Living a Life of Clarity

fear is a mighty thing

2014-07-22T22:39:00.000-05:00

here i thought we were actually doing something. something different. something unconventional. who do you talk to when you are divorced and trying to figure things out? who do you go to, if you're going to see a counselor? certainly not a marriage counselor. definitely not the one who is "pro-marriage." i like the thought of that one, but honestly, can they help a pro-marriage couple who seriously sucked at marriage but want to get it right but are divorced now? maybe the wounds run too deep. maybe the years of being made last and verbalizing those things have finally sunk in until it hits my blood and it runs through my veins to my heart, where i learn being put last isn't right. not worth it. the question remains why did i accept that kind of relationship? the kind where i felt i was not only the last priority but the one he never considered?

those girls he called from past relationships in hopes of achieving some kind of answer. the ones who had been molested, raped, sexually abused. the ones he wanted answers to for understanding parts of their relationships from a decade ago. he understands those. but me? the one he loved and married and had kids with? no grace. mine is an excuse. one i can't use to protect myself. i was raped. but it makes no difference now. i'm different in his eyes. i don't know how one can have standards or expectations for one, but not another.

through tears i admit to mistakes. i was not open throughout the divorce to hear him. to really truly hear him. but is divorce the right time to really and truly hear them? why not before? i want to know why i had to divorce him to get him to realize he could lose me. forever. i made mistakes. they are mine. i can live with them. i have forgiven myself for them. one thing i have learned is i am not my mistakes nor do they define me. the grace i gave all those days-weeks-months-years meant nothing. not one little thing. i finally say something to slow us down and it is over before it began. again. he left before it could get good. or bad. maybe it would get bad again. maybe it would be out of this world good. i have no idea. i took the risk. i took the chance. i don't believe that being broken is the way we were meant to be. i believe accepting brokenness as a way of being together is an excuse made out of fear. fear to drive away those that might just hurt you, but you don't really know. every day it is something you have to decide. to not let fear drive you. fear is debilitating. fear is mean, cold, devoid of reality.

fear is a mighty thing. i know. so is love. but, i lived in fear and it kept me from the thing i wanted more than anything. it kept me from seeing the change, the good, the love, the struggle to do right. i was afraid it would come back and repeat itself. rear its ugly, good for nothing head. so i loved. it didn't matter. because even with love and living in love and making that daily decision to trust that he would be different and do different and actually do the thing he promised...still fear prevailed. because of fear, i will never know what could be.

the thing you put energy into. the thing you feed...it grows. you give life to lifeless things. those things flourish. i refuse to feed the thing that doesn't even exist unless i let it.. he put his energy into his fear of it being just the same way as it was a few months before.

divorce isn't something any one really wants. it admits failure. without words, it admits pain, sadness, weakness, tears and anger, loss, grief, death of dreams. lost love. how does love just go by the wayside? isn't that something people should see and value and want to never go without? anxiety takes over and the future is unknown.

i am worth every second, every minute, every month that you put into me.

i am worth every dollar you choose to spend, but not only worth the amount you spent on me.

there is no unit of value when it comes to a person's worth. until you realize that, the $60 bouquet of flowers will always be only $60 that you spent on someone. until you realize that, the time it takes to plan a well-thought out, meaningful evening, will have little monetary value, but could be worth a million dollars.

whether you are the one who started the divorce or the one who got the notice, divorce really, really sucks.

holding myself back--my messy beautiful

2014-04-11T12:19:00.004-05:00

i was always told i was too much, too intense, too talkative. my nickname was 'bug' because i wanted to talk to my parents instead of let them read their newspaper. i was reading and discussing the newspaper at age 3, asking questions about the Holocaust; reading chapter books at age 4. i was independent, feisty. i would wake up at the crack of dawn and then wake them up soon after coloring a picture to relay my ENTIRE dream from the night before, IN DETAIL. i was good at everything i tried, but never felt like i was. i got good grades and got into every college i applied to. it felt like my parents wanted super humongous things for me; lawyer, doctor or somehow doing big things to help the world, and i just wanted to write and learn about the world. sometimes i feel like i've totally let everyone down because now i'm "just" a stay at home mom. there is no way to tell my whole story about what makes it messy beautiful in one blog post. probably not even ten. i would probably be able to write a book about it and i'd still be cutting parts out.

my little family

i have started writing this post a hundred times. what story would be the best one to write to represent why my life is messy beautiful? how can i make whatever story i choose the right length without leaving out too much? how do i isolate one part of my story without telling the rest? my life has been filled with beauty. it's been filled with sorrow and ugly. i've listened to myself and i've ignored myself. i've loved and i've lost. i've tried to be the person i think others want me to be. one thing remains true: all of it is okay, except being anyone but myself.

i learned too late that when we deny what we know to be true, our lives becomes confusing. i spent years trying to be the person i thought i was expected to be. i spent years trying to figure out why the person i felt i was didn't match with what others saw me as. i closed myself up and felt completely lost in my life. i stumbled through my days. while my life felt like it was literally crumbling around me, people on the outside had no idea. when my husband and i split up for the first time or the fifth time, people were puzzled because i was able to put on such a good act about us being so happy. this is not something that you learn over night. this is something perfected over time. when the thing that we know we are doesn't match with what others see us as, we get confused and feel like we are wandering the desert unsure of which direction to walk in. it became easier to just go along with it and i had became a shell of myself.

i am all of the experiences i have had in my life. there is no way to be one without the other. some stories may weigh more heavily than others in defining who i am. many years ago, i decided i was going to go to therapy. in my first session we went through a bunch of background questions and she took PAGES of notes. my next session she asked me, as she flipped through the PAGES of notes, "so, okay. where do YOU think we need to start?" and i said to her, "isn't that your job? that's why i'm here. but, if i had to answer, i'd say the beginning. because one led to the other." she looked at me blankly and let's just say i never went back.

(i love this james baldwin)

my story is beautiful because of who i've become because of it. my children are a huge part of my life, but they are not where i have struggle. it's been messy because i have let others define for me who i am and therefore i have gotten in my own way. none of what has happened or i have done makes me any less unlovable. it can feel so lonely to feel like you're not lovable. the truth is i am and if someone is truly uncomfortable with my story and they don't know how to handle it all, they aren't worth my love. and to be loved unconditionally is the only thing i've ever really wanted. i've been searching externally and i've finally turned inward.

i am a sister and a daughter. i am a mother, aunt and friend.

i was a victim of rape. my messy beautiful is becoming a mom at age 18.

my messy beautiful is marriage, divorce. two more babies, post-partem depression and another marriage. now another divorce. it is parenting four children, one with autism. it is fighting for what is right for your kids. it is confusion. it is learning that by removing what confuses, it opens up to clarity. it is finding my strength when all seems lost. it is knowing and loving and adoring each and every one of my four unique kids. it is making the choice to accept responsibility, even when i want to blame. it is coming out of darkness in search of light. it is pure devastation and crawling under my covers. it is coming out of those covers because of hope and possibility and light. it is speaking my truth, as uncomfortable and painful as it may be for me and others. it is friends and family who are there at all moments, beautiful and ugly. it is losing everything yet coming out with far more valuable things with no monetary value. it is being left and not feeling good enough most of my life, yet learning i am lovable and wanted and beautiful, even though. EVEN THOUGH i have not lived a perfect life as it aligns with society. (i am still working on this one!) it is admitting i am taking on too much. it is not needing to be perfect anymore. it is learning to trust myself. it is saying i am worth it and believing it. it is finding my own worth when everything else is gone and i am stripped down to my naked real me. it is loving myself (and even my curly hair, which i hated for years).

when i told my grandparents that i was pregnant at 18, it took me FOUR HOURS on a hot July day. my grandma was scared because she'd heard the kkk was making a comeback and my child was going to be half black. my grandpa cal looked around the room and he said, "She's going to be fine. THEY are going to be fine." since then, i've had a number of dreams where i'm climbing a ladder or a bridge. i can't see where it is going and when i look back behind me, there's my grandpa cal. and every time he tells me, "keep going. you can do it. you're going to be fine."

:my messy beautiful is ME:

http://momastery.com/carry-on-warrior

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE!
And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir
Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE

falling apart or falling into place?

2014-04-03T23:33:00.002-05:00

i can't even pretend anymore that i'm not having a hard time. it seems the kids are falling apart at the seams. if i didn't hear another whine in my life i would be forever grateful. that goes for fighting too. i try really hard to have patience with them, yet lately it is all i can do to keep from shutting myself in my room until tomorrow.

the imminent divorce that i hoped would never happen is happening. tuesday we go to (hopefully) finalize the whole thing and then i can really start to move forward and heal more and just be semi-normal with everything else. there's just so much on my mind right now that has yet to be dealt with that i'm trying really hard to not have anxiety over the whole thing. this is just about the hardest thing i have ever had to do. after months and months of trying and praying and hoping, i finally had to file for divorce in october. even then, there was some 'maybe this can still work out' times. as much as i know he doesn't want the divorce, i couldn't see a way that we could make it work. i feel like we are too broken, like a vase that is smashed into millions of shards of glass. it could happen, but would take years and years and YEARS of tedious work. i just couldn't anymore. my heart broke; i know i have to just look ahead to what is coming. i'm due for something great, really. it's only logical that after so many hard years and so much hardship, that greatness comes next.

but these kids. what do i even DO about them? it has been a tremendously long winter here in minnesota and it feels like we have been on top of each other all winter long. as i write, we are getting even more snow. really though i think it's the stress and the hardship this divorce has caused all of us. it makes me feel so bad, realizing the divorce that i filed for, could be causing so much pain in my sweet babies. i have to be honest with myself and not forget the pain i endured within my marriage and remember that they suffered from that, too. i keep telling myself that these kids just need to know they are safe, they are loved, they have what they need: warm house, good food, each other, their mom and other family and they still have their dad. they don't have to pick. sometimes they say, "i'm on mommy's side" and then the other will say, "i'm on daddy's side." and i just tell them, "you don't have to pick a side. you can love us both, we will always be your mommy and your daddy. and we both love you guys." SO HARD. they just don't need to feel so insecure about life. they are too little and precious. i don't know where they pick this stuff up from, but i sure know it's not me. the other day, my five year old told me he wanted to go into Johnny Test and go back to the future and make a new mommy who will buy them as many toys as they wanted and then replace me with his new mommy. (okay this was pretty funny actually).

it doesn't feel good though, to be so stressed that you can't even decide what shirt to put on. or to not realize what day it is five times in the same day that two minutes before you knew it was saturday. i don't want to feel like i've given up on things. it hurts like crazy to not have a whole family like it's been...the funny thing is we weren't even really complete. we were always apart. someone always seemed to be missing for one reason or another. and no family should function only when one person is not there. although i miss the whole family being together thing, i missed that before since it was never all of us all together. i only have four years until my oldest is off to college. i need to make the most of his last four years at home. i need to figure out what i'm going to do to sustain us. looking for a job in the midst of a divorce after being a stay at home mom for 5 years is a lot harder than i thought it would be. somehow my degree and experience just doesn't account for much after that long.

what i'm looking forward to is peace. calm. order. togetherness. planting my garden and watching it grow and harvesting it. at the same time, figuring out how to help my kids have peace and love during this whole thing. i want to paint and write and just be. while my patience is running short and i feel stretched beyond all possibility, i know i can do this. i know i will be okay and they will be, too. now if only to figure out how to start waking up before everyone else to have my coffee and sit in silence for a few moments each morning. . .

one day at a time

2013-06-21T00:24:00.000-05:00

Grace is the face love wears when it sees imperfection. ~Joseph R. Cooke

soon after husband moved back home, i was given some news. i won't get into the 'news'
as it's not mine to share. i will say that it was unexpected and devastating for me and i came very close to a breaking point. we had been doing so, so well. my heart was overflowing, i felt that it might burst just from the pure ease of our life. i'd been longing for EASE in my life for so long. then, bam. The News. it crippled me and i barely pulled through my days. i couldn't eat. i couldn't sleep. i couldn't look at him. i wanted to hole up in my room and not come out. but my babies needed me and so i did. thank god for them. some days were alright, some were awful. the nights were the worst and i cried in ways i have never cried before. angry, hurt, resentment, sadness, fear, love. all of it at once. talk about intense.

then i just started giving it up to God. it's all i could do. now and then i'd have questions i thought i wanted answered, but i learned soon enough that the answers, or even verbalizing my questions out loud, were so painful that i just stopped asking. i might have those thoughts, but as i was taught in meditation, acknowledge the thought and don't dwell on it. he's fighting for me, for us. i could see that and i decided i had to deal with things differently. that's when i decided i had to give more grace, for him and for me. i had to look for and find the good. somewhere, in all the bad, is always good. i felt like the message i was getting from God was to just love, as hard as it might be sometimes, and keep looking for the good and that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. so i did. i'm not a Bible verse memorizer so i'm not going to spout out some Bible verse that somehow justifies my decision or what verse is giving me strength. my Bible is about messages, whole messages, not chopped up for me to use verses here and there. the days since then have been a mixture of things. i've been timid and unsure...waiting for it to fall apart completely again. i've been strong and awesome, ready to kick the day's ass, confident that all will be well. and i've had regular days where things just ARE.

