Diet: Ice Cream & Oxycontin

The Tooth fairy paid her very last visit to my bedroom Friday night leaving behind a two inch pvc smurf -ahhh she knows me well. I personally think she made out on the deal a bit better than myself. I mean I had 3 wisdom teeth yanked...and got 1 smurf for my troubles! But perhaps the state of the fairy economy is not so different from our own, maybe even fairies need to buy petrol - I mean just b/c they can fly doesn't mean they have to all the time - i mean we can walk and yet we don't.) Maybe wisdom teeth just aren't worth what they used to be on the used body parts market she deals in. The Doctor on the other hand was far more giving. He did not stop at numbing my gums but set me on a collision course for a near nonfunctional drug induced mind numbing fog.

I'm on Oxycontin - I didn't get anything this strong when I had an ORGAN removed a few years back! My mom is terrified I am going to get hooked on the stuff lol which is funny because there is nothing fun at all about being on it. It feels a lot like having Mono. My mind is wide awake but with a slow and steady tug my thoughts they begin to slip to the back of my head - collecting - growing heavy, heavy like my eye lids that bat slower and slower until their no longer batting but simply closed and i've fallen asleep in a bubble filled tub. I've touched down in lala land and snuggled up in the warmth of the precipices at the back corner of my thoughts. But I'm never at a loss for a crazy great dream where you can almost taste and certainly feel so this is clearly not a pharmaceutical benefit of oxy.

So here I am living my days asleep at the wheel. I wake occasionally. i creep with a yawn like slither out from under the pool of blankets on my bed. Wrapping a light blue sheet around me like a toga I try to muster land legs but I have the grace and fiances of knees caps smacking off the corner of an end table. Drowsy squint eyes skim the world or at least the ice box for my true drug of choice and only thing which makes sense of having allowed a strange man to take pliers to mouth: The reward - the recreationaly addictive bowl of skinny cow mint chocolate chip ice cream with reduced fat smushed up Oreos.

Before the kitchen lights have ultimately faded to black I have once more returned to my labyrinth of thoughts and dreams .... licking a smudge of mint chocolate wonderfulness from the corner of my lips.

*Update* I have no recollection of writing this - actually - I don't remember anything about that entire week lol which is just totally Crazy -totally. I mean What was I wearing???? I hope I at least matched! Lesson Learn: Never mix oxy and Valium together...

"Molly Mormon" vs. the "Rouge Sheep"

Being a Mormon is hard work, it isn't the rules or the lifestyles or all the scripture reading or even 3 hour church services that make it difficult. It's trying to fit perfectly into a mold that's been forged by other people.

Sometimes it's the basics that nudge me into annoyance - Your sitting their "having drinks" with friends and everyone wants to know what exactly the Mormon is drinking.
Your sipping on a Diet Coke and someone suspiciously and inaccurately says... "I thought you weren't allowed to have Caffeine?!" You make a pot of Herbal tea and you have someone reading tea leaves over your shoulder trying to identify them as not really herbal. It's almost as though there is a pot of gratification waiting for them if they can catch me in action - sinning lol. That said one time I am sure they will lol because although I try to do and be better - i'm not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes people, including me, even make the choice they want as apposed to the choice which is Right - *Gasp* on purpose. It could be anything from shopping on Sunday, Speeding, or even lying to your husband about exactly how much you spent on that new dress. It happens. It's life. You live. You learn. Knowing is half the battle - that's what I think. As much as the ever watchful attention my secular comrades annoys me - it also strengthens my Mormon identity. They remind me that the bar is set high. But I don't think if I were Catholic or Methodist they would care in the least about my sinning or not sinning why does being a Mormon make that different?

Where Doctrine is concerned people have no problems telling me exactly what I believe (and of course why it is wrong). I think that is funny because sometimes I'm not even sure of all the different things that I believe - i just believe them. Like I 100% believe in a combination of pre/post existence and reincarnation. I also believe that life is made up of elements that are both fate and self determination. These things are not very Mormon but they also aren't actually excluded from Mormon doctrine either. I don't know how on earth these things may work or any of the details but I know them to be true in my soul. My testimony is something that is alive and evolving and ever changing and growing. I want to ask them what religion they are and do they believe and interpreter every single thing their leaders or minister or Sunday school teacher does in the same way? The funny thing is most of the time is that the people on the other side of these questions are people who are not religious themselves anyway - so why do they care? Me, I think religion is really a personal journey of beliefs and understandings. I don't think I could ever conform 100% to the beliefs of any one person or group - but you know one of my beliefs is that I don't have to. I know everyone says that Mormonism is different b/c it can't be served Cafeteria Style - but in coming to know some of most devote Mormons I have also come to understand there all different ways they understand and pay tribute to the churches teachings - the Words of Wisdom is the easiest example to point at.


A non Mormon once remarked that I didn't seem very Mormon. I'm certain there are members who agree - There's an older sister who says hello to me as her eyes lower to scan my hemline - im not sure I've ever made the grade where she and the minority of others like her are concerned, but they are the kind who get disjointed by boys with longer hair or girls who want to wear pants to church. It is a small contingent that misses the big picture in focusing on the small details. I can't imagine that God cares what people look like when they show up at his door - I tend to think he is just happy they came. Cleanliness isn't really next to Godliness - it's just Cleanliness. I don't suppose Jesus had many haircuts or took many baths... or wore pants for that matter. Mind you it's a small contingent but even so it taints the water of inclusion. Worse yet however are the non members who equate my "individualism" to a status "Bad Mormon" or "Renegade Sheep." I wouldn't go that far - I think being a Mormon doesn't equal being a sheep - but I can certainly see why people might think that because I think there are some Mormons who think that. Not me. One of the most amazing things about my church is the necessity it places on individual scripture studies and forming ones own unique testimony. This can't help but encourage intellectual thought and analyses - if not out right demand it.

Between both groups in my life there is one consistent conclusion - put me in a room of female Mormon's and i don't blend in. When I think over the list of differences between myself and them the list is endless and overwhelming. Worse yet there's nothing really to bridge the gap. I envy the standard Mormon female the glowing integrity, the way she caries herself, and all that she is feted with in talents, skills, patience which she dedicates to the upkeep and progress of family and community - a noble deed. It is a perfect little mold but one i just don't seem to fit. Each and every time I try - I find myself horribly unhappy. I always fail.

This year has been a struggle of self identity for me. It seems like I've been boxing with my own shadow and neither one of us will win. Amidst all of these on goings it seems many fixtures that were axioms of who and what it meant to be me have fallen away like the polls of a cage. What used to be me no longer seems to be an accurate depiction of what it is to actually be me. The chasm of dissonance widens and the only conclusion I come to is that non Mormons make me more Mormon but other Mormons seem to make me less. How odd. Being stuck between two worlds doesn't suite me, and why should it - in neither one am I able to simply just be happy with myself. That's really all I want to be. It's like living between a rock and weird place. Perhaps this moment of self analyses and transition into grad school & moving have been placed side by side with more purpose than irony. Perhaps this transformation is more metaphorical than physical. Perhaps within these muddled waters I might make some changes that will enable me to be the person I want to be...which is a person at peace with the person she already is. This of course requires some changes.