Author: God is in the Outcome

A Love Worth Living For

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May 11th, 2023

Scott and I had the most beautiful love story.  

I had been a single mom for years.  I had given up on dating.  People who worked with me then could tell you that I had decided I would be happy to live the rest of my life just taking care of my boys and reading books.  I was done – stick a fork in me.  Being in love cost too much and I wasn’t a rich woman anymore.  I was drained.  I didn’t know then that there was someone God was wrapping His arms around right then who was done, too.  And God already knew that He could blow those theories out of the water with what he had planned for Scott and I.  We couldn’t have even imagined how good it was gonna get.

I had become fiercely independent in the years I was on my own with my boys.  I could do it all.  I could change my own tire and my own oil.  I could rip out the insides of the back of my toilet and replace them (with the help of my baby sister and a bottle of red for amusement…we didn’t even need the wine because we were pretty amused and amusing).  I could work like a boss and could mom like one, too.  I was trying to prove that if Superwoman existed, here I was.  I didn’t need a man.  So there.

Scott was the quintessential southern gentleman.  Chivalrous, kind, thoughtful, and he literally put everyone before himself.  How anyone would ever have let him go was always beyond me but, when I found him, I truly thanked God for the broken roads.  He still opened car and rooms doors ahead of me, pulled out chairs, wouldn’t let me walk on the outside of the sidewalk…all things I had been teaching my boys already hoping they would one day turn into the kind of man he was (spoiler alert: they did, and they all saw him doing these things as a man’s example and not their just their mama reminding them).

We met in a little tiny office outside of the emergency room at the hospital where I already worked and where Scott had recently been hired.  I don’t even know what it was.  I was staunchly opposed to ever being in a relationship again and in walks this man who didn’t do or say anything outlandish but to whom, I swear to you, I was instantly conjoined in a way I couldn’t explain.  A friend who was in the room teased me afterwards for making googly eyes at Scott and I told him he was crazy because I didn’t do that.  But I was somehow instantly twitterpated (my beautiful mother-in-law’s words soon after we met).  For the next two weeks I could scarcely think of anything else.  I sought reasons to go to the ER when he was working and flirt with him shamelessly.  Scott would later tell me he already felt the same connection but, being much more recently divorced than I and still very haunted, he thought he was just imagining that I kept showing up to see and talk to him, that I was just being nice to the new guy (who didn’t even work in my department).  We were both jaded but God was putting the pressure on because we were straight-up already connected in a way I will never be able to fully explain.  I can tell you that, if you don’t believe in love-at-first-sight, you’re wrong.  We both felt it.  

I often joked in the following years that I had to chase him for two whole weeks before he’d even give me the time of day and ask me out on a date.  He would staunchly deny that and tell me that he thought about it constantly, too, but just knew “someone like me” would turn him down.  Someone like me…he always made me feel that way, like someone he couldn’t believe he had.  But he had my whole heart and soul.  I was the lucky one.

Our first date was dinner at the Brown Lantern and then a walk through Lowe’s to find a ceiling fan he needed at home.  We each didn’t want to go home so we went to my house and watched a movie on my couch.  When he left, I remember asking God what He was doing because I didn’t want to hurt again and I knew that was what love does but somehow this felt different.  It felt like…right.  It felt like a gift.  It felt like the rest of my life.  God, I wish it had been the rest of my life.  But I know that he wouldn’t have wanted to be here without me either.

About two weeks of random bouquets of flowers and dates, and Scott stealing my car keys while I worked, taking it to completely detail it and leave flowers inside and on top of it before putting them back right before I left work, later…he told me he loved me.  And I didn’t say it back.  I panicked.  I thought, we’ve dated for two weeks, this is too fast, this is crazy.  And then I called him and told him I loved him back – not because I felt pressured by his words but because I admittedly couldn’t explain how they were true but our hearts were already sewn together by a thread that we would turn into marriage one day.

We met each others kids, five boys between us, and started having dates with all of us together sometimes.  It wasn’t seamless because blending has its own drama but we were so in love that we just became more and more tightly knit with every obstacle.  And there were plenty.  We always persevered.  Our song was I Want Crazy by Hunter Hayes.  

“But I don’t want “good” and I don’t want “good enough”

I want “can’t sleep, can’t breathe without your love”

Front porch and one more kiss

It doesn’t make sense to anybody else

Who cares if you’re all I think about?

I’ve searched the world and I know now

It ain’t right if you ain’t lost your mind

Yeah, I don’t want easy, I want crazy”

And we had crazy.  We had all of the above.  Every bit of it.  We had a fairytale.

But fairytales always have scary parts where the wicked witch gets you to take a bite of the apple.  We had that, too.  We both had lived through so much trauma and that doesn’t just disappear.  Although mine and Scott’s love never faltered, life kept on trying to intervene and mess things up.  I can tell you with 100% accuracy that Scott has loved me at my best and he has loved me at and through my worst.  And his bests and worsts were different than mine, because we weren’t the same person but just shared the same heart, but I loved him wholeheartedly through all of his.  Yes, we had fights.  We ranted at each other sometimes over what seem like the silliest things now.  Sometimes we even let the sun go down on our anger but it never lasted long.  We never spent a day not loving each other.  Not a single one.

