Tag: #progress

Spirit 4: Moral Authority

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I was 12 when I received the Aaronic Priesthood. They explained that this was the lesser Priesthood, or the official authority to act in god’s name, to perform his ordinances. It wasn’t the first Mormon ritual I underwent: I was blessed as a baby, then baptized at the age of 8, then I was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I received the Holy Ghost. All of those ordinances were done by Priesthood holders, men who were given the Priesthood by other Priesthood holders when they were younger. It was like a treasure map with necessary stops along the way, all necessary to reach the final destination: salvation.

At 12, as a deacon, I was allowed to pass the sacrament, the blessed bread and water, to members of the congregation during church meetings. At 14, as a teacher, I was given additional responsibilities, those of home-teaching. At 16, as a priest, I could bless the sacrament, sanctify it. At 18, as an elder, I was given the higher Priesthood, called the Melchizedek, which gave me many more abilities. I could perform baptisms, perform blessings of healing and comfort, consecrate oil, and dedicate homes, among other things.

It was all very official, very coming-of-age. Other cultures let young men go on their first hunt to become a man, I received the Priesthood for mine. First, I had to pass the worthiness interview: did I pay my tithing, obey the law of chastity, believe fully in the church and the prophet and the teachings, etc, and if I said yes to all the questions, I was deemed worthy. I said yes to all the questions, but at the same time, I didn’t believe I was worthy, not truly. I hoped God would find me as such, but I didn’t believe it. I was attracted to boys, even back then, and that made me less than the other boys. Less manly, less straight, less worthy.

Worthiness was the key component to holding the Priesthood. That and having a penis. Boys held the Priesthood and ran things and girls got to be wives and mothers. In the temple ceremony years later, I would stand with the men and promise to follow God; the women would, with veiled faces, stand together and promise to follow their husbands. Clear chain of command.

All the Priesthood holders I knew had it rough, living up to the strict expectations of the church, paying ten per cent of their money, giving much of their time for free to church activities and meetings, all while providing for their families and keeping their families happy. They had to do so willingly and worthily or they wouldn’t be fit to carry god’s authority any longer. There was the full-time job, the full-time calling, and the busy household to maintain. All while staying worthy.

And even if you had the Priesthood, you couldn’t use it if you weren’t worthy, that was evident. See, god gave the authority to certain prophets before Christ, then he gave it to Christ, who gave it to his apostles, but they all died and the authority was taken away from the earth, but then god gave it back to Joseph Smith when he founded Mormonism in the 1830s, then Smith passed it on to his apostles, and it got passed right on down to me. One long chain of authority. Baptisms would have to be done for everyone who ever lived on the earth, as well as temple work, because Mormonism was supposed to fill the whole planet stretching back to the earliest days of the earth and on into the eternities.

But the thing was, men lied about being worthy all the time. Even as a young kid, I saw Priesthood holders performing ordinances like blessings for the sick and blessings on the sacrament, when I knew they weren’t worthy. There were members of my own family who did this, and many members of my friends’ families. Men who molested children, who viewed pornography, and who hit their wives were regularly attending the temple and participating in ordinances. And these men were the same ones guiding the families and the wards. These were the men that the women and children were supposed to follow. I used to believe these stories were few, but they seem to be a large minority of the households out there, these corrupted leaders guiding others with the sanctioned authority of god.

I brought up these concerns with church leaders a few times, and I was generally told to just be patient and trust that god would work it out. I knew at least seven girls in high school who were being molested by their fathers, and some of these men had high positions in the church. But we were to just trust in god. Just trust that he will work it out. These men are the leaders, and god knows their hearts, and god will guide them to do what is right. Only god could judge. God is in charge and he says the men are in charge, even the ones who hurt others. Just trust.

Some examples of this stand out more than others in my mind. I once reported to a church authority that a man was molesting his daughters; that man was given a ‘talking to’, I was told, but he was never released from his calling, never excommunicated from the church; he stayed right there where he was and he kept molesting his kids. And when my own stepfather’s physical abuse was exposed, he was temporarily disfellowshipped, and then reinstated three months later, still serving in the temple, still sitting in church every week. Meanwhile, the men who were exposed as being gay were being excommunicated right and left.

