The Wacky Taffy that Resulted in the Formation of my Inner Homophobe-Part 2

Let me preface this post by saying a few things: First, I do know wonderful LGBT people. Second, I think this is, in an odd way, part of my grieving process for my Drama Mama. And, Third, part of the reason why I'd rather see my kids not involved in some of this activity (including the heterosexual equivalents)-let's face it, it IS downright weird.

The Professor Prefers Men

When I returned from my sojourn in the city of my grandmother, I briefly went to a four year college for two quarters. I didn't have enough money, Drama Mama would call me every Friday morning weeping because her marriage to wicked stepfather was falling apart (appropriately so) and I just didn't know how to solve certain problems I was having. I can't remember what I did then-I am getting so old. This had to have been when I worked in a garment factory-that too, is a tale for another blog. By this time Drama Mama had moved to another state.

I decided to go to community college. DH was there, we were not publicly engaged, but very obviously a couple. The final semester I was taking a science class from a very old, but very GQ professor who had never married. DH had been his lab assistant at some time in the past. Anyway, he and DH were friends. The professor asked a question in class and I raised my hand and gave an answer based on what I had learned the previous year at the four year university.

He then started ridiculing me in front of the full class and when I asked him what he believed the answer to be, he told me to leave physically threatened me and came toward me like he was going to throw me out of the class. At the doorway, I turned around and told the professor that I thought his behavior was very unprofessional and that I would be reporting it. I went immediately to counseling where they told me that this professor had a long history of being unable to deal with women and harassing his female students.

Believe it or not, I did go onto finish the course in this man's class and did get a suitable grade from him. He retired that June, under pressure, I understand. His then current lab assistant explained it to me, the professor was gay, he was jealous of the relationship that DH had formed with me. I heard this over and over in the community. And, then I remembered, the professor lived down the street from me and I HAD seen a constant stream of young men going to his house when I lived there, but never thought much about it. DH claimed the professor never approached him or did anything inappropriate, but the then current lab assistant said that he had had a talk with the professor about ceasing inappropriate and too frequent butt patting.

My Dearly Beloved Brother in Law the Early Years

When my Brother in Law (BIL) came out, I tried to be especially supportive. Remember, I was a card carrying Mormon with two young children. BIL was a social maladroit before coming out and although DH loved him (he died young of a heart attack), and he was a good person at the core, he had issues. Anyway, BIL lived in the same town we did, and we spent a lot of time with BIL. BIL was with us when our first child was born taking pictures.

One day BIL, DH and I were sitting in my living room, my children were napping and we all comfortably settled in just to relax. DH stretched out on the couch, I was sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the room, and BIL was leaning up against the couch while sitting on the floor right in front of DH's knees. DH fell asleep while BIL and I were having a conversation. I can't remember the topic, but it must have had something to do with gay issues, because BIL suddenly got on all fours and crawled up close to DH's face and said, "Poor DH he has never been kissed by a man, shall I kiss him now?"

Somehow, I managed to croak "No." Lucky was BIL that I was both young and so shocked as to be nearly speechless. BIL was not joking, nor was he drunk or on any kind of drug. Had this happened any time in the last twenty years, I would have so torn his sorry fanny to pieces over that it would be unrecognizable. Needless to say, in spite of my youth, that incident began a vast distancing for me in trying to be supportive of BIL's issues surrounding his coming out. Luckily for BIL and for us, he soon met the love of his life, Cervantes, and that gave BIL someone else to fantasize about kissing other than my DH.

La Conquistadora

DH's first job out of college involved route work. He was trained by La Conquistadora who was a butch lesbian who was very good at what she did. She also took pains to educate DH about her prowess with females. She was especially proud of her "conversion" stories. These were straight women that she had shown the way to happy lesbianism. It was interesting to hear of the Harley riding La Conquistadora and when I met her, she wasn't quite as Butch as one might have expected.

But, La Conquistadora wasn't just about the stories. No, she was determined to show DH the results of her handiwork, so she made a lunch appointment with one of her conquests for her and DH to have lunch at this woman's house. DH went and had lunch. La Conquistadora told him all about how she had persuaded this woman to start dating her, the woman left her husband, and although she and La Conquistadora were not a couple, they were still good friends.

At the time I thought this was quite weird. DH was both fascinated and weirded out. In retrospect, I wonder if this wasn't a serious recruitment attempt of DH for fun and games. Thank God for DH's commitment to our relationship is all I can say looking back. DH changed jobs shortly after that.