Scott always made me feel like he didn’t deserve me.  I always knew it was the other way around.  He loved me unyieldingly, unshakeably, tremendously.  He loved everyone.  Scott didn’t just make friends everywhere he went – he made family.  He was the most magnificent nurse because he worked tirelessly and endlessly to not only care for his patients with a fervor that made others tired just watching, but he cared for his coworkers, helping anyone in need at the drop of a hat.  Every travel assignment begged him to renew his contract.  They knew what they’d be missing when he left.  And I don’t think I’ve ever met a nurse with whom he worked who didn’t tell me that he talked about me, all the time, and how much he loved me.  I joked with him about the percentage of female nurses on these travel assignments and to watch out for their womanly wiles but it was all in jest because I knew.  He always made sure I knew from him and everyone else.  And before twenty years of nursing, he was a very proud member of the United States Air Force, a war veteran of Desert Storm having served two tours during the Gulf War.  Scott’s entire life was devoted to service of others.  I have been so very blessed to have him in mine.

He always wanted me to need him and I fought him for a good while because of my independence.  It used to aggravate him that I wanted to do everything myself and he just wanted to help.  The funny thing is that I don’t even really know when that stopped because he listened to me, understood the reasons behind my hard-won independence, and slowly moved brick by brick to tear my wall down.  It was like, as he moved the bricks off of my wall, he laid them in a stack next to me so i would always know they were there if I needed to take them back…and then I never wanted to again.  I knew I was safe with him.  My heart was safe, I was safe, our family was safe.  I know that I got comfortable needing him a long time ago but I can’t tell you when because he helped me into it with a gentleness that made me not feel insecure or weak for doing it.  He loved me right into it.  

When my beautiful husband left this earthly plane yesterday, my heart shattered into millions and millions of tiny pieces.  I’ve lost my balance because he was the other side of it.  I’ve lost so much that the only way I know how to give it words was to tell you what we were together.  Even then, it doesn’t do us or the loss any justice.  Everyone keeps saying “there are no words” and you’re right.  There were no words grand enough, big enough, sweet enough, kind enough, amazing enough, to describe the man my husband was.  And there are not enough words to describe who we were together.  We won together and we lost together.  And now I am lost alone.  And each minute that passes (that feels like an hour) keeps shouting at me that there is no resolution to this.  I’ve missed him when he was travel nursing but we always, every single day, talked on the phone, texted constantly, and there were visits – him to home and me to him.  Today I don’t know how I will fill my time.  We didn’t hang out with other people much.  We had friends and we loved a lot of people but we were always content to just be together.  We were always together even when we were forced to be physically apart.  My soul feels the emptiness where his left this world yesterday.  It feels so very dark.  I’m so thankful for every single moment that we had to spend together, loving each other.

Scott was a man saved by grace.  He is undoubtedly singing praises at the foot of the King of Kings.  His neck and back don’t hurt anymore.  His PTSD demons don’t haunt him any longer.  There is no fear or anguish or pain for him anymore.  I’m thankful for that.  And I know how hurt and lost he would have been without me if I had gone first so I’m glad he doesn’t have to feel what I’m feeling now. 

I have the most beautiful, wonderful children to walk with me.  It hurts me to see how hurt they are right now and also that seeing me hurt is hurting them.  But I want them all to know that I would never have given up the opportunity to have a love so very BIG, to forego the loss I am feeling so very much now.  

My message to you: Love is worth the risk. If you ever have the chance to love this big, take it.  It’s gonna feel messy sometimes.  You’re going to feel mad, sad, frustrated, irritated sometimes.  Being so close that you can’t tell your own heart from that of someone else makes those kinds of feelings inevitable.  Take those things with a grain of salt and forgive.  And forgive again.  And again.  Don’t take it for granted.  Don’t waste it.  Savor it.  

I feel like we both knew what we had.  We savored it.

Jonathan Scott Raulerson – 1/22/74 – 5/10/23

The Last Day and the First Day

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May 10th, 2023

In the early hours of this morning, my beautiful, wonderful, husband, the soulmate God sent to me, the man who would do anything for me, any of our children, or someone he just met, went to be with my Jesus.  I don’t want to discuss details, please.  He had a scheduled surgery and he passed away afterwards.  

Many of you were family to us, some were part of families we created together, some of you who are very far away and some near.  Scott made family everywhere he went.  He was friendly, goofy in the most endearing way, so very lovable, and so very giving.  He changed my life from the actual day I met him.  I knew the day I met him that God had just flipped the script in my life in the most magnificent way.  He taught a very headstrong, independent woman that it’s okay to depend on someone else.  I didn’t want to “need” a man but after I met Scott I knew that I did and now, he’s gone and I still do.  I was his and he was mine from the very start.  Some of you watched this happen right on the sidelines and teased us about it unmercifully, but we stuck out our tongues and didn’t even mind.  

I keep saying that I can’t believe this is my life now.  I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep doing life without him but we have five boys and two granddaughters so I’m going to figure it out because of all of them.  I just don’t know how to yet.

If you have messaged or texted me, thank you.  I’m trying to get through them a little at a time.  I’m not ignoring you; I’m just living in some kind of fog.

There aren’t enough words for me to tell you who Scott was.  He was truly one in a million and life will never be the same.

My Grief Journey

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There have been two HUGE losses in my life in the last two months. I don’t know how to recover. The boat feels as if it has filled, already, with so much water, that I’ll never be able to dump enough buckets to keep from sinking.

On April 23, 2023 my 14 year old nephew died…suicide. He was so very young. So full of life and joy. My sister said he was full of color and noise and, with him, it made perfect sense to me. It was so unexpected and shocking. My family reeled from the loss and from the questions…why? My husband and I drove the hour and a half to get to my sister and her family as quickly as we could. We sat in her driveway as police officers and investigators traipsed in and out of her home, documenting the scene.

My sister and her husband were the ones to see him first. They heard a gunshot and ran upstairs to his bedroom, having to kick in the door to get to him. A gruesome scene that no parent should ever have to endure and that will never leave their memory.