The whole ‘authority of god’ thing felt pretty special in the beginning, but as with all things in religion, it grew more complicated the more I learned. Joseph Smith claimed angels had come down from heaven to give him the authority. He used it to get revelations for the whole church, for the whole earth even, and the revelations were often complicated and contradictory. He used it to marry four dozen women, and he gave other men that right, but later men couldn’t do that anymore. He said only white men could have the power, but that changed too in the late 1970s. Certain men could do certain things, but only if they were worthy, and it all depended on their jurisdiction–one man could run his family, other men ruled congregations or geographic areas. There were “keys to the Priesthood” conferred to various men in various positions for various tenures.

Me? In the beginning, the Priesthood made me pretty special. But it added a burden to what I was already carrying. This intense pressure to be right before god when I knew I was wrong, it caused a deep rift within me, one that resulted in deep depression, pain, and anxiety. And eventually, when it all came apart at the seams, the release of that pressure gave me a new lease on life. Ultimately, giving up this pressure to be good according to a list of rules was replaced by just being good for its own sake.

And something I’ve learned almost more than anything else since leaving it all behind: women should be the ones in charge, and the men agreeing to follow them.

the intersection of dreams and reality

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As a therapist, I regularly tell my clients that sometimes the best way to appreciate where we are in life is to look back at where we were. 

And I hold myself to this frequently. I regularly look backwards so that I can properly assess my current standing and then look forward to the paths I should be on. But lately this has been a struggle for me, in some unexpected ways.

First of all, sometimes I don’t know how far I should be looking back. Do I consider the lonely teenager who was writing ideas down in a notepad yet never really writing anything, that boy who was so strongly holding tightly to Mormonism that he couldn’t see a future ahead in which he was happy? Do I look back to the married Mormon father, who was running a business and writing comic books, yet feeling completely unfulfilled and wondering when he might be able to overcome life’s challenges and actually come out of the closet? Both of those past versions of me clearly give me perspective in the present. They ground me. I look at how far I’ve come and I see my world around me and love the person I am and the life I’ve created.

But my current struggles are far removed from those, in some ways. They are far beyond. They stem more from five years ago and the risks I took back then, and the ways that they have paid off, or not paid off, into this current present.

Five years ago, I took major stock of my life, and I decided to take some huge risks. I quit my job and I launched a personal business, doing therapy for clients on an hourly, private-pay basis. I began sub-letting an office, I upped my rates, and I believed I could do it. I came up with a formula to keep myself financially afloat, and I set big goals to eliminate all of my debt, and to put savings and emergency funding in place should I ever need them. And with hard work and consistency, I achieved these goals, and then set others, like establishing a retirement account and getting better health insurance.

From there, I started listening to what my internal dreams are. Many of them, those that didn’t directly revolve around my children, focused on travel, research, and writing. I started small, taking short weekend trips and reading about things that interested me more often. And then the goals grew bigger and loftier as I started thriving. Travel became more frequent and more adventurous, and I began making a list of places that I had always wanted to see but hadn’t. As I saw more places, the list grew longer. And along the way, I met my boyfriend, and had someone to share this with.

Then I set a lofty goal. I determined that within four years, I would be making a living as a writer and storyteller. I just had to figure out how to do it.

Channeling my love of research and writing, I started doing daily posts on LGBT history, a huge personal passion. Eventually that turned into themed research, and then I turned that into a YouTube station. I started seeing a vision of the future in which I could share my passionate research, in spoken word format, with audiences who would be hungry to learn what I was learning. So I began putting my personal money into web developers and graphic designers to build a platform and an audience to share with. For the following year, I continued to pour money into this venture, loving every moment of the research, and agonizing every moment when the videos were only getting a few dozen views. I was putting money out, and watching numbers in the double digits roll back, and I took it personally. It hurt that I believed in myself so strongly and it wasn’t paying off in the way I’d hoped. My love of research and writing was becoming dominated by the lack of success, and I began to doubt myself.

