A New Beginning or The Continuation of A Good Life

I must apologize for my writing--I struggle with articulation and spelling and basically writing in general. (thank you medications of past times).

What exactly does it mean to be excommunicated? Well, it means I continue to do the same things I was doing before--no callings, no garments, no sustaining, ect. I have journeyed a long ways to get to this point in my life. If I would have thought 7 years ago I would be ex'd from the LDS church I would have been scared to death. But, I guess my disfellowshipment was a prelude to all of this and seemed to prepare me. I remember being disfellowshipped and feeling so relieved. And, I have to say, after I spoke with the Bishop about their decision, I felt this relieve inside me. Although I am still waiting to see if what the Bishop told me is true...."You will feel a little sad or depressed." I already struggle with the darkness of depression...its part of the illness. I have depression no matter where I am, where I live or who I am with. It's just life. But, back on task here.... Since hearing the news from the Bishop I have felt free. It seems the obligation is gone or perhaps its the expectation. I just feel like I can choose and do what is best for me.
While going through my divorce my relationship with the church became strained and actually I was not attending church, so I basically had very little communication with ward members. Prior to my divorce I had been counseling with the bishop about my relationship with J and he had always counseled with me to stop seeing her. I had even had conversations with both the stake president at the time and one of his counselors and both had told me the relationship was not good. Well, I continued my relationship and eventually I was disfellowshipped from the church. Some time after I filed divorce papers and the beginning of a very hard time started. I will not get into it, accept to say, homophobia, anger, bitterness, lies, and all manner of bad stuff.

Having gone through my own bitterness and anger towards the church during all of this I am at a point in my life where I have gotten over bad feelings toward the church, even after the Prop 8 disaster. I had to decide if I was going to keep feeling anger or let it go and get on with life. It does not do any good to be angry at the organization, because I realize nobody actually cares if I am mad! And that feeling sucks. So, I can honestly say I think there is some good about the LDS church, it has some good programs, it gives opportunity to be uplifting, BUT, there are other religions, organizations, peoples, groups, and situations that can do the same. There is good and bad in everything we look at , it's just a matter of what we are "looking" for. I want to be uplifted, I want to fill my heart and soul with goodness and where ever I can find this I will go there.

My relationship with J has not changed since learning of my excommunication. I keep hearing the Bishop say, "its' a sin", but I cannot feel what that means with her. When I am close to her I try to see and feel what that means, but I only feel goodness and strength. We wait our whole lives to find someone that brings the other half of us and that is what we have. The universe, a higher power or whatever we want to call it has blessed my life with this woman and the love we share. My only sin is that I lose my patience and forget to be good to her. I am still learning to give and take....aren't we all??

I know this has been long, too long for me to even go back and proofread, but I wanted to add in that I have seen my pdoc again and he has started me on two more meds--the last one was giving me nightmares. He also wanted me to continue to recite my prescription of positive affirmation to my self. So, I am reaching inside somewhere to give these new meds a try. I will keep ya'll posted on how they work.