On the outside, blending in

When I first moved to Pittsburgh to start my graduate degree, it was the first time I'd really moved away from home. It was definitely the first time I'd moved across the country; it was the first time I was in a city full of strangers. Two of my mom's best friends both had daughters living there, so I had someone to take me to Costco and Target that first week, someone to have Book Group with. But really, I was on my own. There were days that I felt very isolated, apart from human contact.

I really enjoyed my graduate classes from the start, though some of them were pretty intimidating. I was thinking and discussing on a new level that took some getting used to. What was at first more intimidating were the other students. Many of them were from the area, or had at least been living there for a little while. I felt so backwards and naive, self consciously aware that I was from far away, that I had lived an incredibly sheltered life, that I was completely unversed in so many of their dialects - drinking, smoking, sex (especially same-sex relationships). Even coffee was foreign to me. Their language was peppered, even in the classroom, with words I was completely unaccustomed to hearing. My main objective in those first few weeks was to not look foolish, not let anything catch me off guard. I willed my face to stay passive no matter what topics came up in our classroom discusses, even when my teachers used the "f-word" in class. I inconspicuously avoided the coffee that was provided during our ten minute breaks and shyly asked for "just a hot chocolate" at the campus coffee shop. I tried so hard not to let my eyes widen at the bawdy jokes or what seemed to me then to be extremely liberal ideas.

Of course, if anyone directly asked me where I was from, I cheerfully answered that I was from Utah, and if it came up, I admitted unabashedly that I was a Mormon. I readied myself to answer any questions about the Church or our beliefs, but I didn't volunteer the information without it being directly sought for. Mostly, I was trying to blend in with a world and a people completely different from everything I knew.

Now I look back at it and wonder why I didn't show who I was a little more openly. Why was I so afraid to be me? We are taught in the Church to be missionaries no matter where we are, but I was terrified of saying the wrong thing. I think I just wanted to fit in, but I should have known that really, I didn't want to fit it with the drinking and sex and language - I wanted to be accepted. With them, but apart. It's a contradiction that I didn't understand for a long time.

The first time I volunteered information about my beliefs was at a reception being held for several visiting international authors. Wine was being served (there was wine at everything) and someone asked why I wasn't drinking.

I took a deep breath and answered with a smile, "Actually, I'm a Mormon and we don't drink."

One of the girls standing nearby asked incredulously, "Ever? So you've never had a drink...ever?"

"Nope," I said proudly. After a moment's pause, I added, "We don't drink coffee or tea either."

"Wow," the other girl said, not impressed with my abstention, but rather...disturbed that someone would willingly not do things she considered everyday necessities.

"Yeah," I said and shrugged, still smiling. The conversation turned after that, but I was internally proud of myself for taking that first step toward being open about who I was. I had never before realized how much my religious beliefs were intwined with who I was, but being alone and so far away from home brought it all into sharp distinction. In a lot of ways, I don't know if could have ever truly understood my relationship with my religion and the value of that relationship until I was so far removed from its source.