And so I closed the YouTube channel down. I stopped researching for a time, and I did a lot of self-assessment as I tried learning tough lessons. And then I refocused and tried again, this time on a new project.

I started researching gay hate crimes in Utah. I found a list of names and I started asking questions. I copied court records, make extensive notes, drove throughout the state, and started looking people up. I found graves, recorded memories. And I felt my passion for research returning. I came alive with joy as I began finding stories to tell. Eventually, my primary focus landed on one case, that of Gordon Church, a young man killed in 1988. His murder resulted in two trials for his killers, and one of them ended up on death row. Months went by as I lost myself in this research, and in time, I began thinking that a documentary about this content would be ideal. I found a film company who began working on the project with me, and we completed dozens of interviews, gathering dozens of hours of amazing content. Over a period of 18 months, I watched the project come to fruition, and a film that would end up altering lives would soon be complete. I was on fire.

Until it boiled down to money. Without funding, we couldn’t go forward to editing the film. We needed a minimum of one hundred thousand dollars to finish, though closer to five hundred thousand would be ideal. Believing I could do anything with a project this valuable, I started holding meetings and pitches, even fundraisers, to find the necessary cash. I asked benefactors, support agencies, film studios, and especially local people who had funds and might share my passion for this project. I had dozens of meetings, with politicians and millionaires and everyone in between. Many turned me down. Many said they’d think about it. And a few said they would love to fund the project, but then kind of faded into the distance. And with every failed meeting, my aggravation, pain, and self-doubt returned. I wasn’t finding the right audience, and again, the passion I wanted to share with the world was being replaced by the reality of the world in which I was in. (Note: the film is still in the editing phase, which will take many more months without funding. While I believe it will be finished, it is on a much longer timeline than I had anticipated).

And so, while working on the film, I began seeking out other projects that would help keep my passion and love for research and writing alive. I maintained a blog (trying hard not to get frustrated with the low numbers of readers). I wrote a book, Gay Mormon Dad, and self-published (and tried hard not to take it personally when sales remained abysmally low despite reviews being incredibly high). I formed a monthly story-telling group called Voices Heard and began collaborating with dozens of incredible local story-tellers to share with assembled audiences (and struggled to remain positive when audience numbers remained small when I hoped we would have sell-out shows). These struggles have been manifesting

And now it is summer of 2019. And I’ve been in an emotional spiral these past few months as I’ve considered what to do moving forward. And so, with a bit of perspective and focused attention, I can boil it all down to a list of facts, as I seek to make sense of all of this.

  1. Writing brings me joy. Research, blogging, outlining, interviewing, story-telling, performing, and even editing make me happy. They fulfill a particular part of me. They enrich my spirit. I don’t feel good when I’m not doing them. And writing has been part of me for as long as I can remember, from my very earliest days in childhood.
  2. I can do hard things! And it is good to be confident about those things! I wrote a book, and it’s good! I built and sustained a YouTube Channel for a year, and then made the hard decision to retire it! I researched, and collaborated, and nearly completed a film that is going to be revolutionary! I created, and collaborated, to share stories at a monthly event that I love, and that is so so so good, and I’ve maintained it for over two years now! Believing in myself in crucial, and I’ve shown myself that I can create and sustain things that I ove.
  3. I love collaborating with others. I love forming new friendships with talented people and working together. The men who have made the film with me are among the most genuine and talented individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and we have built something special over a period of years together. The story-tellers who perform with me at Voices Heard are so authentic and talented, they leave me stunned with every word; they are enthusiastic and kind and so good at what they do. And every person who has spoken to me about my book, my research, or my writing and has been excited, enthusiastic, and kind in response, to anyone who has believed in me, it has given me a confidence I never knew I was capable of.
  4. Trust is in short supply lately. I hate asking for money, and I hate paying the people for services that they can’t deliver on consistently. I’ve had over a dozen major disappointments over the past few years from people who promised something and couldn’t or didn’t deliver, including offers from publishing companies, major media presences, and benefactors who have offered to cover the costs of the documentary. I’ve reached a place where big offers leave my guard up, and I’m finding it more difficult to take it back down as time goes by.
  5. There are a lot of things I am terrible at. Marketing, graphic design, promotion, and fundraising top the list. Every time one of these topics shows up in my life, I want to scream in response. They bring up pain and insecurity because my failures in these areas directly impact the way I measure success in other areas.
  6. “Success” has become a word that is difficult for me to define. These products that I’m extremely proud of (Gay Mormon Dad, the documentary, Voices Heard, the blog) tend to have relatively small yield in profit, number of readers, or number in the audience. The documentary remains unfinished, I didn’t sell enough copies of the book to cover the costs of printing it (no less the time spent writing it), the blog rarely gets more than 30-40 reads per entry, and Voices Heard consistently only has 20-40 people in the audience (meaning I tend to lose money every month on the costs of putting it all together). It is hard to dwell in the space of gratitude and love that I feel when I write and perform, when I feel the financial and self-esteem hits when not many people are reading or attending the things I’m so proud of.

