Celebrating Multiple Zeros!

Since our society uses base ten numbers, we celebrate small multiples of powers of ten, in other words, it has zeros in the number.  This is post number 200 on my blog, which one of those numbers with multiple zeros, so it's time to celebrate!  I've written a lot and probably repeated myself somewhat on this blog, but that's not going to stop me from repeating even more.

For those who are newer and don't want to dredge out past posts, I think a brief introduction and recap is in order.  I'm a *mmpfsle* year old male member of the LDS church who happens to have a gay orientation.  When I was about twelve years old I found myself being attracted to boys, but I never let others know.  I dated girls in high school and college, but it was just for fun -- like hanging out with friends -- rather than romantic for me.  I went on a mission and found it to be a wonderful and fulfilling endeavor, but it didn't change my orientation.  I wasn't sure that I expected it to do so, but I wasn't ruling it out.  Anyway, I figured I would eventually get married, but it would probably be a while before that ever happened.  When to my surprise, shortly after returning from my mission I did find this girl that drew my attention.  I didn't exactly know what to do about it, never having fallen for a girl before, so it took a while but we eventually married in the temple.  Let me assure you that she was in-the-know, so to speak, about my orientation.

Now we have been married for a good number of years, and have a good number of children.  It seems to me that my situation can't really be all that unusual, but then again, maybe it is.  Since those of us in my situation have no incentive to come out and share our orientations, but rather fear the repercussions of others knowing about us, the number of people like me is entirely unknown.

I remember as a teenager that sometimes I would fear that I wouldn't be able to stay in the church.  I didn't know of anyone like me.  I only heard stories of those with gay orientation who left the church.  It would have been nice to know, as a teenager, that I wasn't so alone, that others have walked this path before.  I'd like to do that for others, but so far, I've only felt comfortable to come out anonymously on this blog.  I still feel intimidated by possible repercussions of admitting my orientation publicly.  Maybe someday that will change.