mostly, even on the timid, unsure, meek elsa days, i end up only finding love. it's so hard to boil it down to that one thing, but everything else is done within LOVE. appreciating what the other does and being able to put that into words and share them with the other person. seeing him do things i know he doesn't necessarily enjoy, but somehow finding joy within those menial things. cleaning gutters in the rain? not anyone's idea of a fun time, but he saw the silver lining when it started to rain super hard...he didn't have to drag the hose around to wash them out. (and he didn't complain about having to do the gutters, which i definitely would have!) taking my 7 year old out for an early 6 am breakfast and then to get on her bus to go to her summer program so i could sleep a little longer. hearing sweet voicemails that tell me how i compliment his life in so many ways and make things so much better for him (compared to when we were apart). there are even days when i feel nothing at all and i know i just have to get through and tomorrow will be a new day. that's okay, too.

i feel heard and understood. words of appreciation go SO.FAR. when i have a hard day now and then, i just tell him. he doesn't try to change how i feel, he just accepts it and apologizes and asks what he can do to help. we talk more. A LOT more. we spend more quality time together, sometimes it isn't the long conversations we have other times, but even taking ten minutes shows we care. everything he says feels like there is more truth, more meaning, more love behind the words. many times the truth in my words might sting or hurt a little more than other times, but i'm done with keeping things in. it hasn't gotten me anywhere good. last weekend there were a couple of regular old moments where i was watching him with the kids and in the house. my heart swelled and i teared up. it just felt good and right. later i told him about that and he thought i was being sarcastic. UGH. obviously i am not that great with expressing myself in spoken words. i have some work to do, too! when i told him i was serious, he was so relieved it wasn't a joke. i'm not quite sure how one would joke about that kind of stuff, but i suppose there are those that might do that, and i know there are those (me) that just don't say those super important things.

reunited and on a date

we haven't always been in this place. we won't always be in this exact place. i just sort of feel like we are building a new foundation...a new level of understanding, giving up control, giving up the anger, giving up the negative shit. because that's really what all the bad stuff is, shit...it's just icky, nasty stuff that poisons a relationship. we are focusing on appreciation, love, goal setting and working together on everything, one moment, one day at a time.

love one more time

2013-05-23T00:42:00.002-05:00

for anyone who has been following my blog or knows me personally, my journey in the last year (or 32 years) has been nothing short of hard. i've had many ups and downs, ins and outs, laughter and tears. i've been given the opportunity to show myself that i am still strong. i have found a couple of things that i enjoy a lot more than i thought i did. i've become inspired to do more, to live with my arms wide open, take me or leave me. it's been confusing. it's been dark and terrifying. i've found beauty and courage, even in the darkest times. i've been reminded of the abundant love i am surrounded by daily in my friends, my family and my children. i've been given grace because i'm not always the easiest person to be around, especially when life is so incredibly challenging. i've been given the strength to carry on, day in and day out, caring for four magnificent children (magnificent and full of the ability to wear me right out)! i've been shown that even when i doubt myself and my ability to continue doing 'this,' i actually CAN do it. i can persevere and thrive. i've found a true spiritual home and continually feel filled up, overwhelmed and thankful FOR every new day that i'm given to do better for myself and my kids. this place humbles me and opens me up for more love. i'm reminded that we all deserve a second chance. or maybe a hundredth chance at whatever it is we are struggling to figure out. we are all human and make mistakes, but we are also able to keep working to do better.

may 28 would have been the fifth month since my husband and i separated. nothing ever felt so real in all my life. nothing was ever harder than those five months that we were separated. unless, of course, you count the year we spent completely apart when he moved to florida for a promotion and we could not find a place to live there. those were some long months back then too, with an infant, a 2 year old, 4 year old and a 10 year old. not to mention the snowiest winter we had had in years.

thankfully may 28 will not mark a full fifth month of us being separated. instead we will be in vegas together for a weekend away. it's funny how fast things can change...or seem to change. the thing is, all along, things have been changing. the way we took care of ourselves, the way we communicated, didn't communicate, fought, loved, parented, our outlook on life, and overall, lived. the way things have changed have allowed us both to grow as individuals, strengthening our ability to be together in a relationship. we've been able to have some really great healing conversations in the last couple weeks. in my opinion, it's sort of like a new relationship. it's the first time that i feel we took the time we both needed to heal, grow, take care of ourselves and learn to work together. the truth is, our marriage has not been one where we were actually living together all of the time. for the first year or so, he worked here in town. the second year he went to florida for 8 months. the last year and half, he has been traveling extensively for his current position. we have definitely had our share of relationship hardships. everything really pushed our relationship aside and we pushed each other aside unintentionally. needless to say, we have been given another chance to love each other and be married. there's a reason neither of us filed for divorce. maybe it was time, maybe it was money, maybe it was trying to figure out all the details. who knows. but those things interfered enough to keep us from divorce and for that, i am thankful. i've been given another chance and i must show up.

as i was learning to live life as a single mom, i learned some (i think) valuable lessons that can be applied to any relationship...

~the second person starts the fight. you can't fight alone. if you decide to argue, you have started the fight, as it was your choice. choose your battles wisely!
~each person has their role...even if both of you work, there are other ways you have different, important roles. allow each of you to have those roles and appreciate the other for the things they do for the relationship/family/etc.
~soften up...it's okay to let that wall come down and be vulnerable. start small if you have to, but it's an important step to strengthen the trust you have with the other person.
~really listen to what the other person is trying to say. not everybody is going to come out and say exactly what they mean. if you're not sure, ask questions. listen with your heart and your ears.
~look for the ways the other person shows they love you. maybe it's having the laundry done so you don't have to worry about it. maybe it's cooking dinner for the family when they are home/able to so you don't have to. maybe they pick up a magazine/book/coffee that they know you like as a sweet reminder they were thinking of you. it's possible these things don't happen often, but find them. they are there.
~encourage them. appreciate them. love them. accept them. be humble.
~show affection/intimacy/love...hugs, kisses, back rub, love notes, calls to say you appreciate all they do.
~learn to say 'i'm sorry' and mean it. hard to do, yet easy enough if you let your pride go.

i'm sure there are more, but these are good starts that cost nothing and take you far together.

i could easily be a big, big mess right now. i could be pushing forward with a divorce i didn't really want because i had a point to prove. i could be fighting, hating, arguing and angry. instead, i am being brave, finding courage to be open and honest, forgiving and learning to trust. i'm also scared, but i know there's a reason we've been given another chance to figure this out. recognizing my fear gives me courage to keep on. maybe this is it and it will be (semi) smooth sailing from here on out. the unknown is okay now. i usually get a little anxious when i don't know what is going to happen. i also usually close up and keep my distance so as to avoid being hurt again. i don't want that kind of life. i want a life of love and living fully. my newest friend, who is like my separated-at-birth-sister, has taught me so many things this past year. i fully believe that people come into our lives when we need them most. we met in my front yard with me crying about my life, mowing in my work clothes. like so many others, she has held my hand and been by my side. the difference is she did it and allowed me to be who i am without apology. as i was wondering if i'd totally blown my chance at a friendship by saying too much on first meeting, she was in her house feeling freed by me being so open, thankful that i WAS so open! i guess it really does pay to take these kinds of chances. i want to live a life full of these kinds of relationships, including the one with my husband. i always thought i was too broken to share any of that with anyone. i thought those things would not just push, but DRIVE them away, fast and fierce. i couldn't be more wrong. those are the relationships worth having! so far, it's going well with husband and i. i find myself holding back now and then, but it doesn't stay. i push through and share. the silly details of our lives do nothing to bring us closer. so i encourage you to dive deeper, share more, trust and love. i told husband i didn't want to talk about my day running kids around...those details are so COMPLETELY boring and mundane. i want to talk about the things that will strengthen our bond, so we understand each other better.

he called me the other day to thank me for taking care of everything all of the time. for having the laundry done all the time so he could focus on work, which is really busy right now, and also the kids who he doesn't see as much because of work. he thanked me for doing such a good job with everything. it was really, really nice to hear and to feel validated, as there are many days when it feels like my day is on repeat...wondering if this jean skirt i'm about to wash can really be dirty because, didn't i just wash it two days ago?!

i don't know where this road will take us, but it cannot possibly be any worse than the last year. it might be harder, but i can do hard. just not worse. hard can still be good and i'll gladly take that because that means work is being done.

living out loud

2013-04-28T00:14:00.001-05:00

last night i went to hear Glennon Doyle from Momastery.com. i got a pre-print copy of her book Carry On, Warrior months ago. i was ecstatic to hear her speak on suffering and faith and healing. although our stories aren't all the same, i could relate to so many of them. for example, when i was age 7 (or so), my sister told me i was fat. maybe i never became bulimic, but i remember crying. she brought me a teddy bear. to this day i remember thinking, does she really think this changes things? i've since forgiven my sister, but i've come out of it learning i don't want gifts as a form of apology. it doesn't work for me.

as my very close friend and neighbor, Ariana, walked in to the church where Glennon was speaking, i was plotting my response to the email my husband had sent and i felt the need to respond, strongly. we found our seats and i started replying and as i found myself struggling to find the words i needed to repute what he was saying, Glennon said something about not to fight back. and it hit me! i stopped right then and there, deleted what i was working on and finished up with the email cordially and with no fighting. after all, i knew i was so tired of fighting, so why would i continue with this? so as ariana and i were sitting listening to Glennon finishing up her talk, i knew i wanted to say SOMETHING, during the Q & A... i just wasn't sure what. finally it came to me. i leaned over to Ariana and said, "I know what i want to say!" she said, "GO!" So i walked my sassy-self up there to the microphone, in my cream high healed wedges, cuffed skinny jeans, thin white sweater and light turquoise colored bracelet, heart racing and stood and waited. the pastor announced i would be the last one to comment. great, i thought, i better make this good! (FYI, this is not exactly what i said, but here's why i had to say something)

a year ago, i found myself a working, single mom of four. my husband had left for the second time that year. he left two more times last year and finally after Christmas, i told him not to come back anymore. so last spring, i came home from work and the grass was long. i got the lawn mower out and started mowing, in my work clothes, bare foot, because who has time to change shoes or clothes. i soon noticed my neighbor (ariana) walking down the street and kept thinking, maybe she won't come talk to me. maybe if i don't notice her, she won't stop! well, she DID stop. she had a few kids with her and asked me how i was. little did she know she was opening the flood gates. "i'm fine", i said, "my husband left (again) recently and i just have to get the lawn mowed." she said, "are you sure it's over?" and i said, "yes, i'm sure." the tears started flowing, her kids just sort of looked at me, this crazy lady, crying in her yard with her lawn mower and yard waste barrel sitting there. mind you, this was only my second time meeting these people! i had nothing else to offer but ME. the real live me. all the good, the bad and the ugly. and she and i bonded immediately. there was no turning back. my ugly story was out and by then, i figured i'd lost a chance at a friend (because who wants a train wreck for a friend?). i was worried i would not be fine. but i AM fine. but i have not ALWAYS been fine. i had my first son at 19 and was so scared telling my family. when i told my grandparents, it took me HOURS. literally! my grandpa looked around at all of us and said, "she's going to be fine. THEY are going to be fine." and i was. little did i know, that little, teary filled conversation opened up a friendship that was bigger than i ever imagined possible. the shallow friendship never existed. i showed her the real me from the start and there was no going back. our friendship had no place to go but deeper and i have realized she is like an angel to me. every body is put into our lives for a reason. after much of my life being told that i should watch what i say, that people don't want to hear about the bad stuff, that it makes them uncomfortable, i found out that actually, the opposite was true. that we could connect on a truer level than i ever thought possible if i just didn't hold back.

i wanted to thank Glennon for being brave and sharing her not-so-pretty stories because in my opinion, the not-so-pretty stories are better and more heartfelt than the perfect ones and that until i stumbled upon her blog and Facebook page, i was always editing who i was and what i said, for fear of offending someone. rest assured, i was crying right away, within the first 30 seconds of speaking and my eyes were dancing in my head and i felt like i couldn't see anything correctly. maybe it was fear for saying my truth because it would make people uncomfortable, maybe it was out of fear because i was speaking in front of a few hundred people. who knows. all i know is i ended by thanking her for being brave and sharing. i told her she inspired me to share who i am and to live out loud, to live with my arms wide open, saying "here i am." she clasped her hands together, put them to her heart and walked down to me to hug me, and as she did, she mouthed to me, "carry on, warrior." the whole place was clapping and standing. surreal.