Writing all of these things down in one place is hard. It’s only after literal months of personal reflection and riding these waves that I’m even able to articulate what is happening within me. The intersection of the joy I get from writing, and the reality that I’ll likely never make a living doing it… sitting in that intersection and feeling both sides is difficult, but its the only way forward. I have to do what I do because I love it. I have to have hope that I can do more, that I will someday achieve the success I someday hope for, while simultaneously accepting that that may never happen, and still be okay and believe in myself while accepting that reality. I can’t give up on my dreams, yet I also can’t keep beating myself up when they aren’t achieved in a particular way. I have to change how I define success. I have to challenge myself at being better while accepting where I currently am. That intersection is uncomfortable, even painful, yet I’m working very hard to find peace with its existence.

And so, today, I sat down to write about it. I wrote about my journey, and what I’ve learned. I expressed my pains and doubts, my beliefs and hopes. And just like every time before, I feel better now that I have. I feel inspired. Capable. And soon I’ll click publish and know that only 20 to 50 people will read it. I have to embrace both sides of that. I knew that going in to this blog.

And I wrote it anyway.

And therein lies my lesson.

Inner Dialogue

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I’ve been working on mindfulness lately. Slowing the world down. I’ve been practicing this for years, and I still have more work to do. Lately, my meditation has been all about inward body monitoring. Breathe, focus, calm, and a focus on what is happening under my eyelids, or against the lining of my stomach; picking out sore spots in my back, slowly and deliberately; feeling where cloth is touching my skin and how that is distinct from the air. It’s powerful work, and it brings a calm I couldn’t have anticipated.

Mindfulness is applied to other areas of my life as well. Mindfulness in the way I’m spending money. Mindfulness in the types of food I’m choosing to eat, and when. Mindfulness in how I spend time with my children, in the way I exercise, in how I read books, in how I spend my mornings. I know the difference between peace and discord, and I’m ever striving toward peace. Accountability. Integrity.

This morning, I put mindfulness in a new and unexpected direction. I lent it toward the inner, critical dialogue, the one that seems to play on autopilot during moments of vulnerability. In the last few years, I’ve worked to silence that voice. It runs so far in the background now. But I found it sparking up while I was exercising, and I paid attention to it, from a non-judgmental space. I just observed it there, from deep down inside me. And the moment I allowed it to speak, I realized it wouldn’t shut up. I realized it never has.

I was stretching on a yoga mat at the gym. I was in a black tank top and orange camouflage shorts, and I had on long Wonder Woman socks, a pair given to me as a gift recently. My phone and my library book, a collection of letters that I planned to read between sets, sat on the floor next to me. It was a quieter day at the gym, only 6:45 am, but the morning regulars were there, walking around, gabbing, listening to music, lifting weights. A blonde woman kept slamming a ball on the floor and I could feel the tremors beneath me. All the way across the gym, a man was dropping heavy weights on the floor as he grunted loudly, and I could hear the crash every time. Obnoxious 90s rap music played. The wind was blowing outside. I was hungry, and sore, and still sleepy.