Oh, the Things You Can Do With a Salami

We were living in the Bay Area by this time and DH was in managment. One of his sales people became a good friend of the family. George had originally moved to San Francisco from the East Coast because he thought he might be gay following the break up of his long time marriage. After unloading the U haul and settling down into a garden apartment in the Mission District, George ventured out onto the gay scene. He was quietly sitting in a gay bar, hoping to strike up a conversation, when a man in a superman suit jumped up on the bar and started dancing. Stuffed down the leg and strategically positioned was one of the long rolls of salami that can be bought in most Bay Area supermarkets.

George said he knew without a doubt that he was NOT gay after this incident. By the time we met him, he was a happy promiscuous lad with a rash . . . This being the Bay Area, we also met the lovely lady who gave him the rash . . . Ah, the eighties, so memorable for their excesses in every way: Joe Montana, Huey Lewis and big hair.

My Dearly Beloved Brother in Law the Later Years

After several years in a relationship with Cervantes, a bout with cancer, and a failed attempt to launch a career, BIL became obsessed with a new social movement and became a part of the childfree subculture. Yep, these are the people who basically demean breeders, those of us who reproduce. BIL and Cervantes were not interested in having a family of their own. As BIL put it in a letter to me, Gay men could not have children together (this was only twelve years ago and I was expecting my fourth child, baby song-my how times have changed). He was pretty darn nasty about the whole thing and asked not to be named our children's guardian. Yes, we card carrying Mormons had at one time named the weird gay uncle to be the financial guardian of our children with my Drama Mama as the guardian they would stay with. I digress, but as you might expect BIL and Drama Mama actually got along quite well.

Cervantes was the one bright light in all this. I think BIL was spiralling downward into the pits of despair. BIL was lucky to find him. To this day Cervantes is our friend and he and DH still correspond. Thankfully, Cervantes is a good counterpoint to what BIL was.

Conclusion

So these are the highlights of the baggage that I carry around even as a person who has been attracted to both sexes and these are the things that spark the fears I have as a parent of a child who will be going out shortly into the rainbow world of gaydom. Will he go for the Wacky Taffy or will he choose something more substantive? Let's get real it's scary for any parent's inner homophobe, even for one who is "something more than straight" and not from the most traditional LDS family origins.

The Wacky Taffy that Resulted in the Formation of my Inner Homophobe-Part 1

Let me preface this post by saying a few things: First, I do know wonderful LGBT people. Second, I think this is, in an odd way, part of my grieving process for my Drama Mama. And, Third, part of the reason why I'd rather see my kids not involved in some of this activity (including the heterosexual equivalents)-let's face it, it IS downright weird.

Drama Mama and her Scene

My earliest experiences in life were with my Drama Mama's family, her brothers, her mother and our landlord. The second phase of my life that I recall, included lots of wonderful activities with my little Sis, grandmother and Drama Mama's friend "Penny." Drama Mama met Penny in nursing school before she was kicked out and the two became best female friends forever until distance of four states separated them. When I see the two lesbians on Evolving Lesbian's blog banner, I always think of Drama Mama and Penny with Drama Mama being the voluptuous brunette and penny being the perky, shorter blonde tomboy.

I do not think that Drama Mama and Penny ever sexually experimented with their very close and endearing friendship, although modern observers might reach the conclusion they were lesbians. I also do not recall Penny ever drinking. Had Penny been a drinker, too, I am sure anything was possible. At any rate, Penny was the closest thing I ever had to a real Aunt and she was basically a good role model of an independent career woman (having completed her nursing degree and working all her life as an RN) with some common sense.

Penny was always heavy set, while Drama Mama could and did set most Men's teeth on edge physically and enjoyed doing so. The Betty Page hair cut would be a topic for another blog discussion I suppose. I recall overhearing two conversations between Drama Mama and Penny.

The first was regarding the size of the previous night's conquest's ***ahem***. Scratch another notch in the bedpost, girl. Penny wanted to know, but before Drama Mama would answer she noticed I was listening and asked me if I knew what that word was. I don't remember anymore of the conversation,and, I think I ran off into another room.

The second conversation occurred at least a year later and involved Penny and Drama Mama discussing a series of disturbing harassing phone calls Drama Mama was receiving from another woman who was making sexual overtures involving "rubber gloves and baby bumpers." Drama Mama was trying to figure out at which "party" she had met this person at and who she was. Even as a young child, remember I was well acquainted with Drama Mama's parade of Male visitor's and what they did with Drama Mama, even if I didn't understand it.

