Return

It has been exactly six months to the day that I last posted.

I am sorry I have been gone so long! At first, this break was not planned or intentional. It just happened because of an uptick of my day-to-day responsibilities (and quite possibly me discovering the game Angry Birds during my daily commute). However, the delay in posting turned into a sabbatical from blogging for a few important reasons.

In the past half-year, I have still been heavily involved in the gay Mormon community but my blog has not been the primary vehicle of my interactions. Instead of hiding behind the words on a website, I am experiencing life first hand. This blog initially was a sounding board for thoughts, ideas and feelings as I processed one of the biggest decisions and subsequent paradigm shifts of my life. The words were a manifestation of the transition as I learned to accept who I was – who I am.

On a smaller scale, I started worrying too much about the quality of my own writing. So many of you so eloquently voice your heartfelt experiences and reasoned arguments that I want to put my best effort into participating in our community. I hold myself to high standards especially when it comes to writing. One of the primary things I do every day is write and edit. Before when composing an entry I would work on it for quite some time, and if I couldn't get a sentence just right I would agonize over publishing it until I was happy with the cadence, flow, beat and structure of each post.


If you will forgive me, I am going to try to post more regularly but I am going to spend less time agonizing over every word. I apologize if some of the edges of my future posts are a little rougher than what I have published before, but I celebrate my imperfections because I am an imperfect person.

One of the primary reasons for the break was because I spread myself too thin. Balancing an ever-demanding job with everything that I wanted to do in my personal life became too much of a juggling act. Work days became long and arduous. Free time to think and reflect became a rarity. My priorities were challenged due to my limited time. Pensive moments and blogging fell through the cracks in my schedule.

Additionally, I wanted to do everything I possibly could to help the community. I helped create the MoHo Map and continue to maintain it, offered to help administer the MoHo Directory, attempted to write book entries on gay Mormon issues and helped organize a potential new community for the advancement of gay acceptance within the church. With everything that was happening in addition to my work and church responsibilities, I couldn’t really do my best in any of them so the time I invested into blogging was sacrificed in order for me to concentrate on other priorities.

So much has happened in six months. One of the benefits of this sabbatical is that it has created a buffer of time on this blog because events started moving quickly and I simply could not keep up in real time. At first, I was using this blog primarily as a journaling function. It will continue to serve that role as well as being a place for discussion and reflection of both yours and the humorous and serious thoughts running through my mind.

Still, the mission of this blog remains as it has been from the beginning: celebrate the good, create beneficial connections and relationships, promote the positive, be as uplifting and helpful to others as possible as we take this journey together.

The collective voice of this community has immense value. I think I can give back and contribute more to the running dialogue that I have benefitted so much from before. I love telling stories and I have some to finish up and some new ones to tell.

You are all amazing. Some of my best friends have originated through this blog and I hope to meet many more of you.

Horizon is back!