Pretty Much Brilliant, and Coming Out to my Mother

So, for the record of any interested parties (though I have no idea who, if anybody outside of those who have commented and a couple others, reads my blog) Calvin and I are just friends. And that's all we're going to be. I was pretty much reading way the heck too much into everything, and after my conversation with Hidden, Drex, and Salad tonight, I thought that I had been making him extremely uncomfortable and awkward. Calvin and I have talked though, and (I think) we're good. A purely platonic relationship is definitely what's in his best interests, and I will not do anything that is not going to be good for him.

I don't know if I'll turn my attentions elsewhere before the end of the semester. There's not much time left, and I think I might just rather not think about it. I don't know. It's late, and I'll sleep on the issue.

So, coming out to my mother. Once again, for all interested parties, I came out to my mother Wednesday morning. This was something I had been dreading, and not planning on doing until I no longer required her financial support. But, as a part of my recent paradigm shift, it became a necessity. Tuesday night, I was praying about whether I should transfer to UO, like I'd been planning, or stay at BYU. It was my first vocal prayer in a long time. In fact, I can't remember the last one before that. But the answer I got was very clear. I needed to talk to my mother, and I needed to tell her about what I had found here, and tell her everything she needed to know to help me make that judgement.

So I did. And I was scared. See, also on Tuesday night, my good friend, umn... we'll call her "Kara" had been cut off by her mother for converting to catholicism. It's something we both had been living in fear of for a while. I told my mother that I had been praying about the transfer, and that God had told me to talk to her, and to tell her everything. She was surprised there were things she didn't know, but she wanted to know what. So I said, "Mom, I'm SSA." "What's SSA?" "Same Sex Attracted." "What's the difference between being S-S-A and being G-A-Y?" "SSA is the church approved term." "I see. Are you sure?" "Yes." She asked me that question two or three more times over the course of our conversation. She wanted to know when, and how, I planned on telling my father, and I told her I didn't. We talked about Drex and Salad a lot, and that seemed to alleviate most of the issues. I told her that my older brother, we'll call him Harry, already knew. She was surprise to hear that he had cried about it when I told him. She didn't cry. She didn't cut my tuition money. She didn't take any action against me at all. In fact, she was OK with it.

See, my two older brothers had been disowned and written out of wills and everything for various issues, ranging from Drugs to Premarital Sex, to Incarceration. I'd expected a similar reaction, which I probably would have gotten from my father, but it all worked out. Anyway, I'd deliberately timed the conversation such that we would only be able to talk for about ten minutes, and then she'd have some time to think and process everything that I'd told her. She said that she still loved me, and that she understood that nothing had been changed.

Overall, it was a liberating, testimony building experience, and I am glad that God helped me come to the decision to talk to my mother. The Paradigm shift is still running, and we'll see where it takes me, but right now, everything is looking up, and I am just going to keep rolling with it until it stops. I like the direction it's taking me.

-Stephen