Genesis, Part One...

Before I get too involved with what it is I am plan on blogging, I'd like to tell you why I have created this blog in the first place. To do that, however, we're going to have to take a little ride down memory lane...

First off, my name is Michael Liberty. I'm 28, with my birthday on the not-so-distant horizon. When I was eleven, my parents noticed that I was a little different than some of the other kids. I reacted slowly, I behaved abnormally, and my temper was through the roof. Now, if I would have been born thirty years prior, they would have just swatted my bum a lot, like parents of that era did, and everything would have turned out fine. But somewhere in that thirty year gap, a new invention was born: psychologists. Psychologists have an interesting talent for taking a personality quirk that everyone would have referred to as, say, hyperactive and placing a fancy label on it like ADHD, and then charging a lot of money to tell you that you've got it!

Well, making good use of this new resource, my parents took me to a psychologist named Doctor Bailus. (I don't mind using his real name and you'll figure out why in a minute. But from here on out, everyone else's names have been changed.) Now, Dr. Bailus specialized in diagnosing and treating problems with children, and since the military referred him to us, my parents didn't hesitate. My first time with the guy, I was given a low-leveled maze and a pencil and was told to have at it. Mazes being my thing, I finished it pretty quickly. I remember we spoke briefly, nothing really fancy. He wanted to know about my home life, my relationship with my mom, my dad, my sister, my dog... All normal, I told him. And, with that dazzling analysis, he told my parents that I had tourettes.

Thanks to Hollywood, what is known as Tourette's Syndrome is pretty popular in today's world, but back then we didn't have a clue what it was. It was explained to us that tourettes is when a person has either physical tics, vocal tics, or for those unlucky people, both. I had both but thankfully didn't have vocal outbursts very often. A tic, by the way, is when the body behaves in a repetitive, uncontrolled, and often random action. As you can imagine, my parents were just thrilled to hear this. But there was no need to fear, said the good doctor. If I were to come back to his office twice a month and take some pills twice a day, I would live a pretty normal life. This was more along the lines of what my parents wanted to hear, and so every other week, Dr. Bailus and I met for an hour (which is a lot of time for an eleven year old, if you think about it) and we talked.

Talking wasn't all Doctor Bailus wanted to do, though. There were tests, puzzles, games, songs, touching, mazes, hugging, more puzzles, more touching, more games, more hugging... My life was changing. Socially, I was completely a different person. I went from having failed a grade to becoming a B average student. I could play sports, have normal conversations, draw, read... It was a new me. I still had tics, but they were less hindering to my life. And for the first time in eleven years, I felt normal. Well, almost. You see, what I didn't tell my parents was I knew that the extra curricular activities that Dr. Bailus and I were having were wrong, but at the time, I had figured, "This man has helped me become normal. So, I can help him with... whatever. And really, is this such a bad thing? What is so important about touching? It is the only thing I can give him to pay him back." So, I didn't tell anyone about what was going on.

I've been asked by a lot of people - religious people, family members, ex-girlfriends... - when did I know I was gay. As far as I can tell, I had never really shown any interest in men until Doctor Bailus decided he didn't just want to help children, but wanted to help himself to them as well. I might have always had the weakness to become this way and was only given the opportunity through that experience. But who knows? What I can say is that from that moment on, I was only attracted to the same gender.

About the same time, I noticed that I had found myself staring at boys. It wasn't obvious to me yet, just a vague interest in them, but by the time I had turned 12, I remember playing MASH under the covers at night and giggling with joy when Jason Hitchcock's name was matched with mine. (We probably ended up in a shack driving a Volvo, but that didn't matter. We would have made it work.) Little did I know at this age, but there is this thing called Gay-dar. It's where one gay person and another gay person can actually sense each other's presence, almost like two Jedi can, except Gay-dar works 24/7, bends around corners, and is more dependable than the mail man. Untrained as I was at being gay, I didn't have a clue what Gay-dar was or how to work it. Thusly, I also didn't know that some of the guys in my everyday life were also interested in men. My Gay-dar didn't work so hot back then.

