When I first left Mormonism, I desperately wanted to leave it all behind me. Completely and totally. To be someone entirely separate from the community I grew up in. I figured moving to Spain could be the right opportunity to simply “move on” both emotionally and physically seeing that I was changing to an altogether different continent.
Initially that’s what I thought before I had that chance to really meet people. Before I tested out this new non-Mormon Natalie on other people. I thought Mormonism could be this random thing that kind of happened to me when I was younger but I’ve moved on from that. Then a strange thing started to happen; when I would meet people for the first time, I would feel overcome with the compulsion to confess–so to speak– the way I grew up. Even if the topic wasn’t entirely related I would clumsily add, “Yeah, so actually I grew up Mormon.” Reactions would vary from indifference to bewildered. For those who were curious about my upbringing they would, as one would expect, ask questions. And those questions would stir like sediment shaken in a glass of water. And that sediment wouldn’t always easily settle.
Sometimes I would be ok, I could get through demands of daily life just thinking about the here and now. Then something would stir the sediment, shake things up. And in a flash I’m back to the padded pews, the scratchy half carpeted walls, the drone of the volunteer speakers on Sunday, counting down the hours until church was done. I’m back to the way my childhood and teenage years looked, the coping mechanisms I learned while raised in a niche, strict environment that I still grasp onto now as an adult even though I supposedly “moved on” from Mormonism. I often felt angry. Angry that I couldn’t just let this go. I was so easily shaken. The debris that settled at the bottom would begin to cloud up whenever someone would ask “How do you know Spanish so well?” “Where did you go to university?” “Did you have a lot of rules growing up?” “Are you a spiritual person?”
As my first year anniversary to my arrival to Spain approached, I felt less of a desire to blurt my childhood religious trauma to people I hardly knew. I eventually learned that I feel more comfortable if I hold my tongue just a little bit when it comes to talking about Mormonism. I would consciously think to myself, “No need to tell people about my former religion unless they ask or it comes up in a conversation.” It usually would just come up, but it felt less like a confession and more like I was sharing a random fact.
It’s funny that I thought Mormonism was something that would eventually become a random blip from my past. Perhaps one day it will be, but I have a feeling that this is never really going to leave. What I have found so far is that it’s more like a lump of clay, wet sediment. My relationship with my past molds, adapts, changes its very formation, shaped by my surroundings and my thoughts. It adapts, I adapt. It changes, I change.