We spent the next two weeks with them, making arrangements, fielding phone calls and text messages, helping organize food deliveries and visitors, and just trying to provide any comfort or relief that we could.

I didn’t know then that those were the last two weeks my husband and I would have together.

We went home for my middle son’s graduation from college and then for the couple of days before my husband was scheduled for a “routine” and common surgery. Something our surgeon had performed hundreds of times. The details of what happened are not important at this moment except that my husband died just after midnight following his surgery. Our surgeon was not at fault; there was a complication that is not common but is known to be a risk of this particular surgery. It was a complication that could have been corrected fairly easily but the hospital staff overlooked every warning sign that it was occurring even as we kept begging for someone to help because we, as nurses with a combined 50 years of experience, knew something was not right and we were ignored, treated as if my husband was just experiencing anxiety and I was being an overzealous caregiver as I advocated for treatment for my husband.

I was with him when he coded. I yelled for the nurse to call the code, to get help. I was escorted shortly after to an ICU waiting room where I was told he would be transferred.

He never arrived there. Instead I was approached nearly an hour later by a physician who had responded to the code blue and three other unidentified people, all walking toward me in tandem. He never had to tell me. I saw the look on his face as he walked toward me down the hall and all I remember is screaming “NOOOO!” and sliding down the wall to the floor, a puddle of despair.

And so then my own grief journey began, just fifteen days after my sister’s world had crumbled. I’d walked with her through the beginning of her walk with grief and still had no idea how to keep breathing as I was navigating it myself. My husband was 49 years old. A little younger than I am, even. How did this happen?

I wrote this following passage when my nephew passed away, unknowing that tragedy would soon strike again, and I couldn’t seem to figure out how it had happened. Why? What next? How do I do this? The next few paragraphs are from the day after my sweet nephew died, but also strangely applied the morning I got home from the hospital after my husband dying:

When I put these clothes on yesterday morning, everything was normal. And now I’m still wearing them, but nothing will ever be normal again. It’s irrevocable. 💔 Jesus, help me. Please.

I still don’t understand how you can wake up one morning and everything is “normal”, the day goes the way most of the rest of them go, you’re just living in the beautiful monotony of everyday life…and then it’s gone. The normal is gone, irrevocably, unexplainedly, devastatingly gone. There are why’s that can never be answered. It feels as if the world just stopped, or it swallowed you up, and yet everyone is still moving around, doing normal things, when normal is gone and can never come back. Your heart aches like it’s being squeezed and pummeled and tortured and savagely ripped apart and people you love are suffering in a way that will never, ever allow them to breathe a whole breath again. Terrible, awful things happen to other people, the ones on TV or movies, all the time…but not to us, right?

It was never supposed to be like this. It’s not supposed to be this way. There would have been a warning. Someone turn back the clock. Please, please, please, turn it back. Give me time back. Please.

After my husband, Scott, died, I began to use writing as a tool to process my grief, as I often had in the past. What follows in the upcoming posts are the things I wrote about as grief fell over me in wave upon wave, crashing and pounding me into something that felt unrecognizable. The world became unfamiliar. Time didn’t make sense as it somehow moved quickly and agonizingly slowly at the same time. The only way I knew to sort out and process what I was feeling was to write about it, get it down in print so that I could read back over it, change the wording to match the way it really felt, and then wait for the next wave to crest.

My hope in posting this is that, in some way, my thoughts will reach someone who is suffering a similar path and that, as some of these feelings resonate with you, you will realize that you are not alone. You are not “going crazy,” because, believe me, it feels like it sometimes. You’ll realize that the things you’re being forced to experience are normal for this process and, most importantly, that you will live through it.

As I’m typing this introduction, I confess that I am not yet on the other side of this Category 5 hurricane, the storm that still rages over my everyday life. I don’t even know if there is “another side” to come out on. As I begin posting my journal pages to you, two months have passed since he died. Two months since the last time that I saw his face when he was alive and breathing. Two months since the last day he said “I love you, baby,” and I said it back.

In much of these journal pages that will follow, I am speaking myself into healthy patterns of grieving by giving reminders of the One who holds my future and to turn to Him when I am lost, alone, sobbing, screaming, questioning, and distraught.

God didn’t “take him too soon.” Neither of them, actually. I don’t even believe that God caused his death. It was a result of the prevalence of sin in our world, like so many other things that take place here. People who made poor decisions about his care caused it. Lack of empathy caused it. Lack of professionalism caused it. Maybe even some ignorance caused it, although it doesn’t seem that way. The enemy is always seeking ways to destroy those who love Jesus and the willingness of others to engage in sin are ingredients of the perfect recipe.

He almost succeeded with me, in destroying me; he’s still actively trying every single day. Those are all things that I have had to come to terms with forgiving; admittedly, I backtrack on forgiveness at times and then have to lay it all down at the feet of Jesus again. You’ll read of times when my soul cried out in anger comingled with anguish. And you’ll read about how I walk myself back toward Jesus so that I can feel at peace.

My husband knew Jesus. He’s getting to hang out with his own brother, who died just 15 months prior, my step-dad who thought Scott was the cat’s meow, my Granny, whom he never met Earthside but who I know would have absolutely loved him just because of the way he loved me. Scott is living in glory now and I’m thankful for that. He isn’t in pain, isn’t suffering the way we are down here. He is free and is spending his days worshipping. I can’t wait to see him again and get the grand tour.

I hope in reading on, you’ll find a little bit of your own peace. I hope you’ll be drawn to rest in the arms of Jesus when you can find no rest any other way. I hope, in some way, your pain is diminished, even a little, by the words of someone who has traveled a similar path. I hope it feels like I am holding your hand as we manage it together.

