Time, Time, Time. See what's become of me...

I love the cool August nights. The hint of Autumn is in the air, and the humidity is generally lower than it is during the rest of the summer. You can see the Milky Way on a lot of these nights, too. There's also an inevitable tinge of sadness that comes with August. For August means the end of Summer is near and that Fall is on its way.

Fall is certainly the most colorful of seasons in a temperate zone, but it's a season I always associate with dying in some small way. The leaves fall off the trees, and for the next six months the forests will be bare. That doesn't mean they won't still be pretty and there is in fact nothing like the first snowfall that covers a forest, but that doesn't mean I'd not rather see the green leaves. More importantly, it also means cold weather.

I suppose living in the MidAtlantic states, I should be used to the relatively mild Winters that we experience, but just because I'm used to them, that doesn't mean I like them or approve of them.

I suppose it's also a time of year when I realize that whether I want to or not, I am getting older. Perhaps this is because my 30th birthday comes up in February, and it's a milestone that while not meaning I'm old, does mean I'm getting closer to Middle Age. It may be natural for it to bother me, but I wish it didn't. It may be one of the reasons my thoughts have been focused on time lately. Now, of course February is still several months away and I always dislike it because it seems my birthday gets overshadowed by Valentine's Day. (You can guess which holiday is more important to me.)

The benefit of time passing means I'm also getting farther away from the Hell that was my early life. I realize the experiences made me who I am, but that is not always a good thing. I also realize as a part of these thoughts that religious indoctrination robbed me of something precious – that is, time itself. As much as I want the Mormon church to be part of my background, it has intruded itself so deeply that I doubt I'll ever be able to untangle it completely from my psyche. And you know what? While I'm not the type to go screaming from the rooftops, I've finally realized the anger I've felt is justifiable. It doesn't matter whether or not the individuals were well-meaning, it doesn't mean they still didn't cause me some psychological harm.

I've wanted to deny that the Mormon church did some damage, mostly because compared to the rest of my life, the experience was positive, but now I can no longer pretend it didn't happen. I can either let it make me bitter or move on. I just wish Mormonism wouldn't play with its members heads so much.

Overall, I really don't like being in these moods. It makes me feel like something of a drama queen. I suppose I should pay more attention on the ring that was handed to Solomon that said, “this too shall pass.”

As a final note, I happen to love the term “Morridor” when referring to certain areas of Utah and Idaho. It just makes me think there should be something like this:

Three for the Trinity above the sky
Nine for the witches doomed to die
Seven for the Catholics in their cathedrals of stone
One of the prophet on his plush throne
In the land of Morridor where the shadows lie

One church to rule them, one church to find them
One church to bring them all and in the gospel's darkness bind them
In the Land of Morridor where the shadows lie.

I wonder if a Mormon jewelry company would inscribe that on a CTR ring for me.