I don’t ever joke around on April Fools Day. For me this day marks the anniversary of one of the most important days in my life, equally important as the birth of my children or marriage(s). On this day, in 2010, I was admitted to a mental institution (having committed myself). My entire world and Mormon family came crashing down. It was the breaking point, the part where being “unplugged from the Matrix” (as Morpheus tells Neo) almost killed me. Someplace I have a 30 page document that I scribbled out incessantly while at the desk in my hospital slippers with nothing else to do, shaking from (or despite) the drugs they gave me. I convinced the nurses to let me check my accounts at my bank. My ex-wife empties every fucking dime. Then my father-in-law called my parents and said, “you better come get your fucked-up son”. They had nothing to give. I had literally nothing. They took all my clothes, every worldly possession I had. I was alone. I hadn’t just left the Mormons, I confided in a wonderful teacher who took me as I was and tried to help me sincerely move on to something else. I was vulnerable and fell in love with her. My cheating was really the last straw for all of it. Strangely, I loved them both in a very real way. But I could not stay with the Mormons knowing what I had found out and my ex-wife made it very clear (through tears, “don’t burst our bubbles”) that she was trying to love me but couldn’t make it through it. She even offered to drive me to “her” house. But, when she found out about the sex. Everything exploded, and I cracked. I didn’t do anything violent, I just wanted to disappear.
I remember looking out the window, through bars, at the beautiful trees blossoming with Spring warmth, with the stench of vomit under me where someone had puked while near the telephone, the old-school payphone that was the only communication with anyone. I remember the blossoms where pink and the Mormon children’s song, “Popcorn Popping” played in my head. I remember vividly flashing back to being seated in my Sunday clothes singing my heart out as a child with the rest of them on a beautiful Spring morning. I ran out of tears. In fact, I was pretty much dehydrated the entire time I was there from all the convulsive crying and sobbing. They wanted to up my meds, but asked to please not. So I wrote more, and more, and more. I’ve never read those pages. I have them somewhere. I just don’t know if I’m ready to read them, or if I’ll ever be ready. I remember they were about all the reasons the my life still had meaning, plus lots of rage against the hypocrisy and violent lies the Mormon church forces on young people from a very early age. The Mormons are a horrible cult of epic proportions that fly under the radar because of their pretty exteriors. I lost everything because of those lies, and my poor choices trying to deal with them myself once I realized it all.
So April Fools Day is the day I was reborn. Everything that has happened since has been for the best, even the hard stuff. All my sons have made it out of the Church safely (except my oldest with Autism, who gave in to the fantasy out of psychological survival after really trying to leave). I have a lot to remember on this glorious, painful day, a somber day for me, my own personal memorial day, the day the old Rob truly died and whatever the Rob is now became. As I watch my wife sleeping peacefully, listen to yoga music, and contemplate all the progress I have made with them I just cannot overstate my gratitude for a Universe that allowed me to survive, and even thrive though all of it. Yesterday, I read of a Twitch streamer in her 20s who took her life and could not help but realize how hard it is for so many that we never know about. All anyone can do it give people the benefit of the doubt and move on. Today’s a day of renewal to my commitment to be a better person, to assume nothing, and to find kindness even for the biggest morons and lazy people, even people like Trump (who was raised in some of the most deplorable conditions imaginable). I guess I’m saying, I’m going to do even better this next year. Don’t get sad. Don’t get mad. Get fucking busy making the world what you want it to be. That’s what I tell myself.