“If you could see your life from start to finish, would you change things?”

January of 1997 I flew from California to Salt Lake City, where I was met by my now-husband at the airport. We had “known” each other only through chat rooms, instant messages, emails, and telephone calls. It had only been ten days, but it was a life-changing ten days.

One of my best memories of that weekend was watching the film “Somewhere in Time” together. It was a favorite of both of ours, so it was a great “date” activity. I was coming off of 14 years of physical and mental abuse, so I was more fragile than I’d ever imagined. As we watched the movie, I started wondering if my hope of one day having romance and true love in my life was a real possibility. At some point I just burst into tears. Some 14 years later, Darryl and I were able to visit Mackinac Island and had our picture taken in front of the Grand Hotel. I have that picture on my desk at work. It represents one of my fondest memories of this worthwhile relationship.

Friday night we went to see a movie that dealt with time and language, among other things. The main character asks, “If you could see your life from start to finish, would you change things?” Darryl has recently said that he's afraid that if he had known how challenging life would be for him once he married me, he would never have done so. While this makes me sad, it also makes perfect sense to me. Not only was I broken, but my kids were high maintenance. I had no idea myself at the time. I have to wonder whether I would have decided not to jump into the mess before me if I had known it was there. Now that I am in a place where we have one last child about to leave the nest, and I feel safe and warm and loved in our marriage, I am so grateful that we could not see what we would face in the years ahead of us at the time. Each of us has also said that the tremendous trials we faced before ever meeting one another helped shape who we are and how we approach our marriage. Would it have been as sweet if we had not suffered so much beforehand? Would we have been able to get through the tough times, had we not already known much worse? That is something we will never really know for sure.

In some TV shows, beings from different planets start out older and get younger. Imagine that! On this planet we have the saying, “Youth is wasted on the young!” As I grow older and learn more about myself and try to smooth my rough edges, I regret that I am growing older physically and don’t have all the experiences ahead of me that I’m sure I botched in my younger days. Who wouldn’t wish to go back to some pivotal moment in life to approach it with perspective and the wisdom we gain through our lives, just to have a do-over?

But today is the day the Lord hath made. I don’t wallow in the past or wish I could go back. If I did go back and changed something I felt was a huge mistake on my part, what would I come “home” to find I had lost as a result?

My best friend and husband is one of the tender mercies the Lord has given me. I am so grateful that I have him and get to keep him. My goal is to live in each moment and appreciate them at the time. May we all be able to do the same:  Make your world better, and all our little worlds combined will be a better place as a whole.

Giving Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving. It is 5:25 p.m. Dinner is well on its way to being digested. I did nothing. Well, I did put cheese in celery that my husband had cut for me. He made the pies yesterday, and he made every single thing we had for our dinner tonight. And it was fantastic. My tummy, as is traditional, is full but happy.

I am sad, though, because, while I enjoyed the company of my sweetheart and our baby girl, there were three other kids and their partners I wish we could have whisked to our dinner table and three others who wouldn’t have been willing to be so whisked, no matter WHAT we were eating. My in-laws are in Georgia serving a mission, so we don’t even know whether there was a gathering for the family in Utah this year.

I have read several of my Facebook posts from past years, lamenting how my family doesn’t like me or probably wouldn’t care if something happened to me. I was surprised to see that I posted such things. Oh, I’m not surprised I felt that way, nor have I had some sort of amazing reconciliation that has swept those feelings away, but I have reached a point in my life where I am not ruled by them. I have long prayed for healing, and it appears that it is happening at last.

As I mull over how I want to celebrate the coming Christmas season, two things have really rung loud and clear in my heart:  First, the Church has a Christmas initiative called #LightTheWorld, featuring daily acts of service; second, I received the unmistakable, almost audible direction that now (tomorrow, since I get paid some) is the time to become reacquainted with and actively paying tithing. I miss knowing that I am obeying this commandment, and I really miss having the opportunity to go to the temple. It is calling to me. There is no other reason I cannot go. And with our baby girl being accepted to Utah State beginning next fall, I know that we will need to rely on all the blessings promised by the Lord to pull this off.

I am grateful for my blessings. I am happy to be married to the person with whom I most love spending my time. I am grateful that I am not mourning. I know several who are mourning loved ones lost in unspeakable ways, and my heart hurts for them. I am grateful for those that love me and keep a prayer in my heart for those who do not. 

My deepest desire is that the upcoming new year will be one that sees us upwardly mobile and reaching goals we’ve long had but couldn’t meet. I fervently pray that something draws us closer as a nation so that we can help one another through difficult times.