A gym regular walked past, one I used to have a crush on years ago. I remembered asking him out a few times a few years back and he’d never responded one way or the other, reacting with ambivalence and a shrug. I remembered feeling, back then, like I wasn’t good enough to get his attention. He was younger, fitter, and must have his pick of men, I told myself. Or maybe I was intimidating. Or maybe too old, too out of shape, too talkative. Maybe my teeth weren’t straight enough. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested. Then again, he hadn’t answered at all, so maybe I wasn’t even interested in the first place. Maybe I’d been desperate. Maybe it had just been a passing crush. Maybe if I’d gotten to know him, I wouldn’t have been interested at all.

And, in fact, I wasn’t interested. Not now. I’ve been with a man I love very much for the last two years. And yet those feelings were still there, deep down, that old dialogue. The ones that spoke to insecurity, confusion, harsh self-criticism. The ones that told me I was never good enough. The ones that tried to make sense of the world as I understood it and why I never seemed to fit in. The ones I grew up with. Instead of silencing them, I spend some time with them. Safely. I observed them as I let that narrative continue. I closed my eyes as I did sit-ups and planks and twists. It was easy to give it voice. I’d spent so long there, so long, so many years.

Does he notice me now, I thought. Does he see me. If I asked him why he’d never been interested, what would he say. If I were to ask him why he never responded back then, what would he say, how would he respond. I found my internal self playing out some form of the conversation in my brain. You were too needy back then, he might say. Or maybe he might say that if I looked then like I do now, more fit and focused on myself, maybe he would have been interested. What would I have said back, I wondered. Would I have told him to fuck off, that he should have gotten to know me back then, that I was worth his time then and now I wasn’t sure he was worth mine. Would I walk away with head held high, would I gush, feel confused, brag about how happy I am now. How would I respond. Of course he wasn’t interested, of course. You were insecure, you never measured up, you had children, you were in debt, your teeth weren’t straight, you’d been married, you waited too long to come out of the closet, you didn’t love yourself enough.

Guh. I sat up on the mat and took a long inward breath. That inner dialogue. Playing out these shame scenarios that would never happen and that I wouldn’t want to happen in the first place. Listening to those inner voices, the ones I had grown up with for so long, the ones that had infected my head for all of those years. The constant measuring, the never being enough, the endless comparisons. I wasn’t that person any more. My way free had been hard fought and hard won. It had taken effort, therapy, soul-searching. I had a healthy spirituality now, and I liked myself. I didn’t give a shit what people thought anymore, not in most cases. But if I gave it voice, it was all still there, deep down, all still present. The old wounds, the old heavy spaces, still there. A part of the old me, deep down, needing to be channeled just once in a while.

And then I found comfort. I found peace with the me that was, and the me that is. And I found comfort in the old parts of me being integrated into these new parts of me, with peace and space. Inner child, closeted Mormon, repressed father, all of those pieces from my past were still there, part of this new independent me. I could learn from them. I could listen and be okay.

I got up, walked past my old gym crush, thought of my happy little family now, and grabbed some free weights, ready to get to work.

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With Resolve

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The best way to measure where we are is to look back at where we were.

I remind my clients of this principle often, in my therapy office. When they come in with small frustrations (the flat tire, the grumpy kid, the demanding boss), I sometimes remind them of where they were last year with larger struggles (the cheating spouse, the bankruptcy notice, the suicidal thoughts). With a bit of perspective, our current problems sometimes don’t feel as overwhelming.

And that is the perspective I choose to view 2018 with. This year had plenty of frustrations for me, but overwhelmingly, this was a year in which I achieved many goals and accomplished some things that I never thought were possible.

In 2017, I became financially solvent. I got health insurance for the first time in years, eliminated debt, and developed a savings account, which gave me the ability to start traveling a bit for the first time, and I continued that in 2018. With the ability to work remotely (somewhat), I was able to take several short trips, where I could stay in inexpensive accommodations and explore new cities while staying on top of my business prospects. I took four solo trips this year, to Phoenix, Arizona; to Calgary, Alberta; to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico; and, the most epic, to Juneau, Alaska. I also took four trips with my partner, romantic getaways where I could still work while we were gone; to Philadelphia, Philadelphia; to Palm Springs, California; to Seattle, Washington; and to New Orleans, Louisiana. All of these were incredible trips that resulted in a lifetime of memories and many new friends, but Juneau held the most magic for me as I saw an entirely different part of the country. I look forward in 2019 to more travel and exploration.

