Heart(break)

It's amazing to me how much of a beating the heart can take. How much it will claw and grasp and squeeze to stop from falling off the edge and tumbling down to shatter into a million pieces. Only to then start putting itself back together, one piece at a time. Most of them in the right place.

My heart has broken a lot over the past couple of years. Yet somehow, it doesn't harden. After it repairs, it lets someone else back in. It takes a risk and lays it all on the line again, only to be denied, slapped out of my outstretched hand, and tumbles to the floor to shatter again.

Being an empath is incredibly painful. I feel other people's pain, yes, but good god, I feel my own pain like a scalding branding iron on my soul. It leaves a scar to remind me each and every time. I'm only 28. I've lost track of the scars...I don't even know how many there are any more, but they remind me of their existence when I need to be reminded.

So. I am single again. I am so tired of mingling. In pain and heartbreak like this, I always think of the lyric "I'm scared to death that there may not be another one like this." You know why? Because there isn't another one like this. There isn't another person just like that heartbreaker. Each soul is different. There will never be another one like this. That loss deserves ample grief.

Spare me the "he doesn't know what he's missing", "there's plenty of fish...", "he'll regret giving you up", "you're a catch, you'll find someone soon." I don't give a fuck. He DOES know what he's missing. We both know how big the ocean is AND how unique each other is. He probably will have some regret, but that sure as hell doesn't make me feel better. I have my own regrets, too. I'll find someone soon...sure. Sure I will. But I want him.

I have something I need to admit to the world. I MAY or MAY NOT be polyamorous. I don't fucking know. With some people I feel more monogamous than with other people. I'm figuring that out on a case-by-case basis now. This flip-flop was hurtful to someone I love and I need him to know how incredibly sorry I am for causing that pain. Please, please forgive me. I am so sorry.

I've learned a new word: demisexual. I don't really like the word, but I've read some insightful interpretations that resonate with me. I'm not "half" sexual like the word would make you believe. But I am taking this word upon myself to mean this: Initial physical attraction is good, very good, and very helpful. In fact, I need a fairly high amount of initial physical attraction. But. But - I cannot have sexual contact with that person until I get to know their soul and their energy better. It makes me a gatekeeper. Whatever, fine. It also makes me easier to take advantage of than I ever knew before. But now that I am owning this, I won't be so easily taken.

Grief. It doesn't have stages. It doesn't have beginnings. It doesn't have endings. Grief comes in moments of so many different forms: denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, depression, acceptance, unacceptable, hard-headedness, compassion, pride...the list goes on. But they are never in an order, and any can show at any time. Feel it. Cry. Wail. Scream.

A soulmate is someone with whom you made a pact before coming to earth. You and this soulmate agreed to teach each other something big. Actually, "big" doesn't cut it. You agreed to teach each other something monumental. These soulmate relationships quite often end in heartbreak. I met a soulmate in February. My heart broke in August. It was fast. It was wonderful. The heartbreak is painful.

My heart is in a million-minus-one pieces this time. This repair will be slow. This repair will be messy. I'll accidentally drop my heart 1,000 Times and have to re-repair sections over and over again. But you know what? It's still soft and open. I am the only one who has the power to harden my heart and I refuse to choose a perpetual hardened state. It'll harden for a few weeks...a few months...while the super glue cures. But I'll be back. Somehow. Somehow....somehow...

I Believe

"I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows..."

Wait...no, no.  Don't worry.  I'm not going to start out with a cheesy LeAnn Rimes song.  No, what I want to talk about is all my traditionally sacrilegious beliefs.

Yep, you guessed it!  A list:

My Sacrilegious Articles of Faith

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God...doing science

God...doing science

  1. I believe there are other intelligent beings in our universe that we may one day contact.
  2. I believe I will one day have my own planet. 
  3. I believe I can have spirit children with another man. 
  4. I believe Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene.
  5. I believe Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene had children with each other. 
  6. I believe the "Plan of Salvation" also fits for LGBT+ individuals. 
  7. I believe in aliens...to an extent. 
  8. I believe LDS prophets are men, not divine beings speaking only truth. 
  9. I believe I have a Heavenly Father as well as a Heavenly Mother. 
  10. I believe God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and individual beings united in purpose. 
  11. I believe polygamy should be legal - as well as any other type of polyamory. 
  12. I believe I was gay in the pre-existence.
  13. I believe I was born gay.
  14. I believe I will be gay in the next life. 
  15. I believe "being gay" is part of my soul. 
  16. I believe a woman has the right to choose whether to carry her baby to full term or abort it. 
  17. I believe in the powerful potential of stem cells and in fully funding stem cell research. 
  18. I believe gender and sexuality are not solidified and constant. 
  19. I believe God is the perfect scientist. 
  20. I believe women can lead religious congregations. 
  21. I believe.

Wooooo....I'm so liiiiiiiberrrrrrrallllllll!

Go ahead, un-follow me, defriend me, un... + me?  Or just comment - that's more fun for both of us anyway.

Ignorant Remarks, Insensitive Timing - Their Injurious Consequences and the Impending Paradigm Shift

1.

"We must understand that any persuasion to enter into any relationship that is not in harmony with the principles of the gospel must be wrong."

A monogamous same-sex relationship in no way deviates from the principles of the gospel.  However, it is interpreted that since both members of the duo are of the same sex, this relationship is "unnatural."  "Unnatural" is a synonym for "wrong" in the LDS Church.  I believe life is too complicated to be described by plug outlets and pipe joints.  Of course a male joint won't attach to another male joint.  But you know what?  I'm not a plug.  I'm a human being.  I believe my biology, psychology, physiology, and spirituality are a bit more intricate than a plug's.  My point is, it's not black and white.  No matter how many times I say that, the people who think it is black and white are too insane (I mean that quite literally) to even consider other thinking.  You only become sane when you realize your own and the world's insanity - and change.

Who are you to define what is "natural" and what is not?  Lack of understanding about something doesn't make it "unnatural."  Take gravity, for instance.  I'm in physics and I know physicists know NOTHING about gravity.  It's the weirdest force.  It hasn't yet been "combined" with all of the other forces.  That's the purpose of the various grand unified theories out there (like String Theory).  Being the physics nerd I am, then, I have to pick at Elder Packer's quote about voting to change the law of gravity.

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Blast from the past: Prop 8, Mormons, Founders, Voting, Agency, Revelation, and some Betrayal...sounds like a good read!

This is a Jason Hoggan Facebook Note original. Post date May 27, 2009 at 1:52AM, so I am re-posting it exactly a year later. Anyway, the title is "Prop 8, Mormons, Founders, Voting, Agency, Revelation, and some Betrayal...sounds like a good read!"  Enjoy.

This is a rather unique Note. As many of you that are reading this already know, last election season I officially got my feathers ruffled by a few too many people, and one specific religious organization, to keep quiet any longer. I loudly voiced my opinion on gay marriage, told a rather brief yet detailed version of my “story,” and also unintentionally outed myself to many many people through all of this. This Note is a more detailed and thoughtful description of why I became so upset at the LDS Church and their involvement with Proposition 8 in California during election season 2008.

I was taught from a very young age that my Church would never tell its members how to vote. Every year around election season, the bishop would read (and still does) a letter from the First Presidency that states the LDS Church never endorses a political candidate or a political party. They would never tell us how to vote; just encourage us to do so.

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