I turned thirty six today.¬† I joined the LDS Church eighteen years ago, the day after my coming of age.¬† I’ve spent half of my life enveloped by Mormonism.¬† In that time I:

• Served a two-year proselytizing mission in Japan.
• Met and married Jana.
• Conceived two beautiful, beautiful children (still raising them).
• Earned a bachelor’s degree in political science, with honors.
• Worked as an ice cream scooper, a kindergarten aide, a Japanese-speaking maitr’ d, a file clerk in a law firm, an environmental consultant, a research assistant, a lecturer and teaching assistant, a database and web developer.
• Moved to Utah.¬† Hated it.¬† Moved back to Irvine.
• Made two aborted attempts at graduate degrees (I’m in the middle of a more successful pursuit of an MA in religious studies).
• Switched to an IT career and rode the dot com boom and bust.¬† Began managing other programmers.
• Became involved in Sunstone and in LDS feminism.
• Began a nascent writing career on the side with several academic and personal essays and a short story published.
• Left the LDS Church.¬† Began studying Quakerism.

I wonder what the next dozen and a half years will bring?