It wasn’t easy, in fact it was fucking tough. Being shunned, and judged by your peers, tribe, family — like a convicted criminal. I broke no laws, well… nothing that would put me behind bars. I ended a 12 year marriage, to a good person, that’s comfortably inculcated. The comfort part was why I needed to take up my bed and walk.
It’s been 8 years, time and hindsight, help sharpen the edges, of my storm, and the memory of almost not making it out alive. I see the characters and places with a different perspective. A gentler version of each decision and the deluded ones that have not been drowned out with time. Quite the opposite: 2 memoirs written and published; etching the outlines, and the shadows, into a sharper narrative, immortalized in ink.
Escaping mormonism for me — was a giant leap of naivety and a mixture of madness and hope. If the road ahead was transparent I would have retreated back into fear. The fear I was deftly trained (to obey) when it arced its rabid tentacles. Mormonism like all things fanatical is a slow death, an unwiring of sorts, a cacophony ringing in your eardrums, the maddening loss of certainty. The spiraling collapse of a life sacrificed, and given for the higher cause, the building of god’s kingdom on Earth. So we were told, and obedience was our measuring stick.
