Life: It's not a Game

A note from the editor:
I invite my friends, in the words of BYU professor Dr. Lori Wadsworth, to "move in to see those who struggle with doubts or grief and still want to fit in. Move in to see how amazing people are regardless of where they are on their faith journey." Move in to see some thoughts that Mormon millennials have written about their lives.

I want to reiterate: no story looks the same. The goal of these stories is to give voice to men and women, those who are married and those who are single, those with kids and those without, those who are straight and those who are gay, the conservative and the liberal, the faithful and the doubtful--and all gray areas in between these categories. Every person faces different spiritual, physical, and emotional challenges and I hope each story helps us think more compassionately about our friends and family as we move in closer and sit with them for a few minutes. 

Again from Lori Wadsworth: "What are we doing to make the world a better place? Are we helping those who are hurting? Are we standing up and speaking out to protecting out Heavenly Father's children?"


Stand up and read. Speak out your story. Love those who are different and those who are the same.


Story 1 of many.


The other day I was watching some kids play the board game Life. You know, the one with the little car pieces where you go around the board collecting life experience. I used to think real life was sort of like the game. Like sometimes you had good luck, and sometimes you had bad luck, but you had a few things you could count on like getting married and finding a job.

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Obviously, real life is not at all like that. Something I found out the hard way.

At first, I thought I was just having a lot of unlucky turns. You spin a three and land on a square that says your boyfriend cheated on you. Your next turn you land on a square that says you're in an emotionally abusive relationship. The love of your life stands you up for a date. You become clinically depressed.

Suddenly you look around and not only are you not winning the game, you're not even on the board anymore.

When I first realized my life was seriously off the trajectory I had initially planned (what I considered a very typical Mormon trajectory: go to college, get married, and live happily ever after), I started trying to evaluate how I'd ended up where I was. It's like I thought I could identify a specific event that was the root cause of my problems (having mental health problems, feeling lonely, etc.) and somehow fix it.

As I was doing this sort of reflection, I also started realizing a lot of things about myself. I started realizing a lot of things about me didn't fit with the stereotypical Molly Mormon I had envisioned myself being.

I realized I was a lot more politically liberal than most of my LDS acquaintances. I realized that I have a lot of questions about LDS doctrine. I realized I was not as straight as I thought I was. More specifically, I realized that I land somewhere on the asexual spectrum.

Asexual experiences mean a lot of different things for different people. For me, it means that I like boys romantically but have no interest in being physically intimate with them. This isn't a post about asexuality and what it is and isn't. There are lots of other places on the web to read about that. But if you want to talk about curveballs I've had thrown at me, that's sort of a big one. Honestly, I'm still trying to work out how that one fits into my identity as a Mormon as well as my goals to get married and having kids.

Finding myself outside the experience I expected to live as a Mormon has been terrifying in so many ways. At times, I've fallen into being hard on myself, as if my circumstances are a direct result of me not being smart/spiritual/pretty/charismatic/good enough to earn the life I wanted.

Many times I have found myself wondering if there really even is a place for me in Mormonism, and it's a horrible feeling, like the religion you've given your all to might not fit you after all. My faith means the world to me though. My faith defines me far more than anything else—my education, my asexuality, my singleness—ever could. My faith is something I want to fight for. I'm going to keep trying to find a place for me in Mormonism. And if there's not a place, I'm going to make one.

The hard thing about living life off the game board is that you don't know where you're going to end up.

The best part of living life off the game board is that you don't know where you're going to end up. A lot of the coolest places I've been have been off the board.

I've gotten to watch the sunset over the ocean in Japan. I've gotten to see rainbows in Wales. I've gotten to see sunrises over the Vermillion Cliffs and seen meteor showers from the tops of the Bighorn mountains. I've gotten to experience so many beautiful things that I didn't even know were out there.

I'm in a PhD program now, doing things I never expected to. Things I never thought I would be able to do. It's hard. It's hard and beautiful and for the most part, I don't really understand any of it yet. I'm learning to be more patient. More patient with God and the trials he allows me to experience. More patient with myself for not being where I thought I would be.

It's really far from perfect. But I think it's going to be okay.


--an anonymous friend