i didn't mean to take her spotlight. i simply wanted to thank her for being an inspiration to me through a very difficult time. i shared how lonely it is to be sitting besides someone you adore and love, yet feel more lonely than if you were sitting there alone by yourself. she and her book, validated my belief that my desire and need to share my stories, pretty and not-so-pretty and everything in between, is alright because it helps me and also might just help someone else. her stories helped me to identify what i was feeling that was missing in my relationship with my husband...depth. what i loved so much was everyone feels and experiences life's greatest emotions the same, it's the details that are not the same. everyone experiences joy, love, pain, suffering, happiness. do the details really matter? it's the details that cause us to feel that we are lacking and thus, cause us to feel isolated and alone. the best, most wonderful thing that i have seen come out of this stage in my life is that when i felt most alone, confused and desperate for true relationships, my people came out of the woodwork. they lifted me up, supported me, helped me and loved me. for me. with all my messiness. PROOF that i am just as lovable messy as i am nice and neat and predictable. i can be who i am and still be loved.

all my life, i was known for sharing the stories no one wanted told about them. like the time my mom took me and my sisters on a canoe trip to the BWCA and we got stuck going through a shallow canal. my mom got up and stood on a rock and us three girls just sat there, looking up at her, when she said, "maybe if you got your fat asses out of the canoe, we wouldn't be stuck!" it's funny now and we can all laugh at it, but my mom feeling embarrassed, is an understatement as to how she felt when i first shared this story to her book group. let's just say, they still talk about it...in good humor of course. i also get told i'm too intense for most people, which is disheartening because my intensity, partnered with someone else's intensity (about something, not relationship-wise) would be a force to be reckoned with if given a chance.

my story is not a pretty one. it isn't easy, simple or so-called perfect. within my short 32 years, i have lived through more experiences than most will experience in a life time. i don't regret a single moment of it as this is my truth. i am not ashamed. i don't know why coming out of and living through a not-so-perfect life would be considered 'persevering through adversity' by some because for many, it's just been the life they were given and for those of us with a life like this, we don't know it any other way. although it has not been easy, i can say for certain, i would not have wanted it any other way. not for one second. i am emotional, intense, intelligent, loving, kind, fun, reserved, passionate and nurturing. i am a mom, a sister, aunt and friend. i want to continue to share my story out loud because for me, i've never felt freer than i do today.

soothing the soul

2013-04-16T00:00:00.001-05:00

when things are kind of topsy turvy and feel kinda crazy, that's my cue. slow down, get comfy and do some major soothing of the soul. my kids seem to be 'off' lately (not gonna lie, i'm feeling quite cabin feverish and also crazy). our winter is dragging on and on and on here in minnesota and honestly, it's beginning to affect me. it's also times like this that i try to go back to a simpler way of being. yummy, filling homemade soups. sitting and reading on the couch. cuddling. playing games and just being together. confession: even with all these nice no pressure days, my kids are STILL driving me bonkers, even though i'm trying to slow down and just do fun things with them. lately i find myself saying, "i am the boss around here!" to my two year old who thinks she's the boss. she will even TELL you she's the boss by saying, "i'm the boss in my house!" i think she's spending a little too much time with someone...ah-hem. :) also, i could REALLY really use a vacation.

in what feels like head-spinning madness, i've been trying to take time to keep up with the traditions i've created for me and my kids. one of my most favorite traditions for us is Sunday Night Snacks. yep, that's what we call it. sundays are always my day to re-group and get ready for the week. almost every Sunday we go to church. our church is amazing. really. i try not to get all churchy and preachy about how great it is, but i find i can't really help myself. i've never in my life been a part of a church that i felt this way about. most sundays, i find myself so overwhelmed, renewed and my heart filled right up, that i cry. not sobbing, but the tears come and i get choked up. i feel like i'm given a new chance to be a good mom, a good friend and a good person. i'm ready to take on my week ahead. my kids love sunday school and my oldest enjoys youth group. it really is a win for all of us. then we go home, hang out, clean and do whatever. sometimes there are play dates, but usually we are just home. we get in pjs early and we make snacks. the kids LOVE sunday nights! we make air popped popcorn, cut up fruit, ants on a log, cheese and crackers and often i let the kids have some input as to what we have. we carry it all downstairs to the family room and hang out, talk, play, watch a family friendly show. it gets messy usually but that's what vacuums are for, right? it's just a really great way to end the weekend and start the week. when we don't do it, the kids are pretty disappointed. we didn't have sunday night snacks last night so we had them tonight (monday). it definitely did not go over quite as well. they kept asking me what was for dinner. did they really just think it was all just a snack? the kids ended up having a PB & J before bed because apparently, snacks for dinner on a monday never happens and so therefore, dinner didn't happen.

sunday night snacks didn't start with me. the story i've been told is my grandma (mom's mom) would cook a big sunday dinner and didn't want to cook again, so they started having popcorn and light snacks at night. this was probably about 50 years ago! my mom and dad did them with us and now we all do them with our kids. even though my dad and mom got divorced when i was little, my dad still has popcorn on sunday nights. pretty cool, if you ask me. i love having little things like this that the kids look forward to...things that are a constant even though dad has moved out.

some other intentional things (although maybe not traditions) i try to do are: no cell phone in my hands during story time, bedtime and meal time. everyone can help prepare a part of the meal and we all eat meals together. i make an effort to have everyone go to the other's important events; sports games, concerts, open houses at school, violin recitals, preschool performances. you name it, we are all there if possible. when it's time to clean, each kid has their own special jobs to do so they feel like an important, valued part of the family. we can all help one another. laundry is a family event (everyone folds their own)! i must be doing something right because i caught my 2.5 year old cleaning the potty one day with her baby wipes and man, was she proud! we also turn the music up and have dance parties. sometimes i turn on folky music and just listen and let it do some work on my heart.

i realize many families do the same sort of things, but my hope is to create a sense of continuity...just because dad moved out, doesn't mean we have to stop doing the things we enjoy. but, because dad moved out, mom needs help with certain things. i try to not do the things they can do for themselves and when i see they can do more, i give them more responsibilities. i am trying to teach them that we are a family and as siblings, they are each other's first friends. i am working on them learning that we do things for others because it makes the other person feel good, because we won't like everything we ever do, but it is worth it to see someone else feel important, loved and worthwhile. i tell them i am only one person, so when we are able to help, we have to pitch in or everything will fall apart. we are a team and if only one team member is doing the work, the team isn't really a team. we want all of us to be successful as individuals and as a family. i really try to get them to understand that we love each other and that is the most important thing ever because no one can take us away from our family. i must say it often, because my four year old always says, "why do you ALWAYS say that?!" and i answer, "Because it is THAT important." they don't know it, but they will thank me one day. we all have some healing to do and this is just the place to do that and they already seem to be doing better.

what are some of your favorite (non-holiday) everyday traditions that help you slow down and stay connected to your children?

mom, i peed in your bed.

2013-04-10T00:49:00.000-05:00

there's nothing quite like waking up to your four year old son saying, ''mom...i peed in your bed.'' i quickly told him to get up and go change, which he did, while i lay there with a sleeping 2.5 year old snoring next to me on my right side. as i lay there stuck on my side, i thought to myself, "well at least he told you before you rolled over and figured it out that way." it really is the little things, people.

so, my four year old son is not 100% potty trained, you see. he needs a lot of reminders all day long and was not really doing very well at night with Pull-Ups staying dry so when we ran out, i ran to Target to buy more. i decided to buy those pads that stick to their sheets instead of Pull-Ups. he did pretty well for a few nights, until last night, that is. also, i wasn't really thinking that i wouldn't be putting the pee pad in my bed. guess i didn't really think this whole thing through.

they love sleeping together

calvin (on the left) always comes in during the night to sleep with me (or us, before my ex moved out for the last time). calvin claims he "never EVER gets to sleep with me," which is a very big understatement and a very hard argument to win at 2 in the morning. before husband moved out after Christmas, we shared a queen size bed in the not-so-huge master bedroom in our not-so-big rambler style house. husband is a pretty big guy (6'2'', 250 lbs) so my share of the bed was never a whole lot, but then you add a four year old to the space and, as of last summer, a 2 year old, and mama ends up with the two year old wrapped in her arm, balancing herself and the little one from falling off the bed, while the boys sleep comfortably on the rest of the bed. squishing mom off to the side wasn't really an intentional thing, as most co-sleeping families/parents with small night visitors know, but nonetheless, i'm good at sleeping in one spot all night.

now, when husband moved out, i would lay in our bed, in our room that felt completely empty, and i swear every sound echoed. i knew behind his closet door was an empty closet. i knew inside his dresser were empty drawers. i still laid in my same space in the bed and perfected not falling off my bed in the night when i had two small night visitors even though there was really plenty of space now in that bed. i decided one night i could not stay in that room. i didn't want that bed, i didn't want anything to do with the one place that would constantly remind me that he used to be there and now was not. that room felt empty and lonely and strange now. i felt like i was laying in another person's bedroom and i didn't belong. my girls were squished in their bedroom now that anja was out of her crib and in a twin bed, so i decided then and there that they would move into the master bedroom and i'd move into their smaller room.

my mom and step dad brought my brass bed over from when i was little. my FULL size brass bed. i didn't care that it was a full size bed. maybe it'd force me to train the kids to sleep in their own beds. my girls had a very colorful bedroom and i would cry looking at 'my' room, with green on the bottom half of the walls, a hot pink stripe around the room and purple at the top, with my childhood bed in there. it felt so ridiculous. i was going to CLAIM MY SPACE, have it beautiful and cozy and MINE. i bought paint and painted that room in a couple days. i found a duvet cover pattern so i ran out and bought fabric and started cutting the pieces out right away. the paint color isn't EXACTLY what i wanted and

my duvet cover isn't finished quite yet (i've got the front done!), but it's mine and it doesn't feel lonely or echoey. i have a 'little bed' set up next to my bed on the floor (crib mattress made up with lots of blankets) for when anja comes in. the truth is, no one sleeps down there and i'm too tired to enforce my nighttime rules. hey, i'm only ONE PERSON. the one person my kids want to sleep with. one night i told anja to sleep on the little bed because "this is what we do. we sleep. because mamas with no sleep are crabby." and she said, "okay mama. i'll sleep down here. because this is what we do. we sleep." yes baby. we sleep. BUT then she popped up and said very exasperated, "if i sleep down here, i can't put my hand on your chest." i said, "you don't NEED to put your hand on me!" her two year old reasoning was, "yes i DO, mama. i have to because i have hands." how do you argue with that?! she climbed on up, we snuggled up and i hung on to the side of my full size bed while the boy slept soundly beside me with plenty of space. sigh.

maybe i need one of these. especially if one day i have to move out of this house and into something smaller...i'm pretty sure the kids wouldn't mind!! i'm also thinking they might still end up in my bed...but when it is all said and done, all kids learn to be independent sleepers. my oldest crept in to sleep with me until age 6 and my second slept with me until she was about 4, when my pregnant belly was too big for more people in the bed.

while i know it won't last forever and i don't always enjoy having a couple of kids in my bed with me every night, waking up stiff because i haven't moved in 8 hours and sometimes i wake up to wet sheets, i'm thankful for them for helping me keep my bed warm(er), for my 2.5 year old daughter who puts her little hand on my chest to fall asleep like she did when she was nursing, and i'm super thankful they feel so safe in my bed with me (even though we're squished). i don't know that i want to take that from them when their lives are being turned upside down. my space isn't entirely mine as i had envisioned, yet it is sacred anyway. it is sacred because they come to me to be loved. and that says it all. love is sacred.

i owned this day.

2013-03-31T23:53:00.002-05:00

image from mayhemandmuse.com

today was a kind of a big day for me as a single mama. it was our first major holiday with no daddy around. what's more is the kids didn't even seem to mind that he wasn't there. if they did, they didn't talk about it once we left for church. there was so much symbolism in my day today, it was kind of overwhelming at times. today we celebrated Jesus' rising from the dead, new life and for me, new beginnings. today we celebrated the miracle of new life. that from the dead cold of winter, plants come back to life. the kids were thankful, appreciative and (mostly) loving to each other. i put up my favorite decoration to hang outside my door...it's a hummingbird. the hummingbird, which in many cultures is symbolic of resurrection and new life as well, because in climates where it becomes too cold sometimes, they seem to die and then come back to life when it warms up. it's called torpor and it's a survival strategy. i didn't know of the symbolism until recently. it's pretty amazing how fitting things can be without even trying to make it happen.

