If you were here, I'd share my bowl of watermelon ice. We'd sit by the pool at my parents' place and let it melt in our mouths on this warm-but-cooling summer night. I've been to a lot of places, but this is my favorite. I'm out here now alone composing this.

The front of my thighs are sunburned because I spent the day floating down the American River with 20 people from my singles ward, 100 people from singles wards round about, and bunches of strangers. I must have been showing more skin than I planned. I must have been enjoying myself too much to notice.

I'm taking them at their word: I, like everyone, am welcome. I'm 25 and gay and inactive and welcome, and my ward lets me feel it. They are somehow unafraid of me believing differently, and I am somehow unafraid of voicing different beliefs.

Not all the time. Not, usually, in public. But during the chitchat times when people ask what's up I tell them I'm visiting my boyfriend in Boston next week and waiting patiently for him to finish his summer internship and be nearby all the time, and they say, oh cool, what's his name? When they are the church for me, I am happy with the church and it is something I want enriching my life forever.

Starting August 1, I will be moving out of my lovely, lovely ward, the Berkeley university ward. I'll miss it, and them, and I will probably come back to visit a few times, but my new ward will be out on the Peninsula. It will be great. I am apprehensive.

I will try to remember the confidence and pride that helps me here. It will be great.

It will be great.

Tonight would be a good night for cuddling. (Ha! As if most nights aren't.) It's cold out. My Christmas playlist is going strong, and my hair is still wet from cleaning up after kendo practice.

We're having practice next week too. Christmas Eve. It's surreal how not-a-big-deal Christmas is here, and I do not like it. I feel strongly that Christmas should be surrounded with blinking lights and the smell of pine and pie. There should be stockings, my parents, and a large fake tree weighted down with their collected ornaments. All I have is a tiny poinsettia and the Christmas playlist.

I'm a little irrationally upset about the way this holiday season is unfolding. It will be a good Christmas. I'll be with nice people who mostly speak English even. Still though.

To be honest, life is going well. Mainly as I planned.

And then, if you were here, I'd begin to talk about Orson Scott Card's books and how they're infuriating and disappointing. I just read the Ender saga. I'd peter off after a bit. Coldplay in the background. We'd both be quiet for a minute, and then a little awkwardly we'd go to our beds and fall asleep. If you were here.