In His Love,
Jennifer

Tick Tock…

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VERY IMPORTANTLY EDITED TO ADD:

For those of you just joining the merry-go-round ride that has been my life, the posts up until this one have been about learning to a single mom, learning to be alone, learning to persevere, learning to be okay with just being me, not a part of an us.

And I had finally become okay with it.  I was, yes, somewhat jaded, but I had decided that I was better off alone than with the wrong person.

Then the right person…the only person…came along.  This post was made five days after my very first date with my husband (yes, my second husband but the one who God sent to me,) my soulmate.  Did you know that I met him somewhere around two weeks before and already knew we were meant to be together?  That God was somehow whispering in my ear:  “This is him…now you’re ready…”

I don’t know why words, writing, has only every come to me in darkness; it’s when God speaks to me more clearly, I suppose.  And perhaps I should take that as a hint, now that I think about it.  Maybe I’m just listening more intently in darkness.

If you’re just now jumping in, during my exhaustive grief journey, learning about this thing I am calling my life but have yet to fully understand, I wanted you to know that this was him.  If you go back and look at the dates yourself, there was this huge gap between when I met him and when he unwillingly left me…and that was the time that I wasn’t sad.  The time that I wasn’t in the dark.  The time that I was truly loved.

AUGUST 18th, 2013

Is today a new day? Is a new hour actually at hand? Seconds tick by on the clock of human existence and I wait, still hesitant to believe that a change would ever come.

A standstill has been in effect. A time warp has presided over life and love for what has seemed like centuries…or has it been minutes? No. Time has halted in an effort to thwart the loss of any further tears in the form of love blood lost in the heat of a heart’s battle. Time stopped for me because I became jaded. It stopped because I was lost. How can one go on looking when one knows the consequences of heartache? Of the murderous slaughter of one’s former understanding of “love”? How?

But…well…I digress.

So, has time now begun to move forward again? I am afraid to feel the merry-go-round begin to spin in its ever-forward, mild and perpetual motion. I fear the haunting noise of the childish, happy music and the laughter, feigning joy and bubbling sanguine spirit as the ride speeds slowly upon its course to full speed. And yet the most gentle and benign of all excursions is like a death-defying roller coaster of doom to my pitiable countenance. Who will calm my hysteria? How can my panic be allayed?
Whispering winds float between the whimsical horses: “Sois Courageuse”. There is only one way. Only one source has the influence to overcome past wrongdoing and defy fear itself. “Sois Courageuse” – “Be Brave” The horses in their painted costumes prance merrily around the circuit and I feel a childish amusement returning as I watch. Standing, carefully but feeling just the beginning of a carefree skip, only the rider can choose the mount. Is today really a new day? Is a new hour truly at hand? Where is the clock? How does one know?…

Guilt Trips: Free Tickets Available

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About a week ago, I was standing in a local store with my mom and she’s talking to me about my boys, my three, thriving, growing, smart, amazing boys.  She says to me, out of the blue, “You need to start looking for…”  “STOP, Mom.  No, I don’t.”, I say.  Because I could already tell where she was going with this.  But she could not take the hint and I was already beginning to turn red.  This is always the way the conversation has to go for her.  “You are depriving them of…(and I stopped her again because I’m familiar with the pattern but I’ll finish it for you…’a positive male role model’).  “No, Mama.  I’m not.  They have him.”  And I point to my step-dad who was walking with us and who lives only one block away from me.  My boys have their dad but they also have someone who comes to my rescue when my house is broken into.  They have someone who comes immediately when they are in the E.R., and their dad does, too.   They still see someone who comes over to help me fix things that are broken at my house if it’s something that I haven’t learned how to fix yet.  And they do still have a Dad who goes to their soccer games, who hugs them and who tells them that he loves them when they’re at his house.  We just don’t all happen to live together as a big happy family anymore.  Besides all of that, I just so happen to have learned to be a pretty good XBOX fixer, I can change out broken toilet parts myself, fix leaky sinks, change tires and do many other boy things that quite a few moms haven’t had the joy of learning.  Just because they’re boys, do I not count; I’m the role model!  Hey, hey…look at me over here!  (Insert eye roll here…)

What an insult to say that I’m depriving them because I’m not out “looking” for a replacement dad.  First of all, I would never.  Second of all, WHA???   If I have learned one thing, one very important thing, from being married, divorced and single again, it is that I don’t NEED someone.  I remember thinking that life was all about finding someone to complete you.  As it turns out, I am the only one who can complete me.  I just had to figure out what all my pieces were and where to put them.  I’ve learned so much (and still am) about who I am and what I’m all about.  I know now that it was silly for me to ever think or expect someone else to be able to fill up the holes that I, myself, didn’t even have the pieces for, or didn’t know where to locate them.  I had to wait to understand the gaps myself and am much better equipped now to be a better, more whole person than I was when I was waiting around for someone to “complete me”.

Right now I am truly not looking for anyone.  I don’t even know that I’m really capable of a deep trust with people anymore anyway.  I care about people but I’ve come to understand that people will always let you down and that we just love them anyway, faults and all, because we’re all made that way.  We can’t even help it.  So, just don’t tell me to be on the lookout and don’t send me out looking, okay?  I’m good.  Image

But I like my head in the sand…what???

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Have you ever found yourself wanting to just drop away from reality for awhile?  Things get complicated or overwhelming or even downright frightening and you just want to disappear from that part of life while finding a tiny season of blissful forgetfulness and enjoyment?  Oh, brother, I have.