Square Pegs

“I am so tired of not being part of the club. I don’t really like all the people in the club, but I am so tired of not being included in the club.”

That sounds weird, I know, but those are the words I spoke to my husband this morning. I had had some emotions triggered last evening, and even though I was exhausted and had taken my customary Tylenol PM, I was suddenly wide awake, and the demons were nearly shouting in my mind. If you are an adult, you know the demons. You likely have yours as well.

After many years in my career, I am currently settled in a job that I truly love. I know that my co-workers appreciate me (I am not someone who talks badly about others, I try to always be positive, I am about the easiest person with whom to share an office or a job, and I try to go above and beyond what is expected of me). I get a lot of positive feedback, and I know I am liked. Because of the years in which I knew no such thing, this warms my heart. I wish that translated to having a lot of friends and an active social life, but I’m not sure I would even like that if it did. My idea of a rocking Friday night is to get in my jammies and watch TV (Netflix!) with my husband. I’d be happy if I never left my house again except for work.

My demons started in on their normal tirade:  I’m not good enough. Even from a very young age I was not good enough. There has always been something odd about me. If you look at the picture above, it tells you a lot about me. My little brother (who was probably five in this picture), my dad and mom, and my little sister (who was about two years old) are all looking at the camera. Even the two-year-old! Then there’s me. I was about eight, and I am looking at something in my hands, completely oblivious to what was going on.

I remember always being very much inside my own head. I still can’t truly explain some of the odd things I did during my childhood and teen years. I was desperate for acceptance, but I did all the wrong things to get it, earning me more shunning than accepting. Even my closest friend(s) pulled away from me when we were around others. It perplexed me then; now I understand why they would do so, but it hurts me now for the little girl I was.

When my ex-husband took his own life, I fixated on this thought:  He must have finally come to realize that a lot of the turmoil in his life as an adult was not necessarily his fault but directly related to who he was and how he behaved. I’m sure he didn’t act the way he did out of some mean-spirited desire but because he had never really learned how to behave any other way. His childhood was a horror story. But finally being faced with the “it’s all my own fault” must have been horrible for him. He always needed to blame others, but he finally realized he couldn’t do so anymore. And he couldn’t take it.

I’m not feeling suicidal, mind you. What I am feeling is exhaustion. My life has been one disappointment and emotionally draining experience after another. I now sit in a position where nearly half of the children to whom I have given birth have anything to do with me. Unfortunately, some of those children have my only grandchildren, some of whom I have never seen in person.

They’ll tell you it’s because of my husband. Much of what they will tell you to bolster that opinion is untrue. Some of the family has turned away because of what these “children” have said, despite the fact it is untrue. No, it’s not him. I could be married to the most awesome guy ever (in all their eyes – he IS the most awesome guy ever in MY eyes). He would then be tarnished by his association with me. So he thinks he ruined my life; the truth is I have caused far more harm to him. His family still loves him, and they are nice to me, but I can tell that even they don’t really get me. I spend so much time trying to protect my heart that I probably come off as cold. I hate that because it is the opposite of the truth.

I am conscientious and loving and kind and hardworking. I'm also clueless, just like the little girl in the picture. People joke about growing up and wondering when they would feel like adults. It’s no joke for me. I honestly wondered if becoming an adult meant I would suddenly be endowed with the power to truly see everything around me and know how to interact. Not so much. It’s like the fact I was still getting acne while in my 20s.

My intellect tells me that I need to stop suffering from the loss of club membership. My heart tells me otherwise. If it were any other club or group of members, I could do that. I’d probably build a hard shell around my heart, determining that these club members were just a bunch of jerks. But when it’s a club to which I have a lifetime membership, but now that has been taken away, it’s awfully hard to just.stop.caring.

I probably need to seek counseling. I need to speak to a professional who doesn’t have a faith-based or emotional reason to judge me for my thoughts, actions, and feelings. I don’t need to speak to those who would just tell me what I want to hear. Well, okay, I still need THAT, but I need to figure out how to just get out of the clubhouse altogether and be able to clearly see all the good I still have in my life.

I’m not sure what exactly this is. I don’t remember any particular trauma in my childhood. I just remember always feeling different. I’ve thought, could it be Asperger’s? Could it be ADHD? Is it must my anxiety and depression? Do I have bipolar disorder? I’m about 90 percent sure, though, that it is some form of mental illness. No one’s found a cure for that yet, I’m afraid.