorry if you feel like I'm yelling at you, I'm really not yelling, I'm just using a lot of exclamation points. I'm cool like that.

I've thought a lot lately about the relationship I have with the Church. Not the gospel, and not Heavenly Father, but my relationship with the Church and basically...I'm mad. Truthfully, my anger has no bite and it is really quite unthreatening. But I'll assure all of you that I'm not bitter, I'm happy. I'm really quite content at the place I'm at and the path I'm on. I know that God loves me and that some part of the Universe and the higher powers of the universe have unconditional love coming at me with full force. I feel loved and honored and respected for what I'm doing with my life. In fact I'm really glad that I was raised Mormon and I'm really glad that I don't feel like I have to believe everything that is being taught in the Mormon religion. And just today I was talking with someone about my mission and I was saying how much I loved it and I was thinking how funny it was that I don't go to Church, I don't wear my garments, but yet I have so much love for my mission and the people I met there and the companions I had. It's just cool.

I got an email from a friend who I hadn't heard from since the divorce and her words were so intense and passionate for me and my situation. She wrote the following: "I am so honored to be friends with someone as brave as you!! Wow, Elbow! You are unbelievable!! The courage and strength that you have astounds me!!!"

I'm so not use to that reaction. I feel like most people just look at me in pity and in disapointment that I "couldn't do it" or that I "chose to give up." But here I am, living my life as I truly feel like it should be lived and allowing my wife to live her life in a way that she feels is best for her and even now, even though it's painful and hard, we are reaping the benefits.

And the void...no longer exists. I don't feel it like I use to. I still want to be connected to a boy friend or even a husband and while I know that won't happen for quite some time, I realize now that the void, the chasm of space and infinite depth of emptiness that I was experiencing didn't have anything to do with me finding a male intimate partner, but it had everything to do with me finding myself. I was lost but now I'm found. My soul and my authenticity and respect for my true identiy was the very thing that I needed to fill the gap. And so now that I don't have this gaping hole in the middle of my pectoral muscles, it feels amazing! Being whole is unparalleled!