I love my children and, overall, my life, with wild abandon.  We deal with trying times (after all, I have a teen and preteen now) and difficult days  but, through it all, they are mine, this life is mine, and I will never cease seeking the answers to why it didn’t go a certain way or how it is “supposed to go” from this point forward.  I know there are times that I have done it all wrong.  Am I doing it right, now?  This is not purposed by self-denigration but, rather, by a yearning for self-discovery.  I think that, overall in my life, I have typically been in such a rush to be happy that I have taken enjoyable moments and made lifelong decisions based on temporary enchantment.  At some point, I look back at said resolutions (and revolutions) and think….”why didn’t I just slow down and try a little objectivity before that one?”  I can actually often look back and remember hearing a little voice inside my head saying “This is probably not the best decision but, well, you’re happy right now; feels good, right?…You can figure out how to be happy again after this happy wears off…”  Ughhhh.  I’m disgusted with the asinine absurdity of that whole idea and yet, yep, that’s been me.  Most euphoria is temporary but it’s circumstances can take much longer to be relinquished than originally embarked upon.

Take marriage for example.  A happy “honeymoon” period is like the teasing and tantalizing effect of a drug.  Exhilaration, euphoria, optimism, mirth and enchantment are your companion emotions at the start.  At some point after that, however, the desire to run away will surface.  Somewhere along the path to longevity, I think we all find ourselves in a spot saying…”what did I get myself into and how can I get out?”  Now, I’m not saying that everyone should get out at that point.  This is just the moment of truth at which you make a decision to stand and fight for it and for a better understanding of how it should work, sit and cower under the feelings of self-pity and self-loathing, or jump ship and run like hell to the nearest exit sign as the fire licks at your heels.  The “drug” wears off and the low kicks in.  Or the hangover, if that’s easier to understand.  And this doesn’t have to be about marriage.  Pick your own analogy and insert here: ________.  Chase high, escape low, ad nauseum with no completion.

I think I often want to spend too much of my time with my head in the sand.  I mean, ostriches are kind of cool birds.  Granted, they have the mental capability of a toddler in a peek-a-boo routine (if I can’t see you, you can’t see me) but they are still regal in their own way.  Or if I take a deep breath once in awhile and plunge my head beneath the water, it is quieter there.  The sunlight glitters across the bottom of the cerulean pool, chaotic noise is dramatically muffled and the weightless feel of the gentle rock, to and fro, of the water is calming.  If I didn’t need to breathe, I could live there…well, except that divas don’t actually like to get all pruny.  But we can choose to take a break from reality sometimes.  The “I need to run!” urge can be settled a little as long as the break is temporary and is not a way to avoid truths.

So, how does one decide whether the current longitude and latitude of life is the vacation spot or the permanent homestead?  I need to learn a long-sought ability to step back from a situation and to veritably see some kind of truth in it.  Is the run-and-hide instinct just a product of my miserable failings prior to this intersection of life or is it a visceral instinct, animalistic and primal in nature but necessary for survival?

(((sigh))) Just new…well, maybe not so new but resurfaced…points to ponder for the day…and night, as it would seem.  Somehow it feels as if a fairy princess dress and tiara with some rockin’ high kicks (sparkly ones, of course) should just fix things.  Diva dreams…

Journeying to Self-Discovery: Being happy even if others try to prevent it…

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Oh, to understand the purpose of some of the trappings of this life. This entire year, thus far, has been a whirlwind of chaotic interruptions to what I only want to become a peaceful existence. One thing I have begun to realize, through all of the disaster-overthrown days that seem to be plaguing me is this cliche’-type platitude that is suddenly making the sense of an unexpected epiphany: You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people, some of the time, some of the people all of the time BUT you cannot please all of the people all of the time. Right now, I want to be pleased with me, whether everyone else is or not.  Period.

I have always been a “people pleaser”. When I was married (the first time), I didn’t like to make waves. I wanted peace, even if that peace was at my expense all of the time. If it meant that, in order to keep harmony, I had to ignore things that hurt me and pretend I was happy, that is exactly what I did. I didn’t want my children to live through unhappiness and strife. I didn’t want them to have to survive a divorce. I didn’t want to have to survive a divorce. I kept the peace by backing down. One day, I learned that my kids were surviving a terrible marriage and that two peaceful homes, albeit separate, rather than one home with quiet tension that could be cut with a cheese knife might be less stressful for them.

As I went through my divorce, I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible so that the kids didn’t have to deal with the fighting. I didn’t want to fight. I hate confrontation. So I did not fight. I gave into everything except the custody of my children and he could have anything else in the world that he wanted. That included the fact that he paid no child support and got the land we owned that was already bought and paid for while I received the mortgaged house. I decided that I could raise my children myself and that one day they’ll know I worked hard to be able to provide for them. I know there are those of you who will feel like this was the cowardly thing to do and that I should have fought more my to “make him pay, “ monetarily. I still believe that the kids would have suffered more if during the onslaught. He’s happy, they’re happy and I am capable of being what they need when they’re with me (or even when they aren’t), even if it doesn’t mean that we’re rich or affluent. I still do not regret that decision because I truly feel that they would have been hurt even more for my pushing these issues, no matter how much I tried to shield them from harm.