To give her a little credit, I think she had started to make a bigger effort not to conduct these activities at home when we were around (thus, we spent alot of time with my beloved Grandma). It was pretty clear to me that this caller wanted to have sex with my mother and was attempting to invite her to something really taboo. Drama Mama expressed her revulsion to this. I think this was my first exposure to the LGBT "community" so to speak and it apparently involved what we would call the leather segment of the community today.

Uncle Doc and his Mini-me

I think it was a few months later that we went to visit Drama Mama's younger brother, Doc, back home. His "roommate" was a little person (midget was the term Drama Mama and Doc used to describe him). I think his name was Dale and I remember that Dale had a really cool car with extended foot pedals. I remember Dale falling asleep at dinner and my uncle, Doc, rushing to catch him before he toppled from his stack of phone books onto the floor. I also remember Dale walking around in his briefs during this visit which really ticked Drama Mama off. Dale and Doc had porn all over the house and Drama Mama cautioned us several times not to pick any of it up.

I remember Drama Mama and Doc having a conversation where she asked him if he was in a relationship with Dale. Doc denied this but then picked up a thick sheaf of papers which was a report from a pyschiatrist he had been seeing and told Drama Mama that this report explained why he was the way he was and it was because of the family member that had exploited Grandma, Drama Mama and her brothers. However, Doc has always denied being sexually abused by this person and in later life claimed to be interested in women.

Two Lesbians, a Baby, a Few Dogs, Many Cats and a Racoon.

I inherited a house cleaning job from another Mia Maid and she told me she thought the clients were lesbians. I said what's that? She explained and I took the job and really didn't think a lot about it except how to wonder how they got the baby. I still don't know for sure if they were lesbians and this would be the time when people were still very closeted. They also left when I came to clean, which was a very good think because this was one of the three filthiest living environments I have ever seen. These two women were both RN's working in another city in nursing management at their institution. They never, ever did dishes. I did them once a week when I came in and I can assure you they did not eat out much. There were 3 or 4 dogs, and, as I recall, thirteen cats and a racoon. One of the women also had a son who was a toddler.

They maintained separate bedrooms, one of which the bed was always made. At the time, I assumed it was because that lady was cleaner. I now think it was because she never actually slept there, it was for show when they had guests or relatives. As you might have already deduced, when I did have an interaction with them they were weird. I had a conflict come up one day and couldn't call and they called and fired me. This did not bother me.

I was always rather creeped out by the idea that I could wind up in a hospital under the care of nursing staff with such utter lack of concern for basic hygiene. Despite whatever elso abnormalities in my growing up there may have been, my trailer trash people kept a clean house and I found the utter filth of the lesbians house hard to take. I now also understand that they were classic animal hoarders and that this in and of itself is a psychiatric problem.

Two Guys, Drag Queens and the Invitation to Turn a Trick or Two

One of the cities that I spent time in as a child was know for its Gay prostitution according to Drama Mama. Grandma lived there and I went to stay with her and work for a few months. Grandma lived right downtown in the pit of hell so to speak. I did find work in a fast food restaurant and took a brief trade school course during the day so I could get started in the world of work before starting school the next January in another state. Across the street from my restaurant was a bar called "Two Guys." Most of the clientele were just regular guys who most likely were gay. I do remember some rather aggressive hitting on my manager taking place by the manager of another famous restaurant in town. We had two regulars who were drag queens and prostitutes. The white guy was obviously male. However, his black companion seriously managed to elevate this to an art form and it was difficult to tell she wasn't female.

On several occassions another customer had offered me money for sex on the street. When I saw him with the drag queens one night, I realized that they were prostitutes and remembered what my Drama Mama had said, that a woman prostitute couldn't make it in that town because of the gay male prostitutes. Not that I was interested anyway in prostitution or any kind of sex work although I often wondered if one could successfully pull off escort work without getting sucked into prostitution and had concluded it was not possible.

Stay tuned for more Wacky Taffy tomorrow.

