I am about an hour away from attending the first part of the Mormon Stories Conference in Houston this weekend. (I attended another one this last summer in SLC.) After getting to Houston I took refuge in one of my favorite places (Starbucks) to take a breather after the drive. I get crazy nervous before meeting new people. I guess though, really Mo-Stories people are not “new” people – I have connected with many of them over the internet before or at least seen their names. The nerves don’t really make sense. I have a lot of positive experiences attending things like Mormon Stories Conferences or ex-Mo events. There is power in sharing out stories with each other.
Despite loving connecting with others from similar backgrounds, I do however have mixed feelings about these gatherings and I am not entirely sure why. Sometimes I think engaging in such things probably holds me back a little bit, opens up old wounds… Yet I can’t seem to abstain from Mormonism either. I have to on some level choose how I will engage with it. So I can either connect with others from the “apostate” community or I can sit on my own and read books about Mormonism, but somehow I still need Mormonism for some strange reason. (Though I have to say the characteristics of my Mormon-need have changed a lot over the years…)
I attended Mo-Church twice in the last few weeks and I’ve decided that I just could NEVER be a church-going Mo again. It’s not even about it not being “true”, being repressive to women, or that it persecutes gays though those things are all huge reasons. It is mostly about the meetings being boring, uninteresting and full of half-truths… Good news is that the reoccurring dreams that drove me to check out meetings again have stopped so perhaps I can quit torturing myself…
Getting way excited to go hang out with fellow apostates in all their varying levels of unorthodoxy!
since I'm stuck in o'hare airport tonight, I won't be able to make it out there tonight, but I'm kinda looking forward to going tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteTo this point, I haven't been hit with any crazy case of nerves, but maybe that'll change tomorrow morning?
Ack! I am so jealous. I hope you have a good time.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, I once heard that you can calm your jitters by doing brief exercise because the jitters come from a surge in adrenaline. If you use up the adrenaline through activity, your jitters will subside immensely. This is the only way I know how to cope with nerves when meeting a new person (or people).
I'm going to have to try this next time. It makes a lot of sense. :)
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