Today, I am realizing that I no longer want to please everyone. I mean, don’t get me wrong…it does bother me when people don’t like me. That being said, I have learned to look at WHY they don’t like me and ask myself “Is that something that I am willing to change about myself? Do I like that part of who I am or is that a fault I need to work on?” When my answer is that I am perfectly happy with whatever behavior or attitude or verbal exchange that seems to have made the person in question unhappy with me, I can say…”This is who I am and I’m content with that. What they don’t like is their problem; it is not mine.” This is not something that I have ever found myself able to do before. It actually surprises me to have this thought process. What surprises me even more is that being able to do this is not out of bitterness. I don’t have an attitude that says “Whatever. I’m sick of trying to please people. Screw ’em.” Rather, I have a disposition that says “I am going to learn to be happy with who I am. If I am proud of who I am and how I react to circumstances, I am going to be happy with me and others, if they are worthy of my time, will be happy with me as well.” Do you know why this is so? Because there are people who will be jealous or have different opinions or will have been raised differently with converse morals to those in which I was raised. Those people may not agree with me all of the time. They may not even like me. I am okay with that. I am going to strive to be happy with me.

Now, I still regularly make mistakes with which I am NOT happy. I react too quickly to a stressful situation, with my children, for example, and allow anger to overcome good judgement. With my current outlook, however, I find myself quickly assessing my behavior and, when I decide I do not like my own response to the situation, I am able to expediently stop, take a deep breath, and then readdress with a more calm and worthy approach. Being able to redirect appropriately may mean walking away from the scene, rethinking my plan of action for a few minutes before returning and THEN starting over, but I am able to find the person I meant to be in the first place and the one I hope I am the next time something similar occurs. I am also quick to apologize to my children or others involved and let them know that I am not pleased with how I handled the event as well as that I will attempt to learn from it.

Okay, so, in deciding not to please everyone (some of them not even some of the time), I am seriously analyzing who it is that I want to be and how I want others to see me. When I say that latter piece, I actually do not mean that I want them to see me as someone they like. I mean that I am trying to be objective about how I appear on the outside (not physically but just as a human being, in general) and whether I’m happy with that. When someone else looks at me, am I able to be “proud” of the person that they see (whether they like what they see or not…this may be sounding confusing…)? What kind of legacy am I leaving, if you will. I am someone who loves her children with every fiber of her being. However, when I’m in the grocery store and they are all three grating on my nerves, for whatever reason or whichever antics they are displaying, I am likely to address them by saying “HEY! I’M GONNA BEAT YOU IF YOU DON’T STOP ACTING LIKE A BUNCH OF HOOLIGANS! CHILL OUT!!!” Now, some people may hear that and (self-righteously) think, “Man, she’s a mean mom.” or “Oh, my! Listen to how she just yelled at those poor little dears.” Anyone who actually has children, loves them and occasionally loses it (I believe that’s most of us.) will hear it, perhaps giggle, think to themselves, “Yep, been there, done that. She’s having a rough day.” and maybe even think “Way to get them back in line, lady.” If they DON’T feel that way, I still know this: my children know they are not going to actually be beaten, they know that this means I am nearing the end of my rope with them, however, and they also know, based on all of my OTHER motherhood behavior which strangers or friends may not always see, that I LOVE THEM and would do CATEGORICALLY ANYTHING for them. They know I have sat up all night for weeks at a time by a hospital bed, never leaving except to pee (briefly and with significant stress and bladder pressure to ensure it remained brief), as one or another of them was sick. They know that I have hostessed slumber parties with a houseful of ten children and made pounds of pancakes, created and played tons of games, allowed silly messes just because it was fun and found ways to make sure every kid had a good time. They know I have let them sleep in my bed and have picked them up in the middle of the night from someone else’s house, even after I had been asleep, because they were afraid or upset and wanted to come home. My children know the sacrifices I make for them and the things that I do just because I love them more than my own life, itself. If they know this, why on earth would I care what anyone else thinks about this?

At work, I am good at what I do. Occasionally someone does not like the way I handle a situation because it is not the way THEY would maneuver given the same occurrence. I think about how I dealt with it, whether there is a reason that it is not the “right” way to go about it or if a difference of opinion is the real problem. I am using that methodology to decide how to go on from there. Most of the time I am happy with the way I perform my career objectives and have no desire to worry another minute about what that other person’s “problem is”.  I am happy just feeling like I am doing the right thing.   If I decide that they have a point and I have to agree with their viewpoint, I am not reluctant to change tack.

Are you at this point yet? People have told me before to worry about me, be happy with who I am and let others worry about whether they’re happy or not. I am responsible only for my happiness and not that of anyone else (except my children, of course). Until I reached this latest, slow-dawning epiphany, however, I was not ready to understand what I had been advised. If you’re not here, you will be saying “easier said than done…you’re not like me”, in your head. I’m here to tell you that, be it age or wisdom, you will get here one day. If you are here, you understand what I am saying. Pipe up and let me know where you are in your own journey.

Winds of Change

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ImageEver feel like life is a swirling, raging, danger-filled tornado, launching itself ever in your direction no matter how you run and dodge to get away?  I’m having one of those….years.  From the last week of 2011 up to today, my life seems to have remained in turmoil.  There have, indeed, been good days but those have been fleeting and few.  I feel that I can’t seem to plant my feet on any kind of solid ground as the dirt rumbles and shifts beneath my poorly-balanced posture.

On a positive note, my children are well and there have been times in our drama-laden lives that each of them were in jeopardy.  I am often able to diminish the seemingly overwhelming circumstances of my current haphazard existence by reminding myself that the most valued and treasured blessings in my life are all healthy and happy right now.  As easy as it is to say “it could always be worse”, however, I am human and it is a challenge to overcome the weight that crushes the air from your lungs when it seems to never release for long enough to take a clean breath.  I feel like I have been verklempt and overwhelmed for the last three months, at least.