In 2017, I talked constantly about wanting to do more writing and performance. And so I launched a monthly story-telling night. It grow, steadily and smoothly, and I kept it running in 2018 with 12 more performance. We switched the format, adding more readers, and after a time, we started selling tickets to the event. It has grown into something that I adore, and look forward to every month.

In addition to that, in 2018, I did the impossible. Multiple times. I finished filming a documentary that consumed my time, attention, and creative energy for over two years. (The film, Dog Valley, remains in the editing phase, and likely will for several more months, but filming is complete). And I published a book! I published a memoir, Gay Mormon Dad, in which I boldly tell my story of coming out, and leaving religion to find myself. It’s a work I’m incredibly proud of, and the feedback and reviews on it were overwhelmingly positive. Ultimately, it only sold a few hundred copies, but I remain overtly proud of the work. It was a life accomplishment, something I’d want mentioned in my obituary some day.

2018 also became a year with HUGE unpredictable events, most of which had very little yield as a result. I started keeping a list of opportunities that presented themselves, almost all of which had no follow-through, and about half way through the year, I had to work on strategies to free myself from the emotional stress of all of this. I participated in five interviews on major podcasts and broadcasts about my book, my therapy work, and my story-telling. I think these interviews helped others, but I’ve only received sporadic feedback from them overall; still, all were wonderful experiences. I had several offers for other interviews (including one from a media celebrity), but none of them panned out. I appeared in a different documentary about gay Mormon issues, but not many attended the premiere. I had about ten different potential offers to fund my documentary (Dog Valley) and held many different meetings regarding funding, but only one of the offers turned out to be serious, and it is still pending at the time of this writing. In addition, I had a few different book companies show interest in taking my book to a higher reading audience and promotion platform, but all of these yielded no fruit. Huge offers kept coming, and I responded enthusiastically to each one, but ultimately, nearly all of my answers received no replies. I type this now without bitterness, but the wrestle I had with this over the past 12 months has been a mighty one.

2018 had a few very tough emotional wrestles for me as well. I have more self-confidence, belief, and esteem than I ever had in my life span, which is wonderful, and I saw my kids thrive. I had a second wonderful year with my boyfriend, and we grew together more tightly, working through issues and falling more in love. And I watched my sons thrive in their new charter school, turning 7 and 10 this year; they are incredible and wonderful, now more than ever. Despite all of these positives, I was hurt very badly by two people that I trust very much this year. These events resulted in me learning more than ever about trust, vulnerabilities, forgiveness, and recovery. These isolated events led to lots of tears and tough life lessons. The good news, though, is that I learned from both and came out stronger and, I hope, with more compassion and grace. I went to some therapy myself to sort out some of these issues, and I’m a better person because of it.

2018 also led to me getting into much better physical shape. I grew more consistent at the gym and reached a place where I can look in them mirror and feel wonderful about the attractive guy I see looking back at me. I look forward to further progress this coming year.

In 2018, I read a lot of books, wrote a lot of stories, and watched a lot of television and movies. I moved into a new place, and took in a new roommate. I drank so much coffee. I made some new friends. I completed hundreds of therapy and crisis intervention sessions. I laughed so much, and I smiled even more. And strangely, I grew more internally quiet. I stopped expecting so much from the world, and instead grew at peace with my attempts to find it and do what I love. I stopped, for the most part, comparing my success to that of others. And I watched the people around me, those I love and trust the most, grow and change along with me.

I ended the year with some sobering personal revelations as well, all of which will help fuel me as I set goals this coming year. But the place realization is looking back to where I used to be, then seeing where I am now. And now, at year’s end, I can say I’m living my dream and enjoying the journey. It isn’t without setback or frustration, but I’m doing things that I love and that I’m passionate about, I have a solid court of lovely people who I support and love and trust to have my back, and I genuinely like who I am and what I am doing with my life.

And thus begins my 40th year. And I can’t think of a ground to build from.