Choice Part 2: Bigger Pie

Another fundamental difference in how I experience sexuality, is that the discovery of my attraction to women (in my thirties) did not in any way diminish my attraction to men. The pie went from being baked in an 8 inch pie pan to a 10 inch pie pan. This was an addition not a transition or a denial of who I was fundamentally. There wasn't a feeling of loss, sadness, guilt or shame. It was just a very interesting new facet of who I am. Since I'm fully satisfied with the original pie, and to tell you the truth, well satiated, I don't feel the need to eat the rest of the pie, but it's definitely there. I'm now approaching twenty years of experience (and several unique incidents of attraction) without further expansion of the pie or reduction of the underlying attraction to men, I doubt that there will be further transition to a more gay state of being and I think the phrase "something more that straight" is a fairly apt description of me. I could choose to eat the other parts of my pie, but I don't for religious reasons.

Choice

Despite or should I say in spite of Questioning Song's remarks from last night's FHE, I really don't think I experience sexualtiy in a "Homo" way. But it's also very clear to me that I experience something more than "Straight" sexuality, whatever we are going to call that.

The way I experience sexuality would actually support the "homosexuality is a choice" line of thought. At this point, I've heard (well read) over and over that others do not see their sexuality as a choice. My brother in law was like me and when he finally experienced sexual attraction, he experienced it to both sexes, but later clearly felt a preference for men. On the other hand, my friend John had lived with and loved a man for over ten years but was willing to consider marriage to a woman. So my closest real life contacts who had actually lived their lives with substantial amounts of homosexual conduct did not speak so very forcefully against the choice idea as they might have. So given this place I find myself in, I really don't find the argument that homosexual conduct is a choice distressing.

Given how I progressed to this point, I actually wonder if many, many more people experience their sexuality in the same way I do, with quite a bit of fluidity. Could this be why so many people are continue to argue that homosexuality is a choice? Because this is the way great numbers of people actually experience their sexuality? And, this raises its own set of questions again as to how I should deal with Questioning Song and his sexuality which may be quite different than mine in the long run.

Then I look back on this long marriage and I find myself saying well what about this, and when that happened remember how I lonely I felt, and why, and how, how rigid is that, or I would like it this way, and I can't help but wonder how many issues partners in mixed orientation marriages would have had anyway even if both parties were straight? And, yes, we can constrict this to the purely sexual arena and I still find those questions arising for me. I have been through so much and so has DH that other people find indicative as problems arising out of one partner's sexuality and it's just not computing that way for me. Long term marriages have varying phases with differing levels of intimacy.

The Queen Bee and I

When I met her, it was under the unpleasant yet reinforcing experience of being held up to be an example of what a young LDS girl should dress like in the era of the miniskirt. As I recall, it was my first night at mutual in my new ward and the lesson was on modesty. I had made my cute blue jumper the previous year in Home Economics class. Sewing came easy to me, Mother did it, and it had been the only 4-H option available to me as an inner city gradeschooler. By the time I was a second year Beehive, I COULD make just about anything I wanted to and my mother would buy fabric and patterns when she wouldn't buy new clothes.

I think this was the start of my love hate relationship with Queen Bee. Our fathers were business associates. Hers was already on his way to being more successful than my stepfather. She had the added benefit of having a sane, moral father figure in her life, I did not. Her mom was the classic LDS homemaker. Mine was not, but became a world class baker of whole wheat bread, could can anything and began her odyssey into what I'll call a health food fetishism which has lasted the rest of her life.

Queen Bee did not like having any attention diverted to me. In the next few months she managed two nasty emotional sabotages through other people, one through the same beehive leader and another through one of the young men, who told me I didn't belong in their ward group and I should get out. I know this because another girl told me that he wanted to be with Queen Bee and she had been there when Queen Bee asked him to tell me. Fortunately, Queen Bee and I did not attend the same junior high school.

I was very, very used to being the new kid as my mother had moved a lot as a single parent. Paying my dues one way or another was typical. At least this was not physical and I was not being physically attacked for being a newcomer.

During the second year of Beehives (never thought how funny this is before), Queen Bee and I had become uneasy friends. I remember many nights of pleasant sleep overs. Her Mom was fun and I liked her. Queen Bee's mom let me borrow a beautiful pink long dress that she had made for Queen Bee for a dance. As I recall, Queen Bee could no longer fit the bodice.

I don't ever remember being sexually attracted to Queen Bee, but I do recall wanting to be her friend and never quite feeling like I measured up. This feeling of inadequacy grew during the high school years and we attended the same school. Queen Bee became, you guessed it, a cheerleader. She also had a classic Barbie Doll figure. I did not, I had a good, but old fashioned hour glass figure. Queen Bee was naturally browner and in our California beach community that also added to her popularity package.

