I hate Utah!

I know it's never good to be bitter, and I think I'm generally pretty good about that. But every couple months I have one of those irritable menstrating days where I really just have to be a bitch and feed into the stereotype about being an irrational women.

So I don't end up making a phone call to my Mother that will go Nowhere by confiding in her what a disservice was done to me by being raised in a place where the expectations suck your hope away! Okay, well, as aesthetically beautiful as the place is, it's no place [for me] to live....I don't even like to visit anymore. Utah as a location doesn't exist without acknowledging Mormonism...predominant, no, DOMINANT!

I have a lot of great memories of my childhood. My Dad was the coolest, and was not raised As an "active" Mormon. I grew up on dirt bikes and camping out and I having what was in my mind a very happy not so sheltered childhood in a very pure sense. My parents still think carseats are a pain in the ass and would drive off holding a baby without one. And my Dad wouldn't admit it, but he still longs for coffee every morning...even after it probably took him a good 20 years to kick the "habit". Yeah, you're not suppose to drink coffee. That wasnt always
the worse my dad did. Cigarettes. Beer. I don't need to say anymore for the rebels of Utah to know what I mean, and for the Saints to gasp and put a "for shame" look on their faces. But up until I was 9 we lived a crazy rebel life where my Dad let me dip my Oreo in his coffee, and we'd go to a diner on Sunday mornings where my Dad and Uncle would smoke while we ate greasy omlets, instead of going to church. After that age, We still dirt biked every weekend we could though. And I know my Dad still never feels bad about missing church to do so. Oh how great would life be if you could always be going 80 on a dirt road, or climbing hills and hearing my Dad scream (as he does to this day when I ride with him as we go down a hill "Oh no, we're going to crash!") Those memories are my favorites of Utah. The rest are so infused with religious bullshit that it's not, in retrospect, happy. Even if they were happy at the time, they're a painful reminder of the mind shaping expectations that paralyzed me from seeing reality.

So many Mormons and Utahns are so happy with their lives, and I am genuinely happy for them. But I want to be left alone. I hate Utah. And I want that to be okay too. It never will be because my family all lives there, and I have to discuss it several times a year...I'm always being "convinced" that irregardless of my own personal experience that I'm just not seeing the indisputable appeal. I'm looking up airfare now for my bi-annual trip out there for my kids to spend time with their grandparents and cousins. I dread it every time. Despite having my favorite Mexican restaurant of all time, and the most beautiful mountains and canyons you'll ever see. You'd be hard pressed to find a more predominant mentality that is imposed to a whole populous in the United States. Non-Mormons get sick of it. Mormons do too, but they don't realize it.