Early Resolutions: a Year in Review

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Last year, on New Year’s Eve, I was single. I was invited by a few friends that I barely knew to attend a party with them at a house of strangers, and I debated doing that, going to the bar, or just staying in. After all, I’d stayed home by myself on Halloween, my birthday dinner on Thanksgiving Day had been out of a microwave, and I’d spend most of my Christmas alone, having a half a bottle of wine in a mountain cabin and writing. The year before, I’d taken my kids trick-or-treating on Halloween and then gone to an expensive fundraiser, solo and single, and I had spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas with my kids for half the days and solo for the other halves. I was accustomed to associations with strangers and acquaintances in busy places.

But I made my decision and went to the party.

There, I made small talk with a few friends, had a glass of wine, flirted a bit, and smiled a lot. Then I noticed a good-looking guy across the room. At 11:40, we had some conversation and laughed. At 11:55, I body asked for a midnight kiss. And now, nearly a year later, we are together and happy.

I’ve made a habit, for the past three years, of setting bold goals for myself at the start of each year, goals which have felt impossible yet have proven to be highly achievable with the right amount of focus, ingenuity, and dedication. I’ve eliminated debts and set up savings, I’ve traveled to many places domestically that I never thought I’d see, I’ve set myself up in a rental home that I’m very happy in, I’ve written a book, I’ve worked extensively on a documentary that once felt undoable yet I’ve partnered with an incredible film crew and have made so much progress. My children are happy and stable, I have good friends who support me, and I continue to be happy in my own skin. And this year, I’ve had someone to share it with as well. Life is truly wonderful in a way that I never thought possible.

I spent a lot of my year writing in small coffee shops in myriad places. San Diego, Saskatoon, Brattleboro, Reno, Missoula, Minneapolis. I’ve dived into my roots and gained a greater understanding of myself. I spent two full months exploring my 2 year missionary service, I’ve written stories of my childhood, and I’ve been open and honest about my sexual development as an adolescent. I’ve spent less time writing about my observations from the present, and more writing of the past. These stories opened up new narratives and have given me new goals for the future. I’ve become more of a storyteller than ever before.

Much of my year has been framed by the telling of a man who died far too young and far too tragically, and not just him but the men who killed him. I’ve spent dozens of hours reading, reaching out, interviewing, and filming, and at the end of it all, something beautiful is about to come forward. And I can’t help but think beyond that, to other stories that need to be told.

On top of that, my children are a year older, and they are happy and well. They have transitioned into a charter school which gives them much more support overall, and we’ve seen their behavioral struggles and social behaviors adapt and grow for the better. They are vibrant, introspective, imaginative, and beautiful. Parenting is never without struggles, yet it is a complete joy.

Being in a relationship has changed me as well. My boyfriend has given me a consistency and stability that I didn’t realize I was missing. He’s faithful, steady, and romantic. He listens, he laughs, and he stays by my side. He supports me, and he’s wonderful with my children. On top of that, he’s damn handsome. He’s calmed my spirits in ways and he’s given me new insights into myself, which make me a better writer, a better father, and a better therapist.

I continue to do a self-inventory. I set some physical goals for myself that I didn’t achieve. I’m clearly recognizing of patterns of dedication to physical change (exercise and nutrition consistency) followed by a crippling apathy about that change, and this has resulted in a moody apathy. I haven’t gained weight, yet I haven’t achieved my goals. I struggle to break certain habits that don’t do me any harm except that they stop me from progressing.

Soon it is going to find time to set goals for the coming year. I know travel will be part of it. Raising a large amount of money to complete my film, finishing the film itself, and publishing my book will certainly make the list. Spending time being grateful for what I have, reaching out to others, reading books, and regularly writing will remain there. And right at the top of the list will be those physical goals that somehow evaded me this year.

Once in a while, I wish I could go back in time and tell the younger versions of me how good life will be if he can just wait it out. I’m as temporary as always, and a year from now I hope to be writing about my reflections from 2018. But for now, in a coffee shop at home, in frozen and polluted Salt Lake City, I’m grateful for my life, and I’m looking forward to what lies ahead.

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