In retrospect, it's funny how inadequate I always felt around Queen Bee. I remember asking her about Cheerleader try-outs. With incredible scorn, Queen Bee basically told me I was crazy for even thinking of trying and that I absoulutely did not have what was necessary to be a cheerleader. So I didn't try out. I cannot remember if it was because I felt so put down or simply no longer wanted to be around her.

Understand that I was very, very beautiful as a teenager. I had been solicited to model locally, but turned that opportunity down. I've always wondered if that was foolhardy and whether I should have taken advantage of that opportunity when it came. However, I never felt beautiful.

And, I felt so ugly compared to the popular Queen Bee. Being a shy and serious person didn't help.

As we continued on in high school, Queen Bee, mostly maintained our "friendship" by borrowing my surfer chick clothes. Mother had discovered a cute boutique that carried Alfred Shaheen and other hawaiian designers and I had great women's hawaiian shirts and a really wonderful bikini with a cover up that I never wore without the cover up. Queen Bee was never allowed to wear jeans, they were too unladylike (remember it hadn't been so very long that we could even wear pants to school). As I also had a horse at this time, I had plenty of jeans of various configurations, wranglers, checks, and the classic Levi's 501's.

So often, I would lend Queen Bee my 501's and a hawaiian shirt and she would come out of the bathroom at school as someone different, a surfer chick. And off she would go in my clothes to her other friends. I remember thinking how odd it was that she so liked my clothing but not me. I also loaned my three piece bikini and cover up to her (how nasty is that?) and later heard she was wearing the bikini only.

Queen Bee eventually paired up with a rich, asian boyfriend who was not LDS. I remember being at his house once with Queen Bee so we must have continued spending some time together willingly. I basically had several strong male friendships with boys in our ward, a couple maturing into quasi and full romances. During those years, I can safely say that most of my friends were boys, but I so wanted a strong female friendship and my experience with Queen Bee was frustratingly unrequited.

After moving away in my Junior year, I did make several strong female friends at the next school. And, later met DH. I can honestly say that DH was the very best thing about those years. And, bless my girlfriends (active LDS girls who did allow me to be their friends without limitation) for loving and befriending him, too. They were not popular but had strong convictions and a sense of their own worth.

When I've read posts on first crushes, read stories of teenage same sex attractions and how the writers later characterized their experiences with friends, I've wondered why I was so drawn to Queen Bee and so badly wanted her approval. I don't think it was sexual at all. But I wanted to belong and somehow Queen Bee had become the gatekeeper or icon of acceptible feminity and I just didn't measure up. I just didn't have what was needed to really be a young women. I was too mannish. There were other reasons I wished I had been born male, again, fodder for another post. These were all thoughts I had that I used to reinforce my own low self esteem.

Also, the whole modesty and appropriateness in dress was interwoven with our mutual teenage experience. This is where she chose to rebel and she used me to do it.

The term Queen Bee comes from a book called Queen Bees and Wannabees. It was later made into the movie Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan. Not only did I really like the movie, but thus began my obsession with LILO as well. I guess that's also fodder for another post. Strangely some of this Queen Bee behavior carries on into adult life with some women, too.

I think I'm no longer a wannabee, it's taken a long time to get here. I hope I have not become a Queen Bee either although there are characteristics of a heavenly queen that I hope I do have. As women we judge, we criticize each other and ourselves, we try to protect our turf, we fail to forgive and worse. I decided to really make an effort to find Queen Bee last night to see how her life turned out. I don't want to be her friend (well, I think maybe I'm still fearful of rejection or nastiness), but I wanted to know.

In the last couple of years, Queen Bee lost her father and married a daughter off to a nice young man. From my strictly online sources, I was able to ascertain that Queen Bee didn't stay with her high school boyfriend, she married what looked to be a nice LDS boy, got her own degree, put husband through professional school, went through a serious health issue with husband, went through serious health problem and miracle with one of her children, experienced financial hardship, possibly endured criminal activity by her husband, and divorced her husband. I found her facebook profile and could not believe how unhappy she looked. Wow.

This only serves to reinforce what I already knew about life, that there are tremendous sorrows hidden within each and every soul. I am not at all happy for her distress or gloating about the things which on their face seem to be better about my life. Life is not easy even for Queen Bees.