Easter. the kids woke up around 7 a.m. (thank you, kids), woke up the oldest, who wasn't grumpy being up at 7, and found their baskets. they were pretty disappointed the Easter bunny didn't leave much candy, but they got over it when i told them grandma would have a candy hunt and they'd end up with plenty. anyway, the two little ones both had accidents over night (of course) and so i had to bathe all three younger kids. knowing we were on a tight schedule to make it to 9 a.m. mass, i had to have a good system. i got them in and out of the tub and dressed, sent them to the van with their new books and coloring kits while i got dressed and ready to go by 8:20. (these are the things you do so you can get ready as fast as possible). am i superwoman? probably.

as i was sitting on the off ramp to church, my friend (who is also in the midst of a divorce) was texting me.

friend: Happy Easter to my beautiful friend!!
me: Happy Easter to you too! hope you have a wonderful first single mama easter!
friend: thanks:) you too!! we will be just fine. i know this.
me: i hope so. i'm terrified. i gave him the child support papers last night. shit just got real. (lol) But look at it this way. we celebrate new life on Easter. what a perfect first holiday as single moms. A new life!!
friend: it is perfect and els, we are so strong, we can do it and we have each other.
me: you are making me cry!
friend: don't cry, you have your kids and your family and your friends and me :-)

she's right. she's that kind of friend. she has a category of her own. not family, not friends. she's both. by choice. i don't know that there's a name for that kind of friend, but she's amazing and i don't know what i'd do without her. it's not that i want to go through a divorce or see my friend go through the hell of divorce either, but if i had to pick a friend to go through it all with, it'd be her. i'm so thankful i have someone i can talk to who understands it all.

we barely made it, but we did. the church was packed for family mass, but we got to sit on the steps to the side of the alter and the kids got great seats to see the baby animals a farmer brings in each Easter. my 4 year old, Calvin, brought his gold coin chocolates in his shirt pocket and he was sharing them with his sisters while the baby animals were out. we sang Morning Has Broken and i teared up as it was the song my grandpa used to sing to us to wake us up in the mornings. i can still see him with his arms spread out and singing as loud as he could. he was the best grandpa i could've ever asked for...i saw his strength when i told my grandparents i was pregnant at the age of 19. after about two hours of trying to find the right moment, i did it. while everyone was in complete dismay and thought i'd never finish college or that i was too young and i was ruining my life, he looked at me, looked around at everyone else, back to me, and nodding his head, said, "she will be just fine." he's the grandpa my 4 year old is named after, who was born the day after he died (in a different year).
to end a great Easter mass, all four kids cooperated and i got a nice picture of them all. together. smiling. looking sweet. there were no meltdowns. YES!!

sometimes it's hard to wake up to another day, knowing that as a single mom i am doing the job of two. knowing that there are going to be kids wondering if they will see daddy today. it's hard because i don't know if it will ever get easier or if i just get used to it, so it seems easier. i don't think married people with kids can understand how crazy it is to be a single parent. no one can really understand how it feels to suddenly have to do IT ALL, all yourself. my sister's husband was sick for a while with a bad flu, so she wanted to keep their newborn and their 2 year old out of the house while he was at his worst. she told me how hard it was and how she had a new appreciation of what i do as a single mom of four kids, that she didn't know how i did it and she only has two kids. all i know is that tomorrow is another day, a new day to try to handle things a little better than i did today. i try to wake up each day and claim the day as mine.

I OWNED THIS DAY. i am reclaiming my life and have decided once and for all that my happiness is not decided by anyone else but me. i could've felt sorry for myself all day and let him not being here ruin my approach to the day, but i didn't. like the hummingbird coming out of torpor, my muscles will twitch, my heartbeat will begin to beat a little faster, a little harder. i will wake up from survival mode and seek what gives me energy to keep me going every day. and once all of this happens, i will have what i need to be the best mama, friend, sister and me that i know i can be.

p.s. in case you don't know the words or it's been a while, here are the lyrics to the song my grandpa always sang.

Morning Has Broken- Cat Stevens

Morning has broken, like the first morning.

Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlight from heaven.
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetnes of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning.
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning;
God's recreation of the new day.

Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.

progress!

2013-03-07T00:24:00.000-06:00

last summer, my (ex) husband and i split up (for the third time that year). i was pretty convinced i ~~couldn't~~ wouldn't get on that roller coaster any more. every time was more confusing than the last. i got tired of trying to pick up the pieces, explaining why daddy wasn't sleeping at our house, where he was or why they were sleeping somewhere else that weekend. i was ready (i thought) to be done with the whole thing because it was just too painful.

i felt invaluable. i felt disposable. i felt unlovable. i felt like what i did (still do) for our family was such important work and i didn't get why or how he couldn't also see the value in what i do. i felt like the what if's in my head were going to make me crazy! friends kept telling me that no matter what i did, it wasn't right. that it seemed i was in a lose-lose situation. my heart felt like it was being squeezed and stabbed with a sharp knife at the same time. i felt like a little bit of me was dying every day, like a flower losing its petals.

the first weekend he had our two kids, my daughter was at her dad's. my son was with friends for the weekend. since i was free and my sister had plans to go see a band that was playing at a local place, i invited myself to go along. i got all ready, felt like i looked really good and i was ready to do something social.

so there we were, sitting in the bar, having a drink. i look up at my sister and she mouths to me, "why are you crying?" i stood up quickly (because i hadn't even realized i was crying...haha...i can laugh about it now), walked my 'i look really good' walk to the bathroom and locked myself in the stall and cried. for forty-five minutes. my sister would come in and ask me if i was okay and i'd say, "yes, go away." so totally unexpected. by the time i finally emerged from the bathroom, i think every woman in the place knew it was me who was compromising the bathroom stall for almost an hour crying her eyes out. so pitiful. my sister's friend had to drive me home because the tears didn't stop. i told him out of embarrassment, "i'm sorry, i'm just having a really hard time." i went home and slept in the cute nightie i bought to wear for my husband (because that's what you do after you spend the night crying your eyes out in the bathroom at the bar).

the next day, i woke up and made myself eggs with tomatoes from the garden, topped with avocado. drank my coffee in silence. i had heard about sitting with the silence, sitting with my feelings of being alone. it was the strangest feeling, to be able to wake up on my own, make my breakfast and eat it before it got cold, drink my coffee at my own speed, before it got cold. i thought about my disastrous night and realized that the reason i cried was that for the first time in a very long time, no one was at home waiting up for me, expecting me to return. there wasn't a single person who needed me that night. it was such a different feeling than just being out, knowing everyone will be there and life continues on. i knew they needed me but not in the instantaneous way it usually was. it was a very empty feeling.
we got back together after a few weeks, but it turned right back to the way things usually were pretty soon after. with him working out of town so much, i started asking for more help from others. i started letting myself think, feel and really be honest with myself about this whole thing. no one wants a divorce. it's nothing people think about when they get married or are married. for some people, sometimes things just happen one day and it's enough to almost kill them. me...i just learned how to cope a little bit better over time. the kids still go with him, but i'm at a better place now. i'm okay just sitting with these feelings, learning how to feel and know what it is i'm feeling. it's still lonely a lot of times, especially because i am SO used to my little people helping to fill my time up and decide what we do each day. i try to tell my friend who is going through a divorce that it will get easier. better. the tears will stop. it won't hurt so bad. the problem is, you just have no clue when that day is going to come.

in hindsight it is kind of crazy that i was such a wreck. now i have no problem with saying good bye to him. i'll go see a movie by myself or i reach out and make plans so i can enjoy my time. there is definitely a sense of freedom and lightness. honestly, it feels really, really, good now. life really does start the moment you decide to change it. not calling him and begging him to work on things this time around has been the hardest thing i've ever had to do. i just know i will not keep doing this. i do love him and i do miss him, but not the him that was in a relationship with. i miss the idea of him and i. i can differentiate that now. thank God. my freedom is coming and looking back almost 9 months ago, i see i have made such huge progress. i love myself. i value myself. i love all the great unknowns that are on their way. i can keep doing better. i no longer allow my worth be determined by someone else. i do the things i love because they make me feel happy and fulfilled. i do not worry other's perception about the things that make me happy. i make time to do what makes me feel good and spend time with people who care. i almost forgot that one...i used to feel so uncared for. i thought i would be so alone, but the reality is, i feel more cared about than i had in way too long. i see people loving me and caring about me just as i am and that is beautiful.

question: what do you do so that you can see progress, especially that which can be hard to measure? how do you stay focused on making this kind of progress?

thank you for reading!

smile. it confuses people.

2013-03-04T01:11:00.000-06:00

i'm pretty sure once a day i hear someone say (completely baffled), "i just don't know how you do it all, elsa." i'm going to let you in on a little secret: i don't really know how i do it all, either. i just DO. i also hear how with all i have going on, i always look so 'together' and 'calm' and 'at peace.' guess i'm kinda good at confusing people.

i'm also sure it seems that i'm sitting in my house, constantly thinking about this whole divorce/separation/singleness, i think it's time to reveal that i DO actually think about other things. other very important things. things that actually consume so much of my time and energy, that the only time i can actually think about being single is when all the kids are in bed and i'm sitting in the quiet of my house.

the truth is, the kids seem alright. they are still loud, still rowdy and still talk over each other and interrupt one another. we still rush to practices, games, the gym for me to work out, appointments, school events and lessons, but the kids? they seem more balanced, in tune with what they need and have become quite self-reliant. after all, as i tell them, i'm only one person and one person can't possibly do it all and i sure as heck shouldn't be doing things for them that they can do for themselves! my oldest, Camron, likes to hang out with me again at night, once the little ones are in bed. my 6.5 year old daughter, Amaija, seems to have grown up and has become far more decisive than she ever has been (you should see the outfits she puts together these days and is so prepared for school, it's almost unbelievable!). she flits around the house, dancing and singing, doing her homework with her older brother at the table. my four year old son, Calvin, has recently been diagnosed with Autism. i won't get into it now, but let's say that for people to notice he is 'calmer' than usual...well, it's a really big deal. he's getting a little better with getting himself dressed a day here and there. he will brush his teeth. he started an early childhood special ed preschool this week and although he's only been three days, most have been okay. (wait...yesterday he yelled, "i don't want to go to that stupid smelly butthead school anymore!" and then i mentioned maybe he'd like to wear the cape i made him and he willingly rode the bus.) SUCCESS! finally, my baby...she's 2.5 and doesn't want help from anyone. i am so thankful for the preschool program my four year old started because i feel like my Ani and i just don't get time together until now. in the last few days, we have gotten to play and cuddle and go shopping. it's so fun! (and i am caught up on laundry. mostly.)

even with all of this goodness happening, i think and worry a lot. i worry because calvin demands a lot of care and i feel like my other kids get less attention. i get stressed out and exhausted from the constant, heightened awareness i must have just to keep up with him. for example. this morning, the puppy came into my room. i figured it was about 6:30 a.m., that calvin had let her out, and so i picked her up, ready to take her outside. so then i noticed the t.v was on, lights were on, a half eaten package of Oreos was on the table and then i noticed a sleeping little boy on the couch, curled up in a ball. i checked the clock and it was 4:30 a.m. and the movie had been running for over an hour. how i did not hear calvin wake up at that time of the night is a mystery. guess he wanted to party and was down for some alone time. (this morning he told me he ate 10 Oreos and then three more). awesome.

i worry because i can't help cam with his homework as i would like or that the oldest two don't practice violin enough because it's just too crazy some days. i worry that i'm spread too thin. i don't doubt that i have enough love for all of them, i worry that i don't have it in me to do this day in and day out. but, i know i can because i do. i worry about money, myself, sleeping, if i can handle the puppy, how i will work, cooking good meals, how i will keep up with everything plus laundry and cleaning bathrooms. never mind the duvet cover i set out to sew and hardly work on...seriously, i'm constantly thinking about how it's all going to work out. so far, it just has.

some days i realize i haven't washed my hair in a few days and even if i'm just going to the gym, i must shower before. i leave a lot of messes in order to get out of the house on time, even if it is for Pilates and not a real appointment. the kitchen can wait. sometimes i find a really wet Pull-Up at the bottom of the laundry basket that someone sent down the chute and i cringe with disgust. i know frozen pizza is a terrible dinner, but some days, i just can't get dinner figured out in my head ahead of time. there are days cam walks to my sister's house between school sports and traveling team practice. thankfully my kids are pretty understanding.

i just want to do it all just right. i don't want to fail my kids as their mom. i don't want my kids to ever feel like i wasn't there for them. my girls get no shortage of attention, it is just very clear to me that the attention that each of them gets is very different and i am thankful that i am able to meet their needs. maybe i'm just too hard on myself and set my own standards as a mom far too high. i don't believe that being a single mom is a bad thing. my mom told me that my house looked the best she had seen it in a while and that the house just felt peaceful. (thanks mom). when the days seem too rushed and the kids seem a little too crazy, i slow down. i stop trying to 'get things done' and sit with them. we might make big huge messes, but we have yummy soups with craggy-cut veggies in them and really yummy cookies in the end. maybe i'm doing more than just something right.

how did this happen?

2013-02-21T00:17:00.000-06:00

i've been blown away lately at the number of people who have reached out to me regarding their relationships. i can't figure it out, besides that i am openly talking about my own marriage struggles. i sure don't claim to know everything or to have the answers to why relationships fail. i don't know the answers as to how to save marriages and i sure as hell don't know how each of us got to this crossroad. unfortunately, we are all struggling to figure out what to do and it saddens me that so many of us are dealing with this, but maybe when we find someone going through something similar, we just want to talk about it. what strikes me even more is that all of us have children, the youngest being somewhere between 2 and 3 years old. have we all just focused so much on the children and divvy-ing up the house and baby duties that by the time they are out of diapers and nighttime wakings, we have just lost touch with who we are, beyond moms and dads?

i never understood what really happened with us. i still don't. i'm not sure at this point i care. what can it change anyway for my current (former?) relationship? in the future i'd be happy to figure it out, but right now, i'm kind of in survival mode. right now, i need to work on loving myself better. maybe i should be figuring out why i make bad men choices so that i do better in the future.

yesterday, after all these days of feeling like i was doing so great, i sort of had a very bad day. i felt weak, like i just could not mother any more for the day and that i wanted to disappear under my covers of my bed. i felt like i was failing my kids and myself. i felt like the picture right there of that crazy lady yelling STOP!!! a million questions raced through my mind. how am i going to keep up the mortgage? how am i going to pay my car note? who is going to fix things when they break in this house? if i get this part time job, how am i going to get my son to his special preschool programs when he has to be there at the same time as my hours will be? who is ever going to want to date a mom with four kids, who has been divorced twice? (minor issue for a much later day, i know, but it's there). ON AND ON AND ON.

then my mom called. she asked me what was wrong and i tried to tell her, but i realized i wasn't crying for myself. i realized i was so sad so many wonderful women were also going through this and these are only the ones i know about! there must be more! then i told her my worries. she told me she didn't have a job when she divorced my dad, but she had to do it. it was time. she said there were days that were so hard, she would literally read the Bible every ten minutes because she didn't know what else to do. she said all she could do was love us, to remember we were precious gifts from God (not a burden), that we depended on her and so she had no choice but to keep going, even when she wanted to quit right then and there.

as i lay in bed with covers over my head, wanting to quit, i uncovered my head. i wiped my face, told myself it was time to get up out of bed, stop being so hard on my precious gifts from God, that my anger or situation is not their fault. it was time to put my big girl pants on and do the thing i was born to do. be a mom. be me. do the things that make me happy so that i can stop feeling so sad and so worried. it's hard to be strong all the time. everyone thinks i'm so strong. so balanced. so at peace. so settled. "super mom" they say. that's a lot to live up to! the truth is, i am those things a lot of the time, but a lot of the time i'm restless, i'm worried, i'm afraid and i certainly don't want to have failed my children or myself.

we have choices. we choose to separate ourselves from the person who is hurting us, who is bringing us down. we choose to move forward with a divorce and we choose to live with our decisions. they are not always easy but we have to do it. i will choose to surround myself with people who love me and want to see me succeed, not fail. i woke up this morning and the sun rose to a clear blue sky. i opened the curtains like usual and the sun filled my house. the kids were calm. i thought to myself,i can do this. i can do hard things. i have always been good at figuring things out and being strong. i deserve better and so do my kids.and so i do. all the things i worry about will fall into place and in time will hardly be anything more than a memory. after writing this, i just found thisopen letter to moms who want to quit. it's beautiful and i love it.

the thing is that when we get to the point of divorce or separation, it is easy to feel desperate to try and 'fix' the things we feel we can fix in our broken relationship. the desperation is intense. it's easy to not remember the things that led up to this point, all those really uncomfortable, sad moments of being let down, ignored and unwanted. many express that they went to their husbands hoping they would do their part and hear them out, but were pushed away or not taken seriously. if those things hadn't happened, we wouldn't be where we are now. be realistic and know you are not alone. this did not happen suddenly and it took two. my dad says, "I'm not telling you what to do, but it seems like it's time to make a decision and stick to it and move forward." he's tired of seeing me hurt and knowing i've tried and been patient hoping for change.
when these women have shared with me their stories of marriage trouble and have questions for me once they know i am in a similar situation, i notice how the words seemingly tumble from their mouths and then a definite sense of relief settles on their faces, as though they haven't shared this information yet. i wonder how can they think that i know what i am talking about when they ask me questions about why this happens, when clearly, i am no expert. in my opinion, i am only an expert in picking up the pieces of my own life and making it better. regardless of how separations or divorce 'happens,' one thing i know...this is no ideal situation for anyone, but i think maybe none of us is looking for true answers, but rather support from other women going through it too.

letting go

2013-02-12T12:24:00.001-06:00

i recently read that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.

i think i am insane.

well i sure hope i'm not, but if that is the definition, i might be close. i kept hoping things would be different "this time," yet each time he'd come back, we'd fall into the same pattern. sometimes it would take a few months, but most recently (although he hadn't moved back), it only took a couple weeks. this is even after i made it clear that we NEEDED a plan. a plan! yes, we would not continue making the same mistakes, repeating history, beating a dead horse.

let's just say it don't take a whole day to recognize sunshine 'round here. no plan, same problems. even though i want it so badly, there's no way to heal together if healing isn't part of your frame of mind. and, you sure as hell can't make someone see what needs to be healed if they don't want to do the work. sometimes that healing needs to go back to before you as a couple even existed. some wounds run deep and long and unless you're ready to look at them really really hard, good luck being in a healthy relationship.

something i have for sure learned is that there is no one person guilty at the failure of a relationship. both people play such crucial roles in the relationship that i see how divorce is considered 'no fault' in minnesota. kind of like certain kinds of car accidents. sometimes they are just so messy and complex and impossible to separate one reason for a divorce from another.

i still cry, but they're not tears that come on with seemingly no reason. they don't last like they used to either. the whole idea of being single again has begun to hurt less. i'm less afraid and far less desperate. i was willing to make all sorts of concessions, to put my values and the things that matter to me aside in hopes of having us work out. i realize that isn't realistic. i also realize i can't make him see me for me, for the good i brought to our life together. the things he would need to do to see that would require him to make huge changes. honestly, i don't think he can see things the way i do, how things could be if he'd just try a new way of doing things. it pisses me off that i've been here, seeing him along this journey with his career and now i won't get to enjoy the life we could have had together once he gets into a position that doesn't require so much travel. all the bad, none of the good.

i know i've done my share of changing. i've been so.damn.patient. so kind, understanding. convenient. THERE. never again. i'm better than this and i deserve better. it'd even be better to be alone than to be treated with such irrelevance. what i do for everyone in our family is worth more than any dollar amount and most of what happens would go undone if i wasn't the one home taking care of things.

there are better days ahead. no more feeling like i'm re-reading the same chapter of the same book over and over and over again. no more feeling like magnets with the opposite ends pushing together, getting SOOOO close, just to push away. that's how this marriage has felt. we come really close but we just never really align. always just a minute too late or a few steps ahead or behind all the time. my days ahead will feel bright, kind and full of love and opportunity.

a beautiful struggle

2013-02-07T19:52:00.000-06:00

i love hearing and knowing so many people have wonderful lives. we all do, really. wonderful doesn't mean perfect, in my eyes. every day is a chance to do things differently, to wake up with a new perspective, do things differently and to be who we want to be. it can be really hard and lonely though, when you know you have troubles or difficulties, yet you don't see many people sharing or talking about those difficulties.

i am not sure why we feel like we can't share the "bad" because we have no problem sharing the good. people can't seem to wait to share all the great things they are experiencing in life. it just doesn't always really create good, heartfelt bonds when we just rattle off the stuff we think others will be impressed with or care about. i have to ask though, if we share the not-so-good stuff, do we think we are we admitting that we are weak or that we have no shame or pride? if we can only share the good, are we in denial of what is really going on in our lives?

obviously with good comes bad. all things come in pairs. so it's no surprise to anyone that we all have troubles, but if we keep them to ourselves, what is to become of them? do they just fester and become bigger, leaving us to feel more isolated because we have no one saying, 'i've been there! i can understand the pain you are going through'? it's definitely not easy to say that i am struggling and i need help. asking for help is one of the hardest things for me to do. i'd rather try and figure things out on my own, but sometimes, that isn't possible. asking for help can be embarrassing, humiliating and very hard, especially when you've always been the kind of person who doesn't need a lot of help. all i know is, as hard as it is to ask for help, now that i have, i now feel so.much.better. i can sleep easier tonight knowing i have a few less things to worry about. i am letting others help me in different ways in order to lighten my load, so that i can focus on the things that need me to be fully present. lying in bed awake last night worrying left me a tired mama this morning and i knew i had to reach out. it was truly one of my best moments, realizing i didn't have to try and do this transition alone. during a weak moment, i found strength to reach out. and seriously. what a relief.

there is no shame in making decisions that will get you where you want to be in the end. there is no embarrassment in saying i can't do this alone right now and i need some help bearing the weight of these hard things that feel very immediate and pressing. it would be a real shame if i had narrowed my life to the point that i had no one to turn to for help. where would i be then, if i had listened to him and allowed myself to push away the important people in my life, those that have been here for me all along?

years and years ago, my mom and sisters and i were at a hotel. my mom was a single mom at the time and us girls were all in our pre-teen years. my mom didn't date a lot and we relied on each other tremendously to support the various needs of our family. looking back, i can't even figure out what we were doing to separate ourselves from one another in the hotel room because no one had cell phones or iPods at that time, but we were probably bickering. so at one point, my mom got very frustrated. she had us all come to the sink area of the room and she had a glass in her hand. she said, "this glass is like my heart. it is filled with water, which represents love. every time i give you my time, my energy, anything, i'm giving you my love. each act of love takes away from the love i have." (as she is talking, she poured a little water out of the glass). She continued on, "if i continue to give give give, and you guys don't show me you appreciate me, love me, care about me, soon my heart will be empty and i will have nothing left to give you (glass now empty). But if you do small things that show me you care, that you love me, like cleaning up after you make a mess in the kitchen instead of leaving it for me, or watering my plants because you notice they're dry, or spend time with me just talking, you are filling my heart with love, little by little. then i will be able to continue to give you love." i saw something today that called this our 'love bank.' we all have accounts that need withdrawls AND deposits.

i'm not gonna lie. at the time, it was one of those moments we thought, this is it, mom has lost it. but as i each year i get older, i understand it better. relationships are give and take. we do small things to show people we care, that they are important to us, that we love them and then they do the same, in their own way, in their own time. these things keep us full and help us to give to others.

our love banks are real and i really think it's time we start looking out for each other, noticing when someone is struggling, in case asking for help or talking about their troubles is not something they are good at. we all can help to fill each other's hearts with small acts of kindness and love. i believe we cannot have the 'every-man-for-himself' approach. life is too hard as it is...there's gotta be a better way to get through this than trying to do it alone. right now, thanks to all my really fantastic friends and family, i feel i have love flowing around me, through me and filling me right up. pretty amazing feeling when it seems i should be feeling the complete opposite.

New Year's Eve 2013

2012-12-31T23:57:00.001-06:00

Everything lately feels like a bunch of "we were supposed to be's." like we were supposed to be dressed up & out dancing and having fun tonight. I'd been looking forward to a child-free night with my husband (ok...now soon to be ex)... celebrating his months of working hard and traveling and my keeping everything together while he was gone. we were supposed to be anticipating what might come next career-wise for him and what it could mean for the rest of us.
Instead I'm planning what my 'new' room is going to look like and what my daughters' room will look like. Instead I'm trying to anticipate how long I'm going to feel like shit and what I'm going to do to come out of this...while maintaining some semblance of normalcy and not too many days of puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks.
My New Year's resolutions usually look quite like most people's resolutions: eat healthier, exercise more, drink more water, be more present, etc. this year, ive already been doing those things. I also tend to forget them after a short time. This year, I must be less generic. I desire more now.
Recently I felt an awakening of my soul. it was beautifully alarming and I only shared about it with a couple people. The third person I shared with was my husband and in the same moment that I decided I wanted to share with him what I was experiencing, it was gone. just like that. how does this happen? did I let it happen this way? I don't think so.
I've decided my resolution will be to allow that awakening of my soul to come back; to feed it, to nurture it and to encourage it to stay. I wish to be more authentic with my heart and myself so that all people can know me for who I am and so there is no confusion. defending myself, who I know to be me, is exhausting. Somehow and for some unknown reason, I keep my authentic self to myself or share it bit by bit with those I feel will be gentle with me. I am not perfect; i am human. I am broken, but not unloveable. My heart will be healed and I know it will take time.

tears, advice & self-esteem

2012-07-30T00:40:00.001-05:00

this last week has been a roller coaster ride. i'm not gonna lie. tuesday, wednesday and thursday i cried at the drop of a hat. anything that reminded me of my now ex-husband-who-literally-has-nothing-left-in-my-house, hit me hard. thursday i was supposed to go to a meeting, but i didn't go. my boss emailed me and called me and i didn't answer or reply. i just couldn't. i didn't know what to say or how to answer any questions she might have for me about work. she sent me a text asking if i was going to use PTO for thursday. my reply, i guess so. the worst happened friday night. i decided i'd go out with my sister and her friends, to have something to do. we were all sitting around, talking and having fun and all of a sudden my sister says to me, why are you crying? i didn't even realize it. i got up and sat in the bathroom for at least 45 minutes. i just wanted to go home, but it made me even sadder thinking that no one was at home anticipating my arrival. my sister's friend drove me home and i talked the whole way and he could relate as he just went through the end of his engagement...and every time i'd say something, he'd remind me, "and that's why he's not your partner. someone better is out there for you." on saturday, i laid at the pool and on the floaty in the pool. i was numb. i never just lay around, so this was good for me. i'm trying to give myself a break.

i spent my afternoon today sorting through my dresser and closet, figuring out which clothes i was going to put in his (my) closet and what i'd use each dresser for. while i was doing all of this, i was thinking over the past week and all the words of advice i've received during this really difficult past week. just thinking about them and repeating them in my head gave me a lot of strength this week and i just wanted to share in case anyone else is out there who can benefit from them. they are simple, but important.

-Be strong. You are doing the right thing for you and the kids. (on questioning if divorce is really the right choice)

-If he'd been nice, you wouldn't be getting divorced. (on wondering why some people turn so mean)

-That's the way it goes. Crying is healing. (on me crying all the time & while out having fun)

-Remain cordial. Don't get into arguments. (on minimizing interaction)

-Hold your head up high. Make up your mind this is the right thing to do and don't look back. (on doubting the decision)

-Don't let the kids get in the middle of anything. (on keeping it between him and i)

-Hang in there! You will be better without him! (on feeling weak)

a couple of weeks ago, when my counselor gave me a self-esteem evaluation tool to me, i thought to myself, "i'm confident, i know what i want out of life...but we all have things we need to work on so i'll just take a look." when i read it for the first time, i was amazed to see some of the items on there that are connected to self-esteem. that whole, he's breaking you down to help himself feel better thing? yep...#9: I treat others with respect and dignity. Seeing that one has helped me tremendously to realize it wasn't me all the time. Some i had no idea about though, like being kind to myself, making decisions, valuing my own feelings, being able to learn something from each moment of the day. i could go on and on. there is so much for me to work on, even if i give myself a 4 or 5 today on any given statement, tomorrow it could be a 2. i've already learned self-esteem doesn't just happen. it is a constant process of looking at ourselves honestly, kindly and openly so we can know where we are falling short in loving and accepting ourselves before we can truly love another person unconditionally and accept them for who they are where they are right now and not try to change them.

EVERYONE has advice on how you know you're ready to move on. in the middle of cleaning, i said to my sister, "i don't think i really care about what he's doing anymore." she laughed and said, "elsa, you just said you don't want to picture him with someone else, even though you're glad it won't be you." someone once told her that she would know that she had healed from her relationship and divorce when her ex-husband's name or image came into her mind and she could say she honestly had no feeling one way or another about him. someone else told me there's some little formula for the time you need to give yourself, like so many months for every year you were married. i'm not even sure about that one. i've just decided that i'm in no hurry. i have plenty to learn about myself and plenty i need to do in order to be the best me possible. i still have a long way to go because i'm not perfect. i've made mistakes and i need to accept them and forgive myself for them so i can be free of them. i want to be able to have solid 4s and 5s on my self-esteem statements. sounds silly, but it's something concrete where i can measure my success and a way to gently remind myself that there is always a way to do better for myself without defending or explaining why.

It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret. ~Jackie Joyner-Kersee

the calm after the storm

2012-07-24T23:50:00.001-05:00

it's kind of funny how there really is a calm after the storm, where the sun comes out, the grass is greener, everything washed clean from the hard rain. through any destruction, there is a sense of hope and renewal. today was my calm after the storm.

this storm came to its peak last night, forceful and gray. i knew that once this storm hit, my life was really going to be different, there was not going to be another chance at this relationship. there was no storm center telling me to take cover, to prepare for all that could possibly happen with this storm. i felt like the people must have felt decades ago, when they only knew the storm was coming when they finally saw it approach, like in The Wizard of Oz. i tried so hard to be strong, to hold my ground and say the things i had rehearsed a million times in my head. i just wasn't prepared for the outcome. i thought maybe it was going to be one of those storms that looked worse than what actually happened. i was wrong. it was one of those storms you don't see coming, the ones that produce high winds and damaging hail, maybe even tears down the biggest trees in the neighborhood.

i saw last night that these storms were going to just keep on coming at me unless i made a decision. every storm weakened my foundation just a little more and i decided i wasn't going to let there be any more storms from this source who i feel should have been my biggest supporter and the one who lifted me up, not tore me down. some storms destroy us and some storms in life strengthen us. some enlighten us and lead us to new ventures.

this morning, the kids didn't even know that anything had happened last night. when my three year old woke up he asked where his daddy was (this is the first question out of his mouth every morning if his daddy isn't in our bed...usually that just means he's already up and working or has fallen asleep with the baby in the bottom bunk) and i said he left for work. he couldn't be fooled. he said, "no he didn't! I saw him here last night!" (three year olds are much more keen on life than we give them credit for!) although none of the children saw him moving stuff out or the tears on their mom's face, there was a calm in our house like never before. the kids were endearingly sweet to one another, they helped the younger ones and gave lots of hugs. the edge in my oldest's voice was gone when talking to his siblings. the house felt open, bright and peaceful, even though it was the same house where the storm had hit last night. maybe the calm after the storm comes because the worst has happened and we know there is a rainbow to come or maybe just a few raindrops, not more destruction.

i don't know what happens next. i wish i knew. i
wish i knew that i'd be able to keep the house, that my kids will adjust to their parent's new living arrangements. i wish i knew what the future holds for me. i know it's something great, it has to be. i'm excited to find out. i'm ready for the struggles that are sure to come as i figure everything out. i'm ready for anything because it surely cannot be any worse than it has been.

as i was laying on the couch last night, because i could not try to convince him for another second of who i am compared to how he sees me, i found myself repeating, "i AM worth it." i started to tear up because for some reason, it hurt to say that. i couldn't understand how saying those four positive little words could cause me pain. i continued to repeat those words and that tingly pain in my heart was washed away little by little until it no longer hurt and i knew what i needed to do. i've been working on my self-esteem and i think it's helping me to make decisions that are good for me. i AM worth it and no one will ever get in my head and cause me to believe anything different than what i know to be true.

when things fall apart

2012-07-19T00:08:00.002-05:00

i really prayed it wouldn't come to this. it only took a week and a half before my renewed happiness within my marriage and with my husband came crashing down. after the 4th of July, it all fell apart. there has been no recovery of what i thought we had once again found. the only thing that was discovered was that my husband would rather ridicule and humiliate me in public and make plans to hang out with his friends. i was taking our new journey moving forward seriously, while it seems as though it was all for not. i feel more hurt and sad about this now than i did before. i thought we were starting with a new beginning of sorts, ready to move on and not look back. i thought we were truly recommitted to making our marriage last. he said he'd call one of the other husbands if he needed guidance or help. lie. he made me feel like we knew it would take time, real time, to rebuild our relationship. i feel so duped, it makes me sick to my stomach, but i have no choice but accept what is obvious. neither one of us wants to just admit the relationship is over, yet it is. a marriage like this cannot be saved.

where do i go from here? i feel like i am in limbo, not sure if i should go up or down, right or left. just sort of left floating somewhere in the middle between here and there, trying to find my way out of the darkness and confusion. as much as i want answers and to have it all figured out RIGHT NOW (because that's how i am), i'm reminding myself to try and relax and focus on what is important right now...taking care of my kids and myself. they need me to be strong and help them to understand what is going on. i want to be as honest and open with them as possible so that we can talk about how they are feeling and i can help them to adjust as well as possible.

there are moments i want to lay down and not get up. no one wants to be twice divorced with four kids. i feel like a total failure. i want to run away and disappear into the world unknown and not deal with any of this because maybe it will be easier and he can deal with picking up the pieces for once, have him comforting them because they want me, but alas, i am not there. maybe i'm working or maybe i'm on a trip. who knows. he'd have to figure it out and make a plan, just as i did for so many months. i can't though, because as any mom knows, you do not just abandon your children.

there are also many moments i am more motivated than ever to make that appointment to meet with an advisor at the University to plan out what i need to do to get into the program i want. i am motivated to create a happy home and make new memories with my children; to have the life i've always dreamed of. a dream home is not a large, beautiful home with brand new everything. a dream home is the home i create for my children, where we make memories, live happily and enjoy a peaceful, loving place to call home. maybe some day i'll look for love again, but for now, i'm good. i have a full plate taking care of myself and loving my four sweet children. i want to be me and no one else for another second in my life. i am ready to accept i that i have to take some responsibility for my marriage unraveling and i want to learn from this so that when i am ready, i do not repeat the same mistakes.

things i have learned:

i never will allow another person make me feel so small, weak and unimportant. i am a person who deserves respect, love and acceptance. i always swore i would never allow a man to treat me this way, yet here i am.
i will listen to myself, for only i know what is best for me.
i cannot fix another's problems or issues. only they can decide when they are ready and if they want to change.
no relationship is worth it if you are left feeling worthless and questioning yourself.
maybe i never lost sight of who i really am and what is important to me. maybe i was so busy trying to be someone else all along in order to be loved by the wrong person. never again.
i must follow my heart, not only in matters of love, but in everything i do. if i do not listen to my heart, i deny what is important for me and i lose sight of my values.
i cannot just tell my daughters or sons how to follow their dreams and not settle for anything less than what they deserve. i must also live by example so they have the courage to do the same.

dreaming keeps me going

2012-07-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

recently i stumbled across an article (or maybe it was a book) about a woman who took a 'mom sabbatical.' basically, she was saying that even moms need an extended 'break' to disengage in order to fully re-engage herself into her life and role as a mother. my initial thoughts about it were: what did she do with her kids? how did she pay for this adventure? she must have a great husband to be so supportive...would i be able to take a sabbatical from being a mom to go off and travel and ponder some of the great questions about life? would i miss my kids and husband? (of course i would). i'm not exactly sure how it came back to me, but i decided to ask the question on facebook and i also mentioned that it was kind of enticing, in my opinion. i was a little surprised by the answers, i thought maybe SOMEONE would say yes, but everyone (okay, so there were only 6 responses) said no, they'd never do it until their children were older. by older i'm assuming they mean grown up and out of the house. i wouldn't consider it a mom-sabbatical if my kids were grown up though. only one friend (not a mom, but a world traveling nurse) said, "DO IT!" and i liked her answer, especially because she wasn't assuming i'd leave the kids home, but instead that maybe they could come with and they could also have a sabbatical of sorts from THEIR daily lives and learn a lot in the process as well.

here's my take on the whole 'mom-sabbatical' thing. i've been a working mom and a stay-at-home-mom. both, i find, are equally stressful and time consuming in different ways. i've also been a single mom and a married mom/wife. both, in my opinion, are a lot of work and neither right nor wrong, just different. my thoughts are coming from having done all of the above. all i do know is life gets crazy when there are kids, jobs, husbands, houses, friends and family to keep up with. as i see it, i would like to just take care of me. don't get me wrong, and i know this all comes with the job, but sometimes i get tired of thinking about what to make for dinner, trying to keep the kids busy with their activities, playing games, cleaning up, running them here or there, hearing that once again, we don't have almond milk, etc. i'm not complaining. i'm simply saying that everyone needs a break and why should moms be any different from those that get to schedule their breaks away from work? i know our jobs as moms never stops, never ends. 'once a mom, always a mom.' yeah, i get it. i have four wonderful kids who are the reason why i am sitting in bed writing about this instead of writing about being on a sabbatical. focusing on yourself, whether you are a mom or not, is essential. i have been a mom for 12.5 years and at times have forgotten to take care of myself and it's not a good idea. i was overcome by stress, depression set in, i was unhappy and needed sleep. i needed to figure out what i liked again. i didn't get away, but i did make a habit of taking care of me and it wasn't long before i felt human again. i discovered that if i don't take care of me, i can't take care of anyone else very well. when i take care of myself first, i am more present, less stressed, have more energy and am a much better person, not to mention a far better mom.

sometimes i dream of getting away to do something that i have a big desire to do, like climbing the mountain and camping along the way to see Machu Picchu. that's what i'd do for sure. maybe not for 3 months, but maybe for a couple weeks. i'd go to push myself to limits i am unable to push myself to at home. i'd definitely want it to be something adventurous. or maybe it'd be something more peaceful and serene, like going somewhere to study with some yogis and just practice yoga and meditate. or maybe i'd have a question to answer and that would be my focus for my sabbatical. sometimes i dream about encouraging the husband to take a job within the company abroad and moving the family to a different country. that would be amazing, i'm sure. just throw us out of our routine and shake things up a bit. make us bond on a different level, explore a new place and make new friends.

all i'm saying is, allowing ourselves to dream about the possibilities can be almost as much of a sabbatical as actually going. when you allow yourself to go somewhere else momentarily, envisioning yourself at some great summit or doing something you never thought possible, you are taking time to disengage, dream and then come back feeling excited. in my opinion, taking the time to dream about all the things you would do if you didn't have the kids and house and husband and job and car... helps keep you true to yourself in a different way and also create plans for the future when your kids are grown, when you can make all those mini dreams a reality. i can't wait to go. until then, i get to keep building my list of things i want to do when the time is right. i also hope that some of those dreams can happen in the meantime, with or without my children. i realize the word 'sabbatical' implies a longer extended time away. maybe it won't be for 3 months, but a week here and there is definitely doable to go and re-charge, re-connect with myself and take care of just me. i love going away AND coming back...just as much, if not more, to those smiling, eager little faces and big bright eyes. call me what you want, but yes, i'd do it...there are a lot of 'if's' that would have to be in place, but if the time and opportunity were right, and if i knew all would be well (which it would), i'd go in a heartbeat.

Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable. ~Wendy Wasserstein

today i am feeling hopeful

2012-06-28T15:50:00.001-05:00

it's no secret that my husband and i have been struggling. out of respect for us both and the fact that i'm trying to put a new foot forward in our relationship, i won't get into the messy details, except to say everyone says communication is key. we tried many different ways of communicating, with no real gains, and i felt like it was better not to speak because he wasn't listening anyway. many people knew we were going to Retrouvaille last weekend and i have been so busy trying to find time to work, catch up with the kids, keep up with the house, and not to mention my husband, but to also make time for 'dialoging' (more about that later) that i am finally able to share a little bit about where we are now.

it's now been 4 days since we finished 'our weekend' through the retrouvaille program. there's a certain kind of irony about this program. we were ready to file for divorce when we signed up for the program. when i walked into the hotel where we stayed for the weekend with twenty-two other couples in very similar situations, i was so nervous and doubtful that this would ever be able to help us. both of us had such long lists of what we wanted addressed and i just thought there would not be enough time in a day, let alone three days, to get us through any part of our lists. as i noticed other couples checking in, we all nervously made eye contact with eachother and were grateful for the short time we had in our rooms before going down to the conference room.

i am not going to give too many details about the program because if i were to try and put all that we did in a nutshell, it would not do the program any justice, but here are the basics. there were twenty-two couples from all over the area. there were three couples who acted as 'presenters' during the weekend, sharing their stories of how they returned to love after much hurt, despair and misery in their marriages, and (in our case) there was a Catholic priest (one of the most amazing priests i've met). all three couples and the priest related thevarious parts of the retrouvaille program to their own relationships. (on a side note, the priest did a wonderful job really looking at himself and how he went through the four stages of marriage being married to the Church). anyway, throughout the weekend and as the program intensified, we learned more about the couples presenting and how their experience with Retrouvaille's program helped them through. after a presentation, either the husband or wife would go up to their room and write a short piece to their husband/wife (after receiving the directions after presentation). we focused on learning how to share our feelings with one another, without needing to explain or judge or defend ourselves or our actions. that was the main focus of the weekend. one of the presenting couples said was, "You aren't working on resolving your problems, but as you get better at understanding your spouse, those problems will seemingly melt away." and i am here to say, they did. not all of them and not completely, but we are at a much better place.

the dialogue's purpose is to get to a mutual understanding. we will always work on this piece of the program, as it will never go away. that is the part where we learn to respectfully share what we are feeling, without the need to ask why, how, or judging that the other shouldn't feel a certain way. thinking back to high school, we were always taught to debate, to defend our position on a topic in position papers, so i think it's only natural that we want to defend ourselves from what feels like an accusation or an attack of our character, but there was none of that. some things are easier to dialogue about and some are more difficult to find the right word, but digging deep and learning this technique has provided us an unimaginable relief.

the transformation of the couples over the weekend was fascinating. on friday night at 7 p.m. walking into the conference room, we all sat in the equally spaced chairs, next to our spouse, in silence, or exchanging very light remarks. i think that they call that 'stubborn silence.' when we heard there would be no group discussions or sharing by taking turns, i'm pretty sure i heard a unanimous sigh of relief! saturday morning, we all dragged ourselves down for breakfast and there was a notable change in the atmosphere. we were all exhausted emotionally, and of course from the sleep you get when you go to bed too late and wake up too early, but there was less silence. couples were talking a little more, asking if the other wanted coffee or needed anything. my husband felt hungover, without the help of any alcohol, and one lady said she felt like she'd been hit by a truck (i agreed). saturday was a long, long, LONG day, filled with an enormous amount of progress. after each session, couples would come back from their rooms and i noticed husbands rubbing their wives backs, the chairs got closer and formed pairs, rather than rows of equally spaced chairs. by the end of saturday, we were given a chance to share anything we wanted. some chose to say a few words, but most did not. the ones that did say something cried a little from the sheer hope of saving their relationship, from the possibility of having their husband or wife "back." all this in a an evening and a long day and for many, it came after being served divorce papers. bedtime was late again, but we all came to breakfast on sunday morning, feeling equally exhausted, but ready for anything because there was renewed sense of hope and love in how we felt towards our spouses and our marriages. by the end of sunday, we were asked to share again, as someone in the room might be able to benefit from what we might say. once again, our chairs were coupled up, knowing smiles were shared between spouses and love was abundant in the room.

for the next six saturdays, we will be joining this same group of couples for follow up, or post sessions. there was a great relief knowing we all knew that we didn't have to pretend to have it all together, as we do with other friends or family. everyone was there for the same reason at some level or another. friendships were formed and hopefully we can all find couples with whom we can share time with later on, to be not only friends with, but to act as a support system for eachother. there's no couple that doesn't have issues at one point or another, it's what you decide to do with those troubles that determine where you will end up.

i choose not to use the word "blessed" very often, but after this weekend, i feel blessed to have the opportunity to be married to a husband who isn't giving up on our marriage, who is commited to learning a new way with me. hopefully our children can learn this new way of sharing feelings too, so that when they are older, no one can ever tell them they don't know how to communicate effectively! here's an example of how well it can work: my six year old was missing me very much after being with grandma for a week and a half. when i dropped her off last thursday after swimming lessons, she cried, wanted to come with me but wanted to stay. she was feeling very conflicted. so when we returned, she was curious what we had done, so since she brought it up over and over leading up to this dialogue, saying things like, "mommy i was so sad, i cried myself asleep." or "mommy i was so sad, even grandma couldn't help me." i walked her through the dialogue technique to understand how she felt that thursday night. she gave it a '10' on a scale of 1-10. so i said, "so you felt like i had died and wasn't coming back?" (i was reflecting how a 10 might feel to me to understand her level of sadness). she laughed and said, "ok, maybe a 7." so i asked her what color her feeling of sadness felt like. she said, "greenish brown, like the mississippi river." then that was enough and she got up smiling, where as prior to that, she wouldn't leave my lap. she was happy and seemed felt understood and let me know she thought i understood her, too. it hasn't come up again.

right now, i'd give my feeling about my future with my husband a big, huge 10. it might change and they warned us it might if we were feeling super hopeful. however, i really hope it doesn't change too much and that with all of these tools we have been given and the ones we will be given in the coming weeks, that we will be able to be a part of the 70% success rate of this program.

once a mom only a mom?

2012-06-20T01:21:00.002-05:00

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed, but the mother, never.
A mother is something absolutely new.
~Rajneesh

looking back to when i became a mother, i was young, but took my new role very seriously. being a mother was amazing and i embraced it with my whole heart. i felt like most of the people i knew thought i would fail at something, whether it was as a mother or that i would not finish college. i knew differently. i knew i would not only finish, but excel, and also keep my feet firmly on the ground, promising myself i would never forget who i was. well, i did finish college with two bachelor's degrees in four years with a high GPA, while raising my first child, being married for part of it, working nearly full time for half of it and still managing to know myself for all of it. i prided myself on making him only the best food; at the time most people chided me for only buying organic produce and hormone-free milk and meat. i made his first birthday cake (an organic carrot cake) from scratch (i even shredded the carrot) and used to put flax seed in his cereal. we would go for night-time walks with flashlights to see what the world looked like at night. yes, i am proud of all that i did for him as a young mother and without too much self-sacrifice. those were some really great years...

so many years have passed since then and so much has changed. becoming a mother once was so life-changing in such a positive way, that in 2006 i welcomed a baby girl into my life and made the most of it. i struggled to feel competent as her mother; she cried a lot and it seemed like i could never quite meet her needs. by the end of summer, i was ready to go back to work and felt terrible about it. shouldn't i have wanted to be with her all the time, regardless of the challenges she and i had together (constant puking and nursing, her seemingly endless need to be entertained or nursed?? :) i tried so hard to meet her needs as an infant and also to meet the needs of my first son as a first grader, that i naturally put myself aside for them. as she got older, it got easier, but i always yearned for something else. within the years that followed, i was faced with some very difficult times. there was a pregnancy that failed and caused me to become extremely ill and created a wide divide between my husband and myself. then two short months that followed, another pregnancy (baby boy in 2008), i became a stay at home mom and shortly after a surprise baby girl in 2010. it all happened sooooo fast that i don't really know if i had time to deal with all of it properly. that time of the failed pregnancy and being so incredibly sick is just a long dark space of time in my memory. after that, i threw myself into my family and tried to get back to being that mom i remembered myself to be, yet i could never really live up to my own expectations.

knowing all i have been through, it is easy for me to recognize how exactly i lost sight of myself and my goals, dreams and simply what was important to me outside of being a wife and mother. what i have a hard time with is accepting that this is just what happens once a woman becomes a mother. maybe it's not after the first child, or maybe not even after the second. every mother i know has a different experience with this; some can relate and some cannot. for those of us that it does happen to, is it really necessary to give ourselves up entirely to this new (or continued) role called motherhood? why did my vision of my role as a mother change so much from one child to the next? i felt such internal pressure to perform perfectly as a mother after having my third child that i quit working to stay home and raise them instead of having them in daycare, yet now here i am, four months into being a working mom once again. so many women i know are having babies lately and nearly every one of them struggles with guilt when it is time for them to go back to work or leave them with a sitter for a night out with their husbands.

becoming a mother certainly is life changing and definitely re-defines us, but does it have to BE the definition of us? aren't we still someone's sister or friend, or someone's partner who we are sharing our life with? what about ourselves? is it really necessary to wonder if it is selfish to want to take care of ourselves or make sure our own needs are met? i personally feel that it is my job to show my children how to take time for themselves, the importance of taking care of themselves and to stay involved with something they love, to have a passion. twelve years ago, our very first pediatrician gently reminded me to find 30 minutes a day for myself and to not feel badly about it, yet i feel like that was the most difficult thing to do and still is on any given day because there is always something that needs to be done in regards to being a mom. being a mother is something i would never change, nor regret no matter how hard it gets or how much i miss knowing myself like i used to.

i remind myself that the life i am living is not something that has to stay the same, that it can bend or change to meet my needs. the life i want starts the moment i decide that i am going to do something differently in order to have the life i so desire. i don't have to settle for what is or who i have become. i can always move forward without forgetting what i have done and appreciating where i am because of the choices i have made. right now, my biggest, most important job is a mother, but that is not all i am. i still yearn for something more and i am seeking to be more present in order to find the clarity i need to define for myself, who i am.

is it love or friendship that gets us through?

2012-06-15T12:30:00.003-05:00

i read an article today it was called, "Secrets to a Happy Marriage (from the Real Experts)." according to the article, june is traditionally associated with getting married. i can't but help feel the irony in this as this is the month i have (both times) become separated from my ex and current husband. how do couples go from happiness to divorce in such a relatively short time?

the author, Karl A. Pillemer, Ph.D, interviewed many many elderly couples. he asked them for their advice on what makes a happy marriage. Did you know that (per this article) 90% of Americans still find marriage as the ideal lifestyle, even though around half of all marriages will ultimately end in divorce? that is astounding to me! how can it be that it is still the ideal for the majority of people, yet we have such a high divorce rate? one would think that if marriage held such a high place in the eyes of most Americans, that there would be a better support system in place for those that are married (or plan to get married). maybe we need marriage mentors, not just couples who tell us words of wisdom during the little bit of pre-marital counseling some go through? maybe we should take the advice of the elderly married couples a little more seriously, to get us back to where society used to value marriage a little more? where people might hear real advice, not just 'marriage is hard work' or 'marriage is a long journey.' we all hear the same things...the difference is, old people tell it like it is. maybe we just need to go back to the more traditional values and truly listen to those that have had success in their marriages so that we can have some tried and true advice. so i read this article today and as i was reading these were my thoughts...and maybe, just maybe, they are right.

Marry Someone a lot Like You.
I have to admit. i don't think that my husband is a lot like me. we don't see eye-to-eye on a number of topics. I'd venture to say we fall under the "opposites attract" category. don't get me wrong, we used to have a lot of fun together, yet our personalities are quite different, generally speaking our values align but within those values is where we conflict. communication styles differ and actually i find is one of the greatest causes for arguments and discord.

Never Expect your Partner to Change
my husband buys me flowers now and then (like once in a great while). my mom will comment, i wish my husband would buy me flowers! and i always respond the same, "mom, he didn't buy you flowers before you were married so you can't really expect him to buy you flowers now." you can't wish for something to change that you were okay with before. there is nothing I'd want to change about my husband as far as his character & the qualities to which I was attracted to. he's a good father, providing for his family is important, he's handsome, can be fun and intelligent. we enjoy some of the same activities. it's some other things I wish he would do differently: be more organized, talk to me more, be more affectionate towards me and i'd say he could relax and enjoy the moment a little more often. they are not things that make me love him less, i just find those are the things where we are not much alike. he often claims I'm trying to change him but in my eyes, maybe im trying to influence him?!

Friendship is as Important as Love
after reading this part, i can definitely relate to the lady who said they were good at love, but never learned how to be friends. now I'm finding myself wondering, would we be friends if we did not love each other? do we treat each other with the same regard we treat our friends? with my friends, we relax, talk freely and openly. we share inside jokes, have connections others do not understand. when kids and life start playing a major role, how will the marriage survive that 3rd stage of misery if the romance goes away for a while or you hit a rough patch? according to the research participants, friendship gets you through. without friendship, your relationship is more likely to fail. do we fall in love first and THEN become friends or does it happen simultaneously?

i have no doubt some couples work well because they paid attention to some of these types of advice. what worries me is that all too often, we do not listen to our hearts. we let go of a relationship because it is not acceptable to our families or society, or we want something to work so badly that we are willing, at that time, to make concessions and compromises in order for it to work. ultimately, that can only work for so long before it becomes too much for one to bare.

question: what do you think is the most important relationship advice you have received? do you agree with the article or do you think relationships can make it without these three keys to marriage success?

the 4 stages of marriage

2012-06-09T22:59:00.002-05:00

recently i learned that there are four stages of marriage. i have been through pre-marital counseling through the Catholic church twice, married twice and divorced once, now separated. i don't have a very good track record when it comes to marriage. my parents divorced and both re-married. my dad and his wife dated a very long time when they eventually got married and my mom and her husband got married after a shorter time. my maternal grandparents were married 50-something years when my grandpa died and my paternal grandparents divorced when my dad was somewhere in his teens (i believe). a number of uncles and aunts, all with their own version of what a marriage has looked like. within all of these marriages, successful or not, no one ever mentioned these four stages of marriage.

when my husband started throwing around getting a divorce, i started researching counseling possibilities. in my heart, i do not want another failed marriage and i sure as hell wanted to know i did everything possible to try. i did not want to go through medical insurance because there are complex rules as to how to get insurance to cover your sessions, however, they will not just provide sessions that are for 'marriage counseling.' you or your spouse will be required to be diagnosed by the counselor with some sort of diagnosis: anxiety, depression, something 'not so serious' in order to be covered and then you are dealing with the diagnosis WITHIN your marriage. i knew i did not want to go that route because it just did not seem like it would work. (for another time, is this why these diagnosis are on the rise? to get any kind of counseling covered by insurance?) so my search continued and i found something called Retrouvaille which is a program offered to help couples work through their problems, especially focusing on the importance of communication. I am Catholic and I like the idea of using the Catholic teachings on what a marriage is. I came across these Four Stages of Marriage on the Retrouvaille site.

the four stages are as follows:

1. The Honeymoon Stage. We've all heard of it and we all know how amazing and wonderful it is!
2. The Disillusionment Stage. Us women always hear about how annoying it is that men don't put the toilet seat down. Or that they leave their socks laying around. But this stage is where you really start FEELING how annoying some of the spouse's habits really are; or our spouse just isn't as wonderful as we thought they were!
3. The Misery Stage. Simply, you and/or your spouse are just miserable. you want out of your marriage as soon as possible. most divorces and/or separations happen during this time. counseling happens during this time (most often). however, if you divorce during this time and don't get to the root of the problem, chances are your future relationships will end in a similar manner. if you do make it through the misery stage, you are likely to make it.
4. The Awakening Stage. Those marriages that do not end in divorce stuck it out and learned tools to help them move through the stages of marriage in order to have a happy marriage. they have learned marriage is not a fairy tale, but rather something that takes working on, changes in attitudes towards the spouse and the marriage and ways to work through whatever gets thrown in their way.

my mom and step dad renewed their wedding vows today at the Cathedral of St Paul. there were dozens of couples also renewing their vows, but what i really noticed were the elderly couples. the church was celebrating them for having made it so long together, 50+ years. it was amazing. these couples looked at each other with what i saw as the same amount of joy, love and intimacy as they probably experienced on their wedding day. the ladies got all dressed up, make up done, hair nicely done. men were in suits and ties. they held hands the way they did way back when. i could only wonder about their marriages for all of those years. i came to the conclusion that they could look at each other the way they did because they knew, between the two of them, all they had been through, all the challenges they surpassed, the children they raised, the homes they created. together. i'm sure it wasn't easy and i know everyone says marriage isn't easy, however, did they know about these four stages? did they know what was to be expected? or was divorce just not that easy or societally accepted back then and if it had been, would they still be married today, 50+ years later? my mom looked so happy and i know why. she and her husband have been through it all, good and bad. but they are now in the awakening stage. i can see that. i have noticed that they were in a different place in their marriage before i even knew about these stages. the only thing i know is neither one of them gave up. they might have wanted to, but they didn't. i really hope that they can make it 50 years (although they'd have to be pretty dang old, it is possible!)

my grandpa cal (who my 3 year old is named after) was asked by their oldest son if he had any words of wisdom on how to make it to 50 years of marriage. he looked at my grandma and said, "it is really not that difficult when you love someone so much." it was so sweet. fifty years married or not, all of the relationships i am close to serve as a model for me, teaching me something different from each one. in my own marriage now, of course i would rather not divorce. i'd rather be one of those old, wrinkled wives, holding their now shorter than them husbands' hands, renewing my vows with my children looking on.

my husband has agreed to go to the next Retrouvaille weekend marriage 'encounter.' it is june 22-24. we stay at a hotel and do some serious 'our marriage sucks ass kicking' (my words, not theirs!) then we will have 6 follow up sessions. knowing that there is a name for what is going on with my husband and i gives me a sense of hope that maybe we are just lost in 'misery' and that perhaps with some work on communication and defining what we both hope for, realizing we still do love each other and deciding we are worth it and our family is worth it, that perhaps we will be 79 years old together some day. and if we are not just lost in the misery stage and we really aren't going to work out, at least we can say we did all we could and that at the least, we will be better parents and communicators for the sake of our kids.

playing the what if game

2012-06-07T23:08:00.002-05:00

with any loss, it is only natural to think back and wonder about where you might be had you made different choices, certain concessions, or handled things differently.

some of my 'what if' questions are: what if i had been less independent? would that have helped? what if i had sent all the bills out on the day i say i'm going to, but i forgot because i'm just so busy? what if i didn't stand up for myself all those times i felt compelled to defend myself and my actions? what if i kept on pursuing him, instead of stopping so that i could see if he would pursue me instead (even in marriage)? what if i had just initiated sex every night or every other night? would that have made things better? what if i hadn't wanted to go shopping with my mom/sister/friend that one day? what if i had bought him a birthday present instead of spending the day with the kids baking cakes for him and making dinner? what if i 'backed him up' when he tried to discipline the kids in a way i did not agree with? what if i didn't complain about his inability to pick up after himself or get himself organized? this list of questions could go on and on and on...

having been doing a lot of reflection, i think my biggest problem was that i allowed myself to give up the things that were important to me because of him or his comments; friends that he found a reason not to like; activities i enjoyed because he found some way to criticize them. i wanted so badly for us to work out, i thought i should just back off a little from those friends and he will appreciate that and things will be better. yet it kept happening and happening. i can only hold myself responsible for allowing myself to play that game because to this day, i miss each of those friends, i miss participating in those hobbies or pursuing those interests. for example, I'd really like to do start going to meditation. a friend of the family leads it at a buddhist center on monday nights. he has invited me many times and my sister and mom have gone. when i mentioned it, he said, "what, so you're going to become Buddhist now?" REALLY?!

over the course of our relationship and in thinking of those friendships lost, i have decided to try and re-connect with some of those people. of course there is always some kind of backlash when he finds out, because i feel i cannot just tell him that i've reached out. after all, do i really want to deal with his opinions of that person again?? yet i really want to have their friendship a part of my life. more times than not, when he 'finds out,' his reaction is the same and i feel compelled to defend myself. most times i end up feeling so guilty i decide it's probably not worth the hassle and it ends before it can even really start up again. my guilt is self-created and i'm not even sure why i have guilt about wanting friends.

When you have to start compromising yourself

or your morals for the people around you,

its probably time to change the people around you.

the realization i have come to with all of my what if questions is that the answer to all of them is no. even if i had done all those things (and then some), i don't feel we would have been better. i can honestly say they might have been better for him, but definitely worse for me and worse for the kids. the thing i have to remind myself is i DID do those things...well, i started doing those things because he expressed that those were important to him. i would have been making compromises that could not last because i did not agree. more over, i would have been compromising myself and my relationship with my children for the sake of a relationship with another adult, when i really feel that the two adults in the relationship should be working together to make compromises together so that the kids feel secure; so that both adults feel confident in being the other's support system instead of backing the other up even though it may not sit well with them. i cannot say how many times my heart broke for my kids because i didn't step up and say something. my withered relationships with my children is what is fueling this fire. i will not settle for anything but a strong mother-child relationship.

there are always things worth making a compromise for in a relationship. compromise is something necessary for a healthy relationship and i simply believe that the things that one person enjoys should bring joy to the other and for that reason, it would not be something to need to sacrifice or give up or need to compromise for the happiness of the other.

in your relationships (past or present), what are some of the things you feel are worth compromising on and what are some that are not an option for compromise?

a new kind of alone

2012-06-06T11:44:00.003-05:00

my husband travels a lot for work. on average, he's gone 3-4 nights a week. so it's not that i'm not comfortable being alone at night. the kids are used to him being away for work, so it's not that either. yesterday while i was at work, he moved his things out of our home. he had woken me up in the middle of the night before and told me for the 3rd time in a month, that he was done, and we were divorcing. i had told him that he needed to make a decision and follow through because i could not live in limbo anymore. around 2:30 yesterday afternoon, my mom (who was at home watching my 2 littlest ones) started texting me that he was moving stuff out. "office stuff." "now clothes." it was such a weird feeling that he was actually doing it and that i had no idea what he was actually taking or leaving. i went running before i went home and by the time i got there, he was gone.

the afternoon was normal because he was never there during that time anyway. when i opened his closet door to see just how much of his stuff he took, i felt a complete feeling of emptiness, just like his closet. everything was gone except his pile of white socks and a random running shoe. it's not easy to explain to a 3.5 year old why daddy's stuff is now gone. he just didn't really understand i don't think.

it was after the kids' bedtime that i really felt differently. even though he is gone a lot, it was a different kind of alone. when i was alone and he was traveling, it didn't feel so 'alone' as much as it felt nice and quiet, "me time." last night, i felt completely alone. he wasn't going to come back. if he had been working, he would come home and unpack here. that's not going to happen again. making food for the kids, all on me. getting them to and from daycare, me. bedtimes, me. cleaning the house and picking up, me.

it is easy to focus on what i am missing, what the kids are going to go through with all of this. right now i am reminding myself that this did not JUST HAPPEN. this is the culmination of a rocky relationship that we have both done our share of trying to make work, just never at the same time to the same extent. this is the result of feeling alone even when he is here sitting next to me. this is what happens when you feel like you have had to convince a person to stay, to marry you, to work on things. i am not willing to do that anymore. i am reminding myself of how i felt always feeling i had to defend myself and my feelings; how he spoke to my oldest two kids (his step kids) and the constant bickering among the six of us in the family. none of that is a healthy place to be for him or i or the kids to see and experience.

for my kids, i need to be the strongest, happiest me possible. i need to show them that i can hold it together and provide a healthy, happy home for them. i want my daughters to know they don't have to stay in an unhealthy or unhappy relationship for any reason. i want them to know that they deserve to be treated with love and kindness. that they should only have the highest expectations for themselves and the relationships they have. i want my sons to know how to be respectful men, in how they act, speak to and treat people. i want them to know they don't have to stay in a relationship just because there is a house and kids and a wife and joint accounts. that is never a reason to stay, unless you are honestly going to work on being a better partner and changing how you behave. i want a peaceful home, where my kids do not have to worry or fight because they feel like any are more important than the others. THIS is what i am going to focus on. the four amazing gifts i've been given and entrusted with to raise and care for, and myself. in doing this, i pray that i find the clarity i need to forgive, heal and move on.