This morning I was brooding. A lot. First I was stressing myself out about my upcoming move. Then it was my new job. Then it was about the kids getting into everything while I’m trying to brood about everything else. Of course, underlying all of that I was trying not to think about the possibility that my wife would want to take the whole family to church today. I used alcohol to cope with church last week and although it helped, I would really rather save the drinks for later and avoid church entirely. So when my 2-year-old son stretched out his arms for me to pick him up, I realized that being afraid of everything is keeping me from enjoying anything. Sometimes I forget about what I’m afraid of and that’s really nice. But the rest of the time I spend worrying about things. Some of them I know I can do more to control. Others I can’t do much about.
I wrote in the past about anxiety. I wrote about how being a faithful Mormon helped me in some ways to cope with anxiety, and in other ways it exacerbated it. And yet, even when I’ve formally quit Mormonism I’m still haunted by it because most of my family is still in the church. It’s risky to tell my wife why I don’t like going to church. But maybe if I tell her then I will ultimately get what I want: to never set foot in a Mormon chapel again. Ever. Maybe if I spend more time working out plans for the move and for my new job then I won’t have to be afraid about it anymore. I think my fear is the way I respond emotionally to my dreams that aren’t being realized. I ultimately lost my faith because I had dreams and wasn’t willing to settle for something I didn’t want and went chasing after something I did want. Ultimately those dreams were only partially realized and I lost my entire worldview. I think that getting a handle on my fear will be a nice capstone to my new worldview. And maybe, as I take risks along the way, some of my dreams will come true as a result. In the words of the immortal Ms. Frizzle: Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.” I’ll try and make her proud.
unfairmormon 