Questions answered

I've decided to answer Abelard's questions.

How did you get to where you are today?

It's really hard to answer this question because it's so multi-faceted. Life happened. One day I realized that I was attracted to a member of the same sex. I felt no guilt. Period. No guilt. I remained attracted to the opposite sex too, including my marital partner. And others. And then others of the same sex. No guilt, no shame. Why should I?

I understood that I am a sexual person. I never felt the need to self-identify as bisexual, although I have on occasion expressed the thought that others might say I am bisexual. I often said I had no doubts but for my belief in the church that I could easily live and love with a member of the same sex. I am not a young person.

I found it much more difficult to deal with a child coming out who actually wanted to have overtly gay and bisexual relationships. The church's involvement in proposition 8 exacerbated these problems for me and my family. Please note, however, that I don't disagree with the Church and or other member's rights to engage lawfully in the political process.

Are you happy with where you are? why or why not?

I wish that my loved ones were more firm in their testimonies. I am happy where I am with my testimony. I am happy with my sexuality and my sex life. I worry about my spouse's health and what living in old age will bring for us. I do still suffer post traumatic stress symptoms from a number of traumatic events in my life and regular stress from my challenging career. I take an anti-depressant, it helps me sleep and keeps the nightmares manageable.

I am both looking forward to and dreading the empty nest at the same time.

I feel blessed by the atonement and the promises of the endowment. I feel my savior's love. I fasted and prayed a lot for understanding, comfort, for my loved ones this past year. I had a great calling which caused me to really delve into the scriptures. I grew so much in my ability to love in faith. That has made all the difference in the world.

I discovered with gratitude that I don't have to bear all the burdens of this time (specifically the political chaos over gay marriage) and that I could in faith lay this burden at my Savior's feet. And I did.

So yes, I am overall very happy with where I am at now although fifteen months ago I was definitely very much in a crisis.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

I hope to have the opportunity to be of significant service to people in developing nations before I die.

I hope I am prepared to pass on to the other side of the veil fully qualified for all the blessings of the celestial kingdom.

I would like to accelerate my spiritual growth in the second half of my life.

What roadblocks do you have and/or have overcome?

I failed, earlier in life, to understand that I was a child of God and just as good as anyone else in church. I learned, only recently, that there was so much more fulness of the gospel than I had been partaking of. I am now feasting.

What advice do you have for others following a similar path that you have?

Seek medical treatment where it is warranted and don't dismiss modern medications, there are many choices. Too many people are reluctant, embarassed or too prideful to admit that they might have a problem that is biological in origin.

Seek to deal with any post traumatic stress symptoms you may have.

Don't waste time looking for easy answers to difficult questions-there aren't any.

Don't engage in guilt where you have done nothing wrong.

Do fully partake of the opportunity to repent when you have sinned or wronged another.

Read the scriptures deeply to answer your own objections, learn to read in context of the times they were written in, pray and fast.

Cherish and develop friendships with both sexes within appropriate bounds. Become a person of warmth.

What advice do you have for family and friends?

Please be respectful of others sexuality. It is not fodder for humor or put downs. I especially do not like jokes about transpeople.

Testimonies are key, do everything you can to keep and grow yours.

Please choose to stay within the church even when you feel as though you are so different, the church is true and it is for everyone. The "details" such as they are can be sorted out in the millenium.

A Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit

Recently, I've dealt more with anxiety than I care to. There are many reasons for this, but I worry for my children, especially the one dealing with a same sex attraction. I wish my child would read posts like this one by Charles Mitchell, but if a parent's experience in living with an opposite sex spouse for a very long time and somehow managing to carry on in the relationship despite many more overwhelming problems than same sex attraction, isn't enough, what is?

Every so often I have to admit, that I cannot solve every problem or find the just the right persuasive words to soften hearts and change actions. When I finally admit that I can't do it without help and that the sadness at watching a dear child make bad choices is overwhelming, that's when I remember the promises of the Savior to those who come to him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I cherish the great blessing of peace when I acknowledge his sacrifice and knowledge of my pain and the comforter sends peace which courses through my soul and lifts my burdens.

I was very touched by Charles Mitchell's open letter to struggles in the blog post link above for a number of reasons ranging from his experience receiving his patriarchial blessing (I also had a line in my patriarchial blessing which I felt and still feel directly addressed my same sex attractions) to the wonderful testimony of successfully living within the bounds the Lord has set for our marital and familial relations.