I turn to close friends but, when I say close, I mean emotionally.  Several of my most trusted confidants are actually far, far away in the respect of physical distance.  I love them no less than if they lived across the street (although, what I wouldn’t do to be able to sit and share a glass of wine while commiserating with them).  Other close friends, to whom I live closer, have lives, families, circumstances of their own to which they must tend.  Again, they are no less friends but sometimes life makes each of us unavailable in dark times due to responsibility.

I also feel like people must get incredibly tired of my drama.  Truly, I would love to live a life with much less drama.  Although I like a good play, movie or musical as much as the next diva, I am tired of employing so many soap-operatic plot lines in my own life.  My life is one of those stories that, no matter the depth of imagination, no one would just make up.  I think a screenplay writer would look at the events of my story and say “No one will ever believe that all of these things revolve around the life of one person.  No one has that much bad luck.”  And yet…luck?  No, I don’t think so.  I just never seem to learn the lesson that is being presented.  You’ve heard the saying?  If you don’t learn the lesson, it will continue to be presented, with increasing devastation, until you do?  Or how about “Why do you always take the hard road?”  “Why do you assume I see two roads?”  Well, for goodness sake…I’m all ears!  Devastation be damned!

So, where to begin again?  I recently said that I thought my new beginning was here.  I actually said to some friends that I thought I could smell the spring-fresh breeze of positive changes, gently blowing the winter-dried leaves from my life.  I think that was only, perhaps, two weeks ago and yet, little did I know, another lightning bolt of stark reality was already growing steadily in power, gaining kilowatts of energy with the intention of striking boldly and igniting another series of uncontrollable events that would bring me to my knees yet again.  I want a fresh start but does one ever really get that?  Is it possible to stand, take a deep breath, put one foot in front of the other and believe, truly believe, that an opportunity for walking, free of obstacles and impossible threats, does actually exist?

This new mountain to climb feels staggeringly overwhelming at the moment.  One way or another, I will overcome the dread, fear and guilt (warranted or not) that has accompanied this struggle in my life.  I sit here today attempting to plan a revolution upon the successful completion of this stifling journey.  I am strategizing a civil war of sorts that I intend to wage against the melodrama that has become my life.  A vicissitude is in order, and well overdue for me, so I resolve to learn a way to accomplish the turnaround.  This would certainly be less complicated (and, truthfully, would have occurred prior to now) if I had any idea where to start the spin but not trying is not an option.

Blow winds blow…I’m adding steel beams to my foundation and planning fire-retardant exteriors.  Even with the wolf at my door, there is no chance you will blow me down.  And that’s that.

Someday My Prince Will Come

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Someday...“Hey…that guy over there…he’s checking you out…”  “Me?  How do you know he’s not checking you out?”  “Well, he just looks like he’s more your type.”  “Uh…okay…why couldn’t he be YOUR type?  What is wrong with him that he’s not your type, then, huh?”  “Geez…forget it.  He wasn’t looking at you.  He was probably checking me out.”  “Really?  Do you think so?  Well, is there some reason he wouldn’t have been looking at me?  Do you think these are Mom jeans?  I look too old, don’t I?  Is there toilet paper stuck to my shoe?…”

Why on earth can’t I just be normal?  Or, is this what normal is all about?  Is neurotic actually normal and everyone just thinks abnormal people are actually neurotic?

I am failing miserably at figuring out how to re-enter the atmosphere of dating.  Frankly, it terrifies me.  In high school, I had one boyfriend at a time (never “dating” as much as “going together”) and then met my ex-hasbeen at the tender age of 17.  I married him at 23 and then, well, the rest is history.  After divorce, I spent an entire year alone in my house, just waiting for my children to call saying they wanted to come back home from their Dad’s…and they often did.  I dedicated my life to my job (ugh), my children and my pathetic hobby of wallowing in self-pity.  This year, although a time of insight into the “supposed to be” of my life, was a pit of hell.  It was time to move on.

I then spent two years in an impossible relationship.  No big details here but suffice it to say that long distance relationships do not ultimately work when there is no reasonable hope to close the distance.  Love does not conquer all.  Love is actually depressing when it has no foreseeable future.  Meh.

Recently, a friend suggested I meet another friend.  Enter the “Facebook Friend Suggestion” and flirty instant messaging.  You know, I am much more verbose and witty in typeface than in face to face combat…I mean, conversation.  In real life, in emotional situations, I can be rather taciturn.  It would appear that the same is true for others sometimes.  Actually, no, this guy pulled out all the stops when it came to manners (opening car doors, pulling out chairs), flattery and literary quotes.  I was quite stuck between “this cannot be real” and “oh, my goodness…what if this is real?”.  Alas, I allowed myself to fall into the slippery slope of the latter belief and then, within three weeks, Romance Man turned into Stalker-Pushy-We-Should-Get-Married guy.  No, I’m not kidding…three weeks.  Gah!

And so, where does a girl like me find myself now?  In the middle of a gargantuan mud puddle of mistrust and disillusionment.  Love is not transparent; you cannot tell if it’s real or not, right off.  Love is not fair; if you actually find it, it may be impossibly rooted in soil in which you cannot be planted and flourish.  Love is not a promise of forever and of rocking in a porch swing with gray hair, holding hands with someone you share grandchildren with.  Love is maybe…just not.

And what does a fairy tale believing girl do with all of this information?  She puts on her high heels, pins her tiara snugly to her crown of curls, lines & shines her lips then kisses a napkin…and walks right back out into this world looking for the one and only Mr. Right.  You see, I refuse to be permanently disenchanted.  Someday, my prince will come…goodbye, froggies…

Where Am I & Who Took My Life?

