69) Wyoming by Way of Utah- Part One

Wyoming by Way of Utah- Just Get Me Out Of Here

Heading out

Finally, all of the pieces had fallen into place, and we had managed to pull it all off. K was with us, riding with C. I was out of my house. The vehicles were running. We had Dr. Pepper, Doritos, Vivarin, and toothpaste. What else could we possibly need?

A did not have the biggest selection of cassette tapes to choose from, but I liked what he had, and we just kept them rotated.

Time flew by, and A and I were having a great time catching up. He really was a good friend who just wanted good things for people. My mom had thought he was the scum of the earth, and that never made sense to me. So he didn’t have new clothes, and he didn’t speak “properly.” He was a good person.

Headspace

I had done quite a lot of mental preparation for becoming free. It was honestly the only thing that mattered to me, the only thing that I wanted, the only thing that made sense. No matter what I encountered in the world, it wouldn’t be as bad as being the family scapegoat.

Viktor E. Frankl had said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

He also explained that in truly adverse circumstances, there were three phases of shock. The first phase was adjusting to the horror. The second phase is becoming numb to it. The third, and distinctly most difficult phase of shock is adjusting to liberation from the circumstance.

I felt prepared for the shock of liberation. Looking back now, the drastic freedom disparity certainly led to any number of risky behaviors (just wait), but I didn’t feel lost. I didn’t feel small or meaningless.

I felt possible.

That made radical acceptance very easy. I accepted that I was likely to die out in the world without any help. I accepted that I was going to have to build my life from the bootstraps up. This was America, and here anything was possible. I wasn’t afraid of hard work. I was tough. I got to decide who I was going to be, and set down the me that had become so muddled with my mother’s narratives.

Building a New Me

I wanted to live authentically. I thought it better to live one day as my authentic self than decades masking who I am. I wanted to question everything, and I decided I would have the most open mind. I believed that the diversity of the world was filled with beautiful ways of doing things that were likely to be more “right” than the clearly “wrong” ways I had come from.

I would be honest and authentic. I would be driven, and well-intentioned. I would seek solutions. I would work hard. I would keep my promises. I would become competent. I would understand the lives and ways of others without judgement. I would bask in the beauty of the free world.

I was an interesting paradox of loving and hating myself at the same time.

I didn’t think I was trash for being bisexual.

I didn’t think that my religious beliefs were harmful, and were certainly better than what I’d started with, although I was very torn between Christianity and Wicca. I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t believe in Christianity, because it is so pervasive in our culture, and it taught to us before we have any critical thinking skills. I still believed that there was some secret sacred truth there that I was just missing. At the same time, I was very drawn to Wicca and the way it embraced femininity and balance. It told me that I wasn’t wrong for existing, and I wanted that very badly. It told me that I wasn’t powerless, and I wanted that pretty bad too. Unfortunately, neither ever saved me.

I actually really liked who I had decided to be, but I still had my mother taking up rent-free space in my brain. I still felt wrong all of the time. I still saw the flaws in everything I did. I wanted so badly to be enough, and was trying with everything I had, and it just felt like I was always falling short.

I didn’t expect everything to make sense overnight. I expected it to make more sense, and that it did. I was pretty happy with that. I could fix me later.

New Geography

It’s strange when you leave your stomping ground. The geography we come from holds our memories. It holds our roots and our sense of belonging. It’s your mental map for the services you know, and the resources that enable your needs to be met. It all just felt empty to me as we left.

I was a person without a place or a people.

I had prepared for this liberation by practicing not needing. If I didn’t need things, people couldn’t use those things to control me. There was nothing you could take from me that I couldn’t live without. I’d figure it out, but I wasn’t going to need anyone who would hold it over me.

If not asking for help were a sport, I would be an Olympian.

A was driving, and we were using his truck, but I was paying, and had supplied it. Also, he never held anything over me. Ever.

Mile markers became memories as we wound our way through the Rockies.