In the 6th grade, my PE teacher (we'll call him, Mister Saul) spotted me walking home one day and decided to give me a lift. I knew he lived just down the road from me and so I accepted. Besides, Mister Saul looked exactly like Tom Cruise and had a six-pack. Let's just say, if he hadn't offered, I probably would have rolled up my pant leg and jerked my thumb out at him. On the way home, he invited me over to his place. Now, a lot of people go over to Mister Saul's house. He entertained often and the coolest guys from school went over there to work out, play tennis, and go swimming. I was hoping that this invitation meant that I was cool. Next thing you know, I'm back to being touched. But there is something different this time. This time, I enjoyed it. This time, I had more of a voice and I chose not to use it. I'm not defending Mister Saul. Keep in mind, he was my teacher and I was only 12. I'm just saying that my feelings had changed dramatically since the days of Dr. Bailus.

About six months later, my sister started going to church out of the blue, and she wanted me to go with her. I don't know if her sudden interest in the gospel had anything to do with a boy she had the hots for at the time, but it had been years since I'd been to church and thought it'd be a nice change. What I didn't expect was to be the new eye candy of the youth leader who we'll nickname Doublemint, since he always had a stick in his mouth. Now I know what you're probably thinking. "A third time? Seriously? Where does this guy live? A pedo-farm?" Trust me, it was just a normal small town in southern California. Why there were so many child molesters there, I'll never know. But needless to say, I had my fair share of them trying to get at me.

Now, fast forward eight years. I'm 21, living in Waco, Texas and working two jobs. The first job is at the Olive Garden where I am a host. The second job is at a gay bar where I am pretty much the odd-job guy who did a little bit of everything... no pun intended. Yes, I messed around a lot. I drank a lot. I smoked a lot. I tried weed a little bit but it didn't agree with me so I gave that up pretty fast. And that's how life was for me, until I met Samuel Black.

Sam and I both worked at the Olive Garden. I remember the day I met Sam, I was manning the hosting podium, signing people in, and he walks up to me and casually gives me a compliment. I forget what for now, but I remember looking at him with googly eyes from that moment on. And let me tell you, Sam is one hot guy. Even today, I see pictures of him on the Face and I inwardly sigh. But there was something different about Sam. He was straight, but he was nice. No, it was more than nice. Sam had an interest in every person who he interacted with. These days, that is not a common trait to have, especially in men. Especially in straight men! So I got curious. I asked a couple of friends about him and they told me that not only was Sam straight, but he was Mormon.

I didn't know too much about Mormons, except that they were supposedly going to Hell for making their own bible or something like that. But I'd corrupted many a straight guy before and I had no doubt that I could do the same to Sam. So I approached him one day at work, sporting the hottest of the ties the OG let their hosts wear, and I began to talk to him.

"Hey Sam."

"Hey Michael. How're you doing?" He always asked and actually waited for the answer. Most people are already waiting to say, "Oh, that's nice." And then move on with what they really wanted to talk about.

"I'm good, thanks. How're you?"

"Fine," he said.

"Oh, that's nice." See what I mean? "So, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Alright."

"You seem like a nice guy and I consider you a friend, but to be honest, I heard a weird rumor about you and I wanted to ask you about it."

"Sure thing. What is it?"

"Well, I heard you were a *voice drops to a whisper* Mormon. Now, I'm a pretty open minded guy and I already think you're pretty cool, but I wanted to know if it is true. Because I'm willing to be friends with you no matter what, I just want to know."

"It's true," he said.

"Oh. Well... To be honest, I don't know what Mormons are like anyways, but you seem nice enough."

And so we became friends. He invited me to Church a few times and I actually went once, but I was really tired from having worked late Saturday night and so I wasn't really paying much attention. A while later, he invited me over to his place and, if you can remember my past track-record with that, I thought that was code for something else. So I came over looking and smelling great. But he wanted to discuss something called the Pre-existence. I remember that half way through his talk, I stopped batting my eyes at him and realized that he had just answered a question that I've had all my life. As I recall, I was confused. Answers to life long questions was not the reason I had come over there and yet that's what I ended up getting. Along with that bit of information, I felt something that I had never felt before. I didn't know what it was or what it meant, but it wouldn't leave me alone.

And that was my first "Mormon experience." I don't know if Sam meant for any seed to be planted, but from that day on, I carried with me a deep curiosity for the Mormon Church...