The Hole Within

CHAPTER 1

I was born to the picture perfect, ideal Mormon family. Utah Mormon. This is different than normal Mormons. We abided to a higher law. A stricter law. A more devoted law. My mom, an only child, was born Utah Mormon to an older couple (read: too old to have more kids). She was young and impossibly beautiful. Cache Valley Dairy princess and high school cheerleader. My dad, also born a Utah Mormon, was a tall and handsome high school quarterback. It seemed a match made in heaven. I had a brother, two years older, with light brown hair, crystal blue eyes, a buzz cut and full of wonder at his baby sister.

I have no memory, save snippets, of my childhood. I do remember catching pollywogs in the ditch, bringing them home and releasing them in the half-filled tub. Of course, my Mom did not approve. We had to take them all back, much to my dismay. I remember watching as my brother and his friend cruelly stuck pins into featherless baby birds taken from a nest they found. I felt as if the pins were being stuck in me and I wanted very much to stop them but they were older and would not listen to me. However, this, like my other fleeting memories, may not have happened. I just do not know. My memories come like snapshot in time. Some just pictures, others like abbreviated films. Most of the time it does not bother me. Let the past be the past. Really, what does it matter now?

Or is it that the past is too horrifying to remember? I honestly cannot say. I do know that I was a good, (read: great) Utah Mormon. Looking back, I think that is when my quest for perfection begin. I wanted to be the best. I expected myself to be perfect. To obey all the rules. I was a voracious reader and first read the book of Mormon cover to cover when I was barely twelve. When I was done, I started to read it again. I had a colored pencil, one side red the other blue. I spent hour upon hour underlining, shading, marking passages I found inspiring. Red shading for important verses, red shading with blue underlining for very, very important verses, blue shading for inspiring verses, etc. I took my reading very seriously. I prayed equally fervently. All the time. Mostly to ask forgiveness for some minor offense. Things like being mad at my mom.