an old friend

When I knew I'd be coming out to Utah, I contacted some old friends--BYU friends, actually. I called one on Sunday, and "came out" as an "inactive" to her. After chatting for a little:

fta: What are you doing tonight [New Year's Eve]?
friend: There's this house party. A band I used to play with is performing.
fta: Oh, yeah, I was looking for a party. Do you think I could come?
friend: You want to?
[friend's friend, in the background]: Is she LDS?
friend: [to her friend] I'm not really sure about her status.
fta: Yeah, that would be: I've spent too many New Year's Eves sober.
friend: You're looking to make up for lost time, huh?
fta: Yep.
friend: Wow. We really have a lot of catching up to do. How long has it been seen we've seen each other?
fta: Probably four years.

So I ended up in Salt Lake at a good party, and I had a couple Utah-made microbrews. I just couldn't bring myself to drink the Bud Light--sorry, I'm a beer snob--and I thought it a great gesture to drink beer from Utah. I did spend the moments of midnight sober, since I knew I had to drive home.

What was interesting in talking to this friend was our very different exit stories. Mine can be found in the October archives of this blog, so I won't go over it except to stay I grew up very faithful and believing, and left abruptly after deciding the church's origin claims are, um, suspicious. But she grew up with a "inactive" dad, who would "deprogram" her after church, openly disagreeing with things she'd been taught as he saw fit. So she's always been able to approach the church critically, and even when I knew her at BYU didn't attend church regularly. I had conversations with her back then that challenged my assumptions; I really liked that. She's spend years pulling herself away from the church, trying to attend for a while, then thinking it's not worth it, then going just for sacrament meeting, but not during July becuase they are just way too blindly patriotic, etc. Her last move to a new state ended her attendance, and dating a never-Mormon helps that.

But at the same time, she feels a very strong pull toward her Mormon heritage. Utah is home base, the place to always come back to. She debates whether she could have alcohol at her wedding. She debates whether she could marry an never-Mormon, but also knows she could never marry a Mormon, and even an ex-Mormon might be "too bitter" for her. She still believes in some of the Mormon stuff, believes in God, and wants (not Mormon) church-going to be a part of her (future) children's lives.

It amazed me how unique each person's story is. While I fall into talking about Mormons and former Mormons as if they were two easily definable categories, they are not. To say "Mormons are like this" or "ex-Mormons are like this" is just as faulty as the old stereotypes I had about "apostates" when I was Mormon. There are commonalities and trends, to be sure, but the diversity is astounding and important to recognize and understand.