The sacred act of being unholy

“I am going to say fuck and I need you to love me anyways” is the only line I remember clearly from my dream last night.

My parents were on the couch in the basement and I knelt in front of them, putting a hand on their knees, staring up at them with eyes full of pleading, “I’m going to say fuck and I need you to love me anyways”.

But pleading wasn’t the only thing in my eyes. It was also determination, it was certainty. I was stating a fact. “I am going to say fuck” and I love me anyways. 

That was the unspoken line behind my words. I love myself anyways. 

It was not an apology or an ask for allowance for my words, it was a command. 

I’ve come to love the messy, raw, unfiltered, vibrant, version of me and I want to bring that part of me home. 

I want to be that version of me with the people I love and it was almost as if I was warning them: this is who I am. If you shrink or shrivel at it, you’re going to have a really hard time loving me. 

You’re going to have a hard time having a relationship with me if you gasp every time you see the sides of me that I have developed in the last 5 years being away from home.

So instead of blushing and turning away, look at me.

Meet my eyes.

I am your daughter and I love who I am. I am full of light, I am powerful, I am intelligent as hell, I am based in principle, I am honest, I am hard working, I am kind, I am curious, I am courageous, and I’m going to say fuck. 

And I need you to love me anyway. 

I need you to trust me. Trust in my goodness.

One thing I’ve noticed about my family is that they can’t meet the worlds eye. 

They can’t stare at the worst of humanity and hold eye contact.

They turn away, they blush, they judge, they pray it away, they are fearful of it.

By choosing to hold so fast to their standards that they refuse to acknowledge other ways of living, they have created a bubble of fear around them. 

One wrong step and everything will pop.

Over the last 5 years since moving away from home, I've had the courage to pop that bubble.

To take a step outside of what I believed was "good". I shattered the boundaries of my childhood morals and I held my breath as I waited for fire and brim stone...but it never came.

Slowly, God has taught me to stop holding my breath when I take a step that I think could shatter my illusion of goodness, and breath with confidence that I will find what feels like home to me.

I will find what feels right to me.

I don’t have to beg for my own wholeness. 

Courage is the correct word in this sense- it takes balls to release everything you've ever defined yourself by and trust that you will be ok anyways.

It takes guts to do something so defiantly opposite of the morals instilled in you and still look up to God saying "Am I good?" and it takes strength to believe Him when He says "Yes, Bethany. You are still good."

How else can you really figure out what you believe in, if you do not challenge the very foundations of it?

I have never rebelled, or ran away. I have only walked. I have only lived.

I have explored the world, and met God there.

Their entire world is based on obedience. 

My dad and I had many conversations as we drove from LA to Utah last night, but one that stood out to me was when stopped in Vegas for dinner and I told him “Dad, nothing scares me. Because I know where my center is”

We had such a good time up until we entered the parking garage of Caesars Palace. He had been joking about the smell of weed and I truly felt safe enough in that moment to bring up the fact that I had done it. 

We had been discussing religion and spiritually for hours up until that point and I know my mind- I know it’s a wonderful place to see inside of.

My mind commands respect. I have an amazing perspective on life, and it is the privilege of anyone who experiences it to hear me speak.

If anything could make my dad trust me and my goodness, it would’ve been the hours of reflection about the universe, God, the atonement, and our purpose as creators on earth. 

So I said “Ok Dad, I have something to admit…I’ve smoked weed before” in a playful tone. Something I expected an “Omg you did NOT, how was it??” response to, because if you trust someone and truly respect their life experiences, you giggle with them and ask questions and explore the world through their eyes. 

You don’t worry about their salvation based on your own terms. 

But instead, he got quiet and said “I know more than you think I know”, which rattled me a bit.

I wasn’t sure what he’d found out- maybe it was about the nights I stayed out with strangers, the nights I explored altered states of mind, or the men I discovered sensuality with, or the moments I embraced a little-to-no-clothing version of myself, or really anything I’ve done on a given night out. 

So I playfully asked what he meant, and tried to tease it out of him. He couldn’t tell me. 

Not that he refused to, it’s that he couldn’t. 

He kept blushing, saying he preferred not to think of me like that.

He didn’t want to think of it. He couldn’t stand to look it in the eye- to look ME in the eye- and still see goodness in that moment. 

Even when he tried, he couldn’t say it out loud. 

He said someone had sent it to him, and I knew. It was the excerpt of writing that I posted on snap chat where I detailed my experience doing ecstasy.  

“I wonder what I looked like, lying there, naked, shivering on the floor, tripping out of my mind, finding faces in the ceiling and listening to words spoken by the fan. Living every mothers worst nightmare for their daughter. 

He was outside, smoking- I found it sweet he did it outside because he knows I hate the smell. He had walked out after he stood there looking at me, huddled and ragged as I was, pouring my heart out to him about how I felt I was inherently broken. 

That I was evil and bad and fragmented and I will never truly heal, only keep putting on masks. That I will never be truly loved because I only show my lovers versions of me and the real me is constantly at war with herself in her mind. My eyes turned to him, pleading silently for understanding, compassion, connection. 

His sharp pity and long silence broke with “You are so beyond help”. And then he walked out to smoke weed outside because I hate the smell of it inside. 

As I lay on the cold tile floor of the mansion in west lake, playing pretend that I was not disgusted by this man, that this little life was ours, I felt so small, so scared. 

Nothing was right and every shadow of my mind was on dancing display in front of me. Every one of my demons scaled the walls beside me and began to build their shrine on the ceiling while the fan spoke an eerie language.”

Yes, if I were an old school, devout Mormon father reading those words, I would shrivel away from them. I would be horrified. 

But that is his flaw, not mine. 

He is so scared of anything perceived to not be “holy” that he can’t find compassion for his daughter in a moment of terror and weakness. 

Do you know what I feel when I read those words? I feel like I want to hold myself, I feel like I want to scoop her up and listen to her talk for hours, and let her know she is safe.

I want to hear more about her mind and her experiences, and I ache for the fear she felt. 

Those words draw respect out of me, not fear. I met my demons eye to eye as I lay exposed and vulnerable in the most literal sense. 

And I still became who I am today. Not in spite of, because of. It’s just who I am.

This story is not some anomaly, or some mistake I made, it is the essence of who I am. Within this story you get the most sacred glimpse into my mind and my world. It is beautiful.

There’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s just me. 

It’s just me.

And I am not afraid of myself because I know I am good. 

And I am not afraid of other people, because my goodness is reflected outward. 

I am not afraid of anything because I have seen the devil and lived on. I know where my center is and I know that no matter what I experience- whether it be wonderful or heinous- that I can come back to my center. 

That is power.

Obedience to some line of morals is not power. Experiencing life and still choosing to believe in your own goodness is power. 

Yes, it hurt to see the fear in his eyes as he looked at me, but I knew in my heart of hearts that his fear had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with him.

I am not ashamed of that moment, I find it beautiful. 

I would have loved to discuss with my dad everything I saw, felt, heard, and learned that night- both about myself and God- but his fear stopped him. 

He didn’t get to experience all of me because he could not look me in the eyes and meet me for all that I am without flinching. 

It’s a strange thing to watch your dad be so small like that. So narrow minded. 

He thought I should feel shame, instead I felt pity- for him. 

Dad, I am going to say fuck. I am going to experiment, I am going to drink, I am going to explore my sensuality, I am going to do the shrooms I bought on the boardwalk, I am going to do things that you have deemed evil, unworthy, and inappropriate.

And I need you to meet my eyes anyways. I need you to believe in my goodness anyways.

I need you to love me anyways. 

Because I do. 

xoxo,

Beth