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Now, where is it?Today I am struggling with the everyday living thing.  You know the thing.  It’s the part where you look around you and, although seeing beautiful areas of tremendous value (children, house to live in, car, ability to earn an income, extended family, fantastic friends) you still wonder how you ended up in this place, this particular reality.  And now, after listing all of my wonderful things above ^, I realized that there is one specific area that I must be pondering and wrestling with.  Funny how writing pulls the truth out from behind the curtain.

I remember being 22 years old and thinking, “This is ridiculous.  I want to have babies and I’m not even married.  I am running out of time.  I have got to get the ball rolling here.”  Now what’s ridiculous?  I’ll tell you what.  Ridiculous thing number one is that I thought I was running out of time when I was 22.  I had a plan.  I wanted to have all of my children (2-3) by the time I was 30 and be a young, fun mom.  Notice that no mention of career is made.  I do enjoy the work I have chosen and I believe God led me to my profession for a reason but I also know that, given the choice, I would have remained a stay-at-home-mom and been on every PTA, coached soccer every year, volunteered at every school and read stories in classrooms all while baking fresh cookies and fun, kid-oriented dinners.  The only job I ever remember growing up wanting to have was being a mommy.  Now, there are those of you who will understand this and, most definitely, those of you who think they would go crazy with that.  I respect both.

Ridiculous thing number two is that I am now pushing 40 (oh, how it hurts to type that), still want another baby and still feel my time slipping away.  And am unmarried again.  Another baby may never be an option for me and I come to terms with that (and then lose perspective again) on a regular basis.  I do struggle with what raising a child in your 40’s-60’s would mean versus what it has meant in my 20’s to 40’s.  I do not mean any disrespect to anyone reading this who is or has had their children at this time of their lives; it’s just a different concept for me and I’m sure would change my parenting to some degree.  Please do not take offense.

So this all leads to the realization that, although my heart still wants to carry another child underneath and my arms still want to hold another sweet, nursing baby, that may not be in the “cards” for me.  It may just be a yearning I carry forever.  Oddly enough, even as difficult as my pregnancies were (a 7 week hospital stay with one for placenta previa, a premature rupture of membranes with one at only 34 weeks and an emergency C-Section for a cord emergency with the last), I loved being pregnant, loved nursing my babies and loved every minute raising them up to even this moment.  There have been hard times and frustrations, sure.  I joke about how “boys are gross” or how they’re driving me crazy, like I think many people do, but I wouldn’t trade one second of any time I’ve ever had with them for all the money in the world.  They own my heart and carry it around with them wherever they go.  And I would do it all over again with a new one…crazy as some may think that would seem at my age.

All of that being said, I will not rush into the fray of scouting out relationship possibilities, in all of it’s danger, pitfalls, vicious weaponry, dragon-filled moats and flaming arrows and warning flares, to scurry irresponsibly and headlong into the possibly misleading comfort of a newfound castle.  I am a spontaneous girl and love the fun of an unplanned adventure but have also learned to be a wary one as it comes to potential love relationships.  I have three incredible boys to whom I owe my responsibility and my ultimate level of caution and protection.  I won’t thrust them into something that I, myself, am not doubly sure of…well, as sure as one can be of anything at all in this life.  And I also won’t commit myself, in front of God and everyone, to a relationship that I don’t feel like I know has an abiding, perpetual capability to succeed.  I did truly think that my first marriage had that quality and tried for a long time to turn it around but there are some life cycles that just don’t turn at the same speed of rotation, thus allowing two to be in the same stratum for a time but then cycling in such a way that they never reach the same point at the same time again.  You also cannot change other people.  They have to find that themselves, no matter how hard you pray or how much you want to make it happen.  If it ever happens, it will be on their terms and in their time, not in your own.

So where am I?  At 22, I envisioned where my life should go and what I would do with it.  I have my three beautiful boys, although I was 31 when the last came along. 🙂 Where did this new longing come from that was not in the original plan?  Who replaced my first intentions with this new proposal?  If I was born to be a Mommy and being a nurse is just my secondary assignment as an answer to the need for income, what will I be when these babies are gone?  Who will be with me or will I then walk this path alone, still searching for some unreachable solitary “goal”?  I have friends and family who love me.  I have people who would give the roof over their head to cover the heads of myself and my boys.  I have people to turn to when I am sad, lonely, lost or broken.  And I am still an absurd distinction of broken, giving yet another reason that a male-female relationship would only flounder and fail until I figure myself out.  So, why do I feel the need to have that?  I have my people.  What is this level of altered reality in which I live that assumes I must have someone else in order to be a whole me?  Why must I feel like half when there is no missing piece to fill in the other side?

And so I struggle.  A very close friend, whom I dearly love, said to me, ” A sense of purpose is a big deal for us humans. But I wonder if sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to ‘figure that out’. Maybe it isn’t actually that clear. Or even something tangible that you will be able to know about.  Maybe we just have to have faith. Faith that we are here for a reason, even if we never know it for ourselves. Having too rigid a purpose (i.e. I’m here to be a mom, I’m here to help people) doesn’t allow for a whole lot of flexibility or for you to have different sides to yourself.”  Oh, my dear T, you are a wise woman.  Maybe we’re not supposed to “fix” ourselves but wait for the days of our lives to fix us…and, of course, I don’t mean the soap opera.  Clearly, if one is standing on a pinpoint of a flat map, our overall position in the grand cartograph is invisible to ourselves, and even those standing close to us, due to it’s magnitude.  The “big picture” is an elusive Dumbo’s feather being whisked away by the wind each time we think we are just about to grab hold of it’s confidence-infusing magic.

Oh, to be an eye in the sky so I would know…where am I?