Growing up in California, I didn't have a lot of Mormon friends outside of church. Actually, I didn't ever feel like I had a lot of Mormon friends in church. I remember them teasing me and making fun of my favorite dress. They thought I was weird. Everyone always thought I was weird, and they still do. I guess in that regard I feel like Superman, never fitting it.
One time my sister said, "You like being called weird! You call yourself weird because you want attention." But that's the thing, I didn't wake up one day when I was 5 and decide to call myself weird. People used that word as a weapon and I suppose at a certain point I internalized things. Or maybe I took something that was used to hurt me, and tried to turn it into a badge of honor. I think people do that a lot. But I can tell you one thing, this wasn't my perception of what I thought people thought of me, from a very early age people have said out loud, to my face as compliments or daggers, that I am weird.
The weird label has been there for so long I can only accept it, for good or bad, as a part of my identity, but this post isn't really about my being weird. In California amongst my friends I was the goody goody. I didn't start swearing until the 6th grade. I still remember my friends teasing me because I wouldn't swear and then finally I have in one day and swore, and they clapped for me. From there it was downhill in Mormon surface sin world. Every other word that came out of my mouth at school was the F-bomb or the B-word. But still, I didn't try any drugs. I didn't make-out or have sex. I didn't shoplift, watch porn, or drink like my friends- regardless of the things that came out of my mouth I was a goody goody at heart, and the people there could see it.
When I moved to Utah the Catwoman in me started to develop. I don't know if this is related but the one and only cat I've ever had ran away and died the day I moved to Utah...
In Utah I was the anti-Christ. I swore and constantly told dirty jokes, behavior which now seems to be the crest of most of my siblings. In California this was what I did to fit in and here all it did was put up giant walls around me. One time this kid, Quinn, said to me in response to a dirty joke, "Laura, do you even have a religion?" Around this time I also had a seminary teacher who hated me because I asked questions that were a little too devils advocate in institute. He used to tell us that most of us wouldn't go to the Celestial Kingdom, and that we'd be scrubbing his toilets while he sat up there behind the pearly gates...talk about spiritual confusion.
That hit me really hard. I had a bad-influence friend and talked to random boys on the phone. I told dirty jokes and swore...I guess I was a real heathen. But here's the thing. I still didn't do drugs, make-out, have sex, shop lift, watch porn, or drink. Anyway, back to the religion-less Laura. I knew I had to change, I was on a bad path...? I realized that the way people perceived my spirituality mattered...? Wait, what the?! Anyway, fast forward to the future (over the hell that was Freshman-Junior years of high school) and I was teased for being a Molly Mormon. I guess you can't please everyone. Even now, in the midst of being viewed as a heathen by many, I'm viewed as the too perfect alien Superman by others.
Senior year, I finally made a friend and she was a real goody-goody. I had never been friends with someone so perfect, but I had a friend and boy did I love her. I remember once she told me her parents thought I was a bad influence. I was going to church and seminary. I devoted time to my scriptures daily, sometimes for an hour or more. I was reading all of the Work and the Glory books for fun. I didn't swear, drink, smoke, have sex, party...but still, something about me. I was a bad influence.
Enter college. The first time I felt like people really appreciated my weirdness. No longer was weird a dagger. People seemed to like me, even if it was sometimes just as the entertainment. But again, I was the bad one in the group. No one told me I was bad, but they did say, "Laura! You can't say that!" "Laura, don't do that!" Everything I did was inappropriate and I was always at battle with myself. The battle between "being myself" and behaving how everyone else thought I should. I love my college friends dearly, but lets be honest, I was the bad seed of the group.
Ogden. Here we go again. I was the love child of the devil and Lady Gaga. I mind as well have been Barack Obama to these people. Everything I said and did was a sin, and they let me know it. I was "bad" because I love Mean Girls and spandex. As I've aged over the years I really feel like I've settled into myself, kinda like every other late 20's person out there. By then, not so suddenly, one day my daughter of Gaga heathen ways became too much and I was let go. I was told that I said things that made my friends uncomfortable, but they felt they couldn't tell me because they thought I would laugh at them. I was told I was headed down a bad path. Thank you for thinking so highly of me, friends. P.S. I routinely have nightmares about you.
Is it all I my head...nope. Here it was, being told to my face...well, over the phone. You're weird. You're bad. You're a villain.
Why am I Catwoman? Because maybe I've done some light cat-burglary. I swear, I watch R-movies sometimes, I tell pervy jokes, ask the wrong questions and make the wrong comments in church. She also loves spandex and has a lot of va va voom. Hello! I like rock and roll, fake cigarettes, and I secretly wish I could be a rockabilly sex bomb sometimes.
But here's the thing about Catwoman. She was always viewed as a villain, but she was really was good at heart. She was a villain who never had to see the bishop. She had secrets, but I have none. I'm tired of being viewed as a villain when I'm not one. I might view things differently than you. I might disagree with you. I might do some light burglary, but I am behaving in a way that I think God wants me to behave, and I'm tired of people thinking they have any right to participate in my personal relationship with God.
Sometimes I feel hopeless. Hopeless to think I'll find people who love me the way I am and not as the entertainment, or as the reminder that they're more righteous than someone else. I'm lucky, I have a few people in my life that love me as I am, and this post was certainly not directed at them. I might feel hopeless sometimes, but I am not without hope. I know God and His Son love me and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is my path to happiness. I am happy now, and I know one day things will work out, whatever that means.
Laura, I remember the first time I met you I thought you were hilarious. I loved all the silly little rebel things we did, mostly in walmart. haha! i may have done a lot of dumb things in high school, and even more later.. but being friends with you was not one of them. I love the memories that I had with you! I actually look up to people like you who are genuine. You should be proud that you have nothing to hide from anyone! Not a lot of people can say that. plus, catwoman is awesome.
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