The Woman

Once upon a time, there was a girl who came by surprise. During a time that a family was just trying to survive. Everyone tried to be excited. Everyone needed a distraction anyway. From two parents who realized too late that they shouldn’t have gotten married, let alone have kids. To said kids, knowing their family was fragile and quickly getting to the point that the kids wanted the divorce more than the parents. THAT is the moment the girl came into the world.

So all four of them turned all their best love and energy on this little girl. Gave her the name of Joy even, because that’s what they felt when they looked at her grin with dimples and freckles and curly hair. And the laugh! They all made fools of themselves trying to make her laugh.

But you can only stare at a baby, then a toddler, then a girl for so long. Life creeps back in and all four remembered, they hate their life. By the time she was 8, the family was shattered, parents divorced, two teenagers thrown out of the house. Little girl had failed. And she knew it, because they were gone.

She began to look for the people she could trick into loving her. She knew how to smile and the words to say and the dimples to flash, the laugh to use, to get other people’s parents to love her. And then eventually, boys too.

But when confronted with the question “Do you know God loves you?”, she realized the answer was no. She hadn’t thought about it, she was so focused on getting those around her to see her worth, it hadn’t occurred to her that she needed to prove it to God too.

The same people who posed the question, they also held the answer. “You can know that God loves you when you do these things. He’s promised. That’s the deal. You promise to get baptized and be obedient, and God promises to love you. He’s bound. He can’t break the promise unless you do.”

This sounded like exactly the deal she had been searching for. One in which she held all the control. God couldn’t walk out on her. As long as she did exactly what was taught.

Every day, the girl-now-woman, strove to be obedient. She found pride in her ability to do it so well. She couldn’t figure out why other people struggled. Why toeing the line caused so many to trip. Did they know the deal? Didn’t they know they held all the control? Guaranteed love?! From the one who mattered the most of all?! You could hold their love hostage, never able to leave, simply by following the rules. All of the rules. And if you did, the blessings!!! God loved her that much, that in addition to never being able to break his bond of love, God also showered blessings on you, in reward for that exacting obedience she was so good at.

Blessings!! Smart husband, on college scholarship. Healthy baby. Two healthy babies (the woman had been SO good that year!) Husband’s successful career. Bought a house! Another baby, this time a girl because that was exactly what she wanted (yeah she earned that blessing too)

About this point, the woman started to get tired. She leaned on her husband a bit to earn the blessings. Not because she didn’t want to read the scriptures for an hour a day still. But because she started falling asleep during study time. So when the fourth baby came, she knew it was because her husband had earned that blessing.

One day, as she was showing huge gratitude for all the blessings in her life. (the kids call it privilege these days). A quiet voice that sounded exactly like her, but definitely for sure was not her, in her head, HER head!, said “but you don’t like it. You don’t like your l….”

Squashed. Covered. Mute button pressed. Can’t hear anything when you’re gasping for air. The woman realized she could push her body so hard that it sucked the air right out of that annoying little voice. Made more annoying that it sounded just like her. Even though it wasn’t her! Because she would never say that.

After a few months, the voice got louder. So the woman found a new way to push her body, face down in the grass of her neighborhood park, gasping for the air she starved herself of to quiet the voice.

A few more months and it was back. Stronger than ever. She was starting to do things just to feel something. She’d gone pretty numb, couldn’t figure out why. So it was in those moments of pinpoint focus when she was able to shut down to a tiny pinpric of a soul, that she didn’t her that fucking twin voice.

She decided to try the most technical sport she could find. A way to push her body and her mind, her senses, everything. She’d push it all to the limit, maybe that would dry the voice out.

So one day, she stood in a river. And heard silence. Not the lack of the sound. It was silence, not on the outside of her. On the inside. And for the first time, the woman realized she was there.

Because of that, ____.

Because of the realization that she could just exist, just be without the striving and the trying, she kept trying it out. First in a river, practicing her new sport. Then at home. One day she stood in the shower, just existing. Feeling the freedom that came when she stopped screaming “shoulds” at herself. That day she stepped out of the shower, and was startled by her own body. Her own naked body. Instead of averting her eyes and immediately covering herself with temple garments, she looked. For the first time since going through the temple at age 19, this 37 year old woman stared at her own naked body. And cried.

Because she realized that she had spent almost two decades viewing this body as temptation. And something to be suppressed. For twenty years, she had fasted one day a month to show her body who was boss. That her mind was stronger. This carnal body wouldn’t be the cause of her disobedience and losing that love, breaking the agreement, the covenant she had made with God.

But as she stood there dripping in the bathroom, her body sore from standing in a river, she felt…pride? Connection. Resonance.

Love. It was love, coming from her own fucking body. That love and acceptance that she had been begging God for, for twenty years. There it was. All along. She didn’t have to pray for it, she didn’t have to earn it. Her body just loved. Her body had carried her four beautiful babies and then fed them for months. Her body brought her to the tops of mountains and into streams and rivers that few humans had gone to.

Her body was there for her when her mind became unsafe.

And guess what?! It turns out her body could bring her happiness! And peace! And screaming satisfaction. Her body was there the entire time the woman had been searching for all of those things.

Because of the new trust and connection she had with her Body, the woman began to listen to it more. She realized her body had been communicating with her the whole time and now that she could finally tune in, the messages came loud and clear.

Text that friend. Make a plan to meet her for lunch. Do you feel that? Do you feel that buzz when she looks at you? Do you feel the tingle when you make her laugh? The electrical current that runs from fingertips to belly. That’s good stuff and we want more.

And her mind screamed back. That is sin! Sin means you broke, woman. Time to fix you. “Therapy” during the day while her body screamed in anguish at night. We had something good!!! Nothing that brings us that much happiness is bad! But her mind had decades of conditioning and frankly it was scared. Scared of losing the one love she had thought was unbreakable. Because her obedience was unbreakable.

Until it wasn’t.

After months of “therapy”, in one last attempt to right the ship, her mind pulled the last card. “Body, if you won’t be obedient, you don’t deserve to exist.” Body held on as long as it could, going through all the sports as often as it could, trying to access that detachment so it couldn’t hear. But all bodies wear out. And one day in September of 2017, it gave in. Do what you need to do, Mind.

But Voice wasn’t about to give in. The woman opened her mouth, hours before the planned end. I’m here!! I’m here but I won’t be for long and this is what’s happening in here and God please will someone help us.

And someone did.

Help came. And stayed until the woman could help herself. The woman held herself, her body, her mind, and her voice, and made the one choice she was capable of making.

It is better for her children to have a gay mom then a dead mom. And she chose to stop “therapy”.

Then she chose to file for divorce. Then she chose to move out. Then she chose to have a talk with God and renegotiated the terms of their agreement.

Until finally, she chose herself. She chose HER career. HER home.

And her lover.

Since that day, others have had their choices. The woman lost a lot. So much. The silence was deafening.

Yet, she kept choosing herself. And it turns out, so did her kids. And so did God.