This is not Mexican wrestling porn

I spent part of this week in San Francisco, exploring some possible career options. I participated in a two day training in the relatively new and emerging field of coaching. I really don't like using the word coaching though, perhaps because of horrible memories of playing little league baseball and jock checks in my middle school gym classes. Why was it so important that we wear those damn things? I'm pretty sure briefs would have been just fine.

Enough of my traumatizing middle school experience. I was amazed at how at home I felt and also how uncomfortable I felt in the class this week. I was surrounded by so many people who spoke my language. There were some in particular who I connected with almost instantly in a way that rarely happens to me. Like we were just picking up from another life. At the same time, I was also venturing very far outside of my comfort zone, participating with people I don't know that well in a way that I typically reserve for intimate friends. It was all very mentally and emotionally challenging and rigorous. It was empowering to take it on and fully engage in it though. This is certainly something I couldn't have done a couple of years ago.

The scary part was realizing that it is something that I could see myself doing. There were comparisons of coaching to playing jazz or dancing. You kind of feel out the situation as you go and create as you go. This is kind of a shock to my system. I've always lived my life in a very habitual and predictive way. It's comfortable. I have a job with very clearly defined roles and tasks and if I show up between the hours of 8am and 5pm and perform those clearly defined tasks, I get paid. My life has been that way outside of work too. I'm usually resistant to change. I stick with routine. I've broken that up somewhat in the last couple of years and I think participating in this course was another way of doing that. It creates a lot of possibility, which is both exciting and scary.

I don't know where this will lead, if anywhere, but it felt good to really challenge myself and take a risk and allow myself to be vulnerable. This was also the first time that I have ever "outed" myself in a group setting. There were roughly 20 people. I was reminded how big of a deal this isn't outside of Mormonism (or insert other conservative religion or culture). It feels good to get to the point where I can tell people and it's not a big deal. That might seem weird, but it really helps normalize it for me to be able to talk about it without it being a huge thing. It gradually becomes smaller and smaller for me, which is kind of funny, because that kind of goes against Jeff Robinson's whole walking-away-from-the-dragon-so-it-gets-smaller theory that I mentioned in this post. For clarification purposes, when I say that it gets smaller and smaller, I don't mean that the attraction is going away. I just allow it to blend in with the rest of me.

I remember roughly two years ago when Krisanne asked me if I thought I'd ever be completely open about my sexuality. At the time I said maybe, but it seemed like such a far off thing to me then. I couldn't even really imagine how that would look. Not that I'm completely open about it now, but so much more than I ever thought I would be just a couple of short years ago. And I like that.

PS, someone found my blog by googling "Mexican wrestling porn". I'm guessing they were sorely disappointed with what they found.