Over the past ten years since my little sister told me she was gay I have tried to understand what she is going through and help her deal with life. It's a rough road to grow up in an LDS family and have such strong same gender feelings. It's easy to feel evil and depressed. Although she has gotten past that stage in her life, it's still difficult to deal with. Since she is being more open with everyone, I thought I'd share what I've learned in case it can help anyone else relate better to someone in a similar situation. I'm not an expert at all, but at least I'm less clueless than I used to be. (And to those of you that know Heather, she is happy to talk more about it)
As her big sister who has all the answers (ha!) I've gone through different phases of trying to find solutions for her to be happy. Pray and it will go away. Fall in love with a boy and then you can just focus on him. Be single and be happy about it the rest of your life, just like straight people who can't find their match. Really none of those are solutions though because she has tried them all with no success.
When people are straight and single they at least have that hope that someday they will meet the perfect person for them. When you don't want to be in a gay relationship, but that is who you are attracted to, you feel hopeless and alone. It makes friendships difficult too. You want to have close friendships, but not too close that it's unhealthy for you. It's never fun to fall in love with someone you can't be with.
I guess some people are attracted to the same gender and then later are able to have healthy heterosexual relationships, but that isn't always how it works. I read the book, "No More Good-byes" and it talked about a scale from 1-6. People that are a 1 are completely straight, no sexual feelings towards same sex at all. 6 is homosexual. In between are people that are bisexual, or people that have a little more option in choosing gay or straight. If you are a 2 or 3 and want to live a heterosexual lifestyle, it's not that drastic to find someone to fall in love with and make a marriage work. But if you're a 5 or 6, that's just not realistic, as in Heather's case.
There are a lot of strong active people in the church that are gay, but don't act on their feelings. I'm sure it is very difficult, but what do you do when you love God and the church and are gay? Some people can't take it anymore and commit suicide. Even if God commands people to not have same gender relationships, I don't think He sees suicide as a better alternative.
I worry about the youth out there realizing how they feel and struggling to know what to do about it. I hope they will have understanding people to help them feel loved by God and everyone around them.
I'm sure it effects people in different levels of intensity. Heather is a very emotional person who puts so much into the relationships of her life. Being homosexual effects her everyday. I wish I had a solution for Heather. She has told me she knows she needs to live her values to be happy. The conflict comes because she has a value of having her needs met, by being loved and cared about in a relationship with a woman. However, she also has a value of following God and living the gospel.
I know she does all she can to reach out to others feeling the same way and help support them. She is an amazing person who deserves to have a happy life and I hope she finds a way to live all her values, even though right now the path is unclear.
I know it's not quite October, but I don't always fit in any October illustrations. I'm better at Christmas, probably because the season lasts for awhile. I don't know why I don't illustrate more just for fun. I LOVE it, but never get around to it. It's so illogical.
Calvin likes to pray on his own now and "shhh"es me & Brandon several times before he'll start praying. He mostly just says thank you for several things, some samples include: thank you blue bowl, thank you orange cup, thank you food, thank you outside, thank you clothes, thank you library shirt, thank you green daddy's (his green shorts- these are what he was wearing at the time), thank you Ian (usually this is said multiple times), etc.
I just bought a coleman axe for camping and after getting home I saw this warning on it about the chemicals it was made with causing reproductive harm and birth defects. Really? That seems kind of extreme that holding an axe could give my baby birth defects. Maybe if I eat it? Because I'm not planning on it. Still, it is a scary warning and I can't help but hold my breath a little when I walk by it.
Calvin has been really into making his cars and truck crash lately. He thinks it's so fun. He also thinks it must be even more fun to crash in a real car because when we were driving around the other day he asked me, "crash, mom?" I told him, no I didn't want to crash and he said, "please mom! Please crash!" Let's hope a lot of learning happens between now & 16.
I'm going to be teaching my first formal art classes. I've done a lot of teaching in the past, and a lot of art, so hopefully I'm good at art teaching. Here's the info if you know anyone in my area that might be interested?
The other day I went to the doctor to have my glucose checked. (they see how your blood sugar is doing to make sure you don't have gestational diabetes, which is fairly common when you're pregnant) I didn't have it with Calvin so I wasn't too concerned that it would be different this time. I was pretty bummed when the nurse gave me the numbers and how high my blood sugar level was. She told all the steps I would have to do to take another more elaborate test and I wasn't looking forward to that.
For those of you that haven't followed my blog since 2006 when I first mentioned these, this is my favorite drawing pen that I discovered in Canada and it took a lot of work to hunt them down once I got back. The company said they weren't sold in the U.S. due to patent laws, but after awhile I found a place in NY that I could order from online. (I'm not the only one obsessed with these pens btw, it's quite common. Even my professor said he would try to buy them every time he was in England) Spread the good news everyone, pilot g-tec c4's at a store near you! ....Or near me, at least.
My sister and her family came to visit us from Seattle. We did lots of fun things like swimming, Thanksgiving Point, Pirate Island, etc. When we went to the Bean museum the kids each picked out a toy and my little nephew picked out a husky dog while we were at a BYU museum. Seriously, what were they doing selling those anyway? He named the dog Jake Locker. (UW quarterback, playing against BYU next Saturday) Everything he talked about from then on involved Jake Locker. "Jake Locker and I are going wrestle uncle Paul" "Calvin keeps taking Jake Locker" It was really funny. When Calvin gets older there will be some rivalry there because Calvin definitely wanted to buy the BYU helmet from the museum (it was just a decoration). In the meantime, they let their dad's battle it out.
It turns out where we live is pretty awesome. We moved here because we found the perfect house for us. (perfect, as in decently awesome and massively cheap) The longer we live here the more we discover cool things that make it even better. We love the bike trail that takes you over to a beautiful river and park. They have yearly parties like fiesta days, and a fair. And there are rumors that one day we will have a Home Depot, Chili's and even a Target.
My strategy for gardening this year involving buying a few packets of seeds at the store and throwing them in a dirt patch one day. The soil didn't look very promising, I didn't bother with weeding and I followed the instructions on the packets only if they were simple enough. The sprinklers were in charge of watering. I figure next year I can put some time into more preparation, research & maintenance.
A GIRL! The top pic is of her buff arm and a little clenched fist, and the bottom picture is of her spine. She is healthy and growing (as is my belly) and kicking and we couldn't be happier. Now to work on that naming part...
Here is Calvin when he chose gardening over swimming at a family BBQ. I was a little disappointed in him:
He used his cuteness powers, combined with his cousin's, to get sled rides from Uncle Paul:
I would say it has been a very successful weekend. We also had some fun family bike rides, trips to the park, and a great time at Provo's Freedom Days. I am worried Calvin is going to think this coming week is really boring.
Over the past ten years since my little sister told me she was gay I have tried to understand what she is going through and help her deal with life. It's a rough road to grow up in an LDS family and have such strong same gender feelings. It's easy to feel evil and depressed. Although she has gotten past that stage in her life, it's still difficult to deal with. Since she is being more open with everyone, I thought I'd share what I've learned in case it can help anyone else relate better to someone in a similar situation. I'm not an expert at all, but at least I'm less clueless than I used to be. (And to those of you that know Heather, she is happy to talk more about it)
We have been wanting to do some bike riding together, especially since we live by so many awesome paths. We put Brandon's old bike back together, bought me a bike and even found a nice used trailer for Calvin to cruise